Visa Question

[Alhazred]

Hello everyone,

I'm going to Taipei for a month in October and, since it appears there is no direct flight from Paris to Taipei, I will have to change planes in Hong Kong. Now, I can't miss the opportunity to spend a day or two in Hong Kong before I get back home.

The thing is, to do that, I'll have to take a return ticket Paris-Hong Kong and then a return ticket Hong Kong-Taipei. My question is: as I my Paris-Hong Kong return flight ticket will be one month after I arrived (even though I'll spend only two days in Hong Kong upon returning), will I need a visa for China?

Thank you in advance for your help.

[madizi]

I think that citizens of EU don't need a visa for HK and Macau. We can stay without it for maximum 90 days.

As far as I know, it is inheritance from Great Britan who is former colonial master and assured that its citizens don't need visa. This benefit then automatically expanded to other EU members. But I'm not sure.

[Senzhi]

Madizi,

You're absolutely correct: no visa needed for EU residents staying in HK up to 90 days from entry.

[Alhazred]

That's good news, thanks.

[BrandeX]

yeah as far as visas are concerned HK isn't China. My Mainland gf needs a visa to go there even.

[tony1343]

Do Chinese people find it strange that Hong Kong is China, yet Chinese citizens need a visa to go there when Americans and Europeans do not?

[Senzhi]

I can't speak for the Chinese people, but I do find it certainly out of the ordinary: when I'm in Hong Kong the only way I can see it belongs to China is to look at the top of a government building where the flag is located.

And I do most certainly feel sad about all the cumbersome procedures Chinese people need to go through in order to visit one of their own cities.

Can you imagine having to go through visa procedures when as a UK citizen you wanted to visit London, or as a U.S citizen New York? And then only be allowed to stay there for 30 days at the most?

[madizi]

Isn't the problem that if Chinese could freely go to HK, it would be overcrowded with additional six millions or so people (because a lot of Mainland Chinese would settle there illegally)? Maybe Skylee knows or someone else from HK....

[adrianlondon]

I guess the issue is more that the mainland borders have been used to keeping people in/out for years whereas HK isn't.

So if they open up HK to the mainland then they'll have to force everyone else to get a China Visa to visit HK and also put tighter controls on people leaving.

It's just a very severe form of Hukou really, right? Although at first I didn't understand the reasoning behind such a thing (residence permit for a province), if everyone in China suddenly decided to go to Shanghai then, well, the country would tip up and Shanghai would dip into the sea ;)

Not that the hukou system is really enforced any more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou for a brief intro for those who don't know what it is.

[madizi]

OT: Shanghai will dip into the sea anyway. See "Inconvenient Truth".