Lost Chinese Passport, now need a tourist visa in US Passport

[baba321]

i plan to go back to china for the summer and i currently holding a US passport. i went to Chinese consulate's website to check the requirement and found out the consulate wants my Chinese passport but i don't have it/can't find it/ or lost it. What can i do to get the visa??

thanks

"An applicant born in China who is applying for a Chinese visa with his or her new foreign passport is required to submit his or her Chinese passport"

[FadedStardust]

You SHOULD be able to get a replacement Chinese passport (for a fee, of course) through the consulate. Their website should list the fees along with the visa fees.

[baba321]

i can't replace my chinese passport, b/c i am an US citizen

[anonymoose]

I may be totally wrong here, but as far as I know, China does not recognise multiple nationalities. Is it that they want the Chinese passport back to confiscate it? Anyway, I'm sure there must be lots of foreign passport holders who were born in China, and don't have a Chinese passport. There must be a way off applying for a visa without submitting a Chinese passport.

[dalaowai]

Call the Chinese consulate and explain your situation. They should be able to give you the correct information. Chinese visa rules are always changing, so information that was valid 3 months ago, might not be valid today. Best to contact them directly.

[imron]

According the website (the text is the same regardless of the type of visa you want):

First time applicants whose former nationality was Chinese, shall write down his Chinese name in the application form and submit his original Chinese passport or the photocopy of the information page of the passport. Applicant who was formerly Chinese and has acquired a new US passport, if there is a Chinese visa in the old passport, shall submit his old US passport or the photocopy of the Chinese visa.

Thing to consider:

1) Is this the first time you have applied for a Chinese visa as a US citizen? If no, then all you need to be able to do is show them the previous Chinese visa in either your current or your previous US passport.

2) If you haven't applied for a visa before do you still have a photocopy of the relevant page of your passport? If so, it appears you don't need to have your passport, just a photocopy. It might be a good idea to make a photocopy of this photocopy however just for future reference.

If you meet none of the above conditions, then as dalaowai said, probably the only people able to answer your questions with any sort of certainty will be the Chinese embassy so you'll need to give them a call. In that case, please remember to come back and mention how you actually solved the problem

[eecoli]

i am having the same exact problem. The lady at embassy said she has to report the passport as "stolen/lost" and it will take 3-6 months, but the thing is, i have a plane ticket leaving for china in 3 weeks. I can't wait 3-6 months.

baba321, did you ever get it figured out? What are you going to do? any ideas????

[eecoli]

imron,

i have a copy of my passport page but the lady is claiming that i cannot use it since the photocopy is of the old passport that expired in 2004. The new date after renewal won't expire until november of this year, therefore she has to fill out paper work to make sure no one will use it. I had informed her that it was misplaced not stolen, she said it will be the same procedure. it will take 3-6 months!!!! i dont have that many months to waste

[Classyred]

I have the same problem!!!

The San Francisco Consulate was not helpful at all with my problem. I went to them twice to plea my case as to why I did not have possession of my old Chinese Passport. I told them that passport was issued when I was 4 years old and is 30 years old now. They didn't seem to care at all. She told me to find it!

She also presented me with these inane suggestions:

1. Fly back to China, report it missing to the local police department, and fly back to the US;

2. Show her my GREEN CARD;

3. File an Official Name Change Petition since my Name isn't chinese enough; and

4. finally to keep on searching for it.

I told her that I didn't even have my own passport at that time because I was so young. My mother, my older brother and I all shared ONE CHINESE PASSPORT. I also told her that they gave my mother a chinese visa twice (2002 and 2008).

I further asked her why she needed it. She said so that she can invalidate my dual citizenship with China since I am now a US citizen. I asked her how she was going to invalidate it when all she does is look at it and give it back to me without entering anything into her system? I also asked if they gave my mother a visa to china (TWICE) shouldn't they have invalidated me at that same time since we all shared the same Chinese Visa Number? I also stated that per The Passport Law of the People's Republic of China Article 16 states that "Where a passport holder loses his nationality of the People's Republic of China, or the passport of the holder is lost or stolen, the passport shall be announced to be in validated by the passport issuance department." By this passage, I was invalidated as soon as I became a US Citizen. Which holds true when my mother became a US Citizen, I automatically became a US Citizen because I was under her.

Her final response was "You are giving me a head ache. You have been talking to me for too long and asking too many questions." At that point, I asked to speak to a Supervisor and she said "No. Just me. You talk to me!" Needless to say I was not happy when she shut down and refused to talk to me any longer and I walked out of that Office.

My trip is in 3 weeks and I don't have time to play with these people.

Have your issue been resolved?

I wrote to my Congressman and Senator asking for help. I currently have a Congressman working with me on this matter. As a US Citizen, you have the right to ask your elected Officials for help.

[baba321]

yes i got it resolved (sorry i forget to report it back here)

to Classyred: yea i am from SF too, the The San Francisco Consulate won't tell you what to do, they said the same thing to me "file a lost police report in china" i was wtf how i can i file a police report in china when i can't go back there!!!!!!!

anyway my mom and i went to INTERNATIONAL CHINESE AFFAIRS 金山華人服務社 http://www.icasf.com/

they will help u there, they help me wrote a Notary saying i lost the chinese passport, and u have to go to your local police station to file documentation police report, Chinese birth certificate and your US citizenship paper

after u turn all those doc in to the SF consulate then there is a 3 month waiting period. i was lucky they call me with in 6 week after i turn in the doc.

hope that helps

Edited August 19, 2009 at 01:07 AM by baba321

[baba321]

oooo one more thing i forget to add

they all so need your US citizenship paper

[Classyred]

OMG! Thank you for your reply. Had the SF Consulate been more helpful, I'm sure I would had not wasted these past three weeks searching and scouring the internet on how to resolve my issue. My plane leaves on September 9th. I'm not sure how long I have, besides I live in Sacramento.

Thank you for your help.

[Classyred]

Out of curosity what did they do with all your paperwork? Did they return it to you or kept it? Did they state the purpose of why you had to go through all those hoops to get a Chinese Visa? Was it regarding dual citizenship with China and USA?

I'm glad that you posted your resolution here. I hope it can help people out there (especially in SF area) that are going through this same issue. One person coined it well for getting information from the SF counter ladies "It's like pulling teeth.".

[baba321]

they kept all the paperwork i turn in, i have no idea what they did with it,

when they call me to pick up the visa, they didn't say anything

my friend said, it help when u put a rush fee on your visa (he went tho the same problem)

[Classyred]

First of all, THANK YOU to baba321 for all your help.

I'm in the processing of getting that document written up and filing a police report. I'm praying that they'll accept it.

I've been doing a lot of research on this matter and the reasoning behind showing them an old chinese passport. There is no laws in the People's Republic of China's Enter and Exit laws at all about it. The "dual citizenship" reason that was given is not correct either since the US and China DOES NOT recognize it. I've e-mailed a lot of immigration/visa places and lawyers asking them about the reasoning behind it all. Majority of them came back with this standard response:

"Unfortunately, the Consulate does not have to give reason behind what they want/need for you to submit.

It is always at the discretion of the Consulate General."

A majority of them were also unaware of this requirement in obtaining a Chinese Visa too. Most people also think that it's a ploy/scam from the Chinese Consulate to make people jump through hoops for no apparent reasons either, and to get us to pay for the expediated processing fees too. Perhaps it's also our punishment for relinquishing our Chinese National to become a US Citizen. Who really knows? Everybody knows that the Chinese Consulate changes rules as often as the wind blows.

[baba321]

I hope u get your visa as soon as possible, good luck and have a nice trip in china

[Classyred]

The wind has shifted and the breeze now blows in another direction.

My notarized declaration of the lost Chinese passport and the police report are no longer a valid way of getting the Visa.

I was told that they were all "USELESS" and that it was not necessary to report my old passport missing and all they wanted to do was to see it.

Now, I have a new set of requirements to fulfill and one of them is to get a notarized document from my local police station in China attesting to the fact that I do not have a criminal record during my tenure in China. I told her that I can swear that during my 4 years in China, which include the time I was born to when I left (at age 4) that I did not commit a crime in China, especially since I couldn't read, write nor know the value of money at that age. She was not amused and said that I needed it.

So, I'm back where I started. All I have is my US Passport, my US Naturalization Certificate, my Chinese Visa application and a plane ticket that leaves for China on 9/9/09. I got a lot of requirements to fullfill and no reasoning behind any of them.

[imron]

Can you apply for a visa from a different consulate/embassy e.g. one not in SF?

[nocrybabyboy]

Hi, I'm an traveling in 9 days, and went and try to get my L Visa from the Chinese Embassies today. So I brought my application, and my US passport with me. When I turn in they ask me is this my first time applying for China Visa using US passport, I said Yes. They told me that I need to turn in my old Chinese Passport. I told them that I lost it when I was moving to new apartment 2 years ago. so They told me to file a lost passport, and see if I have a photocopy of it. Now I looked for 5 hours and cant find a single piece copy of my old passport. They also told me to call china to ask for my passport number. I'm like how the hell do china know my passport number. The only thing I got is my birth Certificate from china when I was born. My Question is do I go and see the US Embassies general instead of visiting the Passport / Visa department again, or is there a number I can call. I also follow their instruction on getting a Police Report filed, but they just give me a piece of paper for Lost Passport forum. Can someone please help me, I'm really in a pinch here.

[imron]

Merged post.