New visa for Chinese-Americans

[fanglu]

According to Global Times (quoting another paper), "Chinese-Americans who were born on the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan are now able to extend their visa to China to more than two years". This includes their partners and children.

The original article is here and the notice is here. These make it clear that it's not really extending a visa, but getting a visa that lasts for more than two years. They say it's only for '商务、访问' visas, but on the embassy website it has the regulation under both the F and L visa instructions, so I'm not sure exactly what that means.

Anyone have any experience of applying for or getting a '长期有效、多次入境' visa?

[gato]

I had gotten a 2-year multiple entry L visa earlier this year under the rules for overseas Chinese born in China. The problem with that visa is the maximum duration for each stay was 90 days, so you'd have to leave and come back every 90 days (e.g. make a trip to HK or Taiwan).

I wonder if this new rule is just extending the previous maximum effective period of 2 years, without increase the 90-day stay period. If so, that's not too big of an improvement. I wish they would just make the maximum stay period the same length as the effective period for the visa.