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[Guest]

[deleted]

[Angelina]

They are having a trial period in some parts of China, Beijing is one of the places where the new work permit is going to be tested. You are not doing anything illegal. 

 

 

a three-month residence permit labelled 'purpose of stay: 工作

 

 

 

seems fine 

[Guest]

I'll gladly take that! Cheers!

[imron]

Think of it like this - visas are what allow you to come in to a country.  Residence permits are what let you stay.

 

You were already in the country so there was no need to issue you a visa.  Instead you were issued a residence permit.  If there had been a problem, the Entry/Exit bureau would have taken it up with you rather than issuing you a residence permit.

[Guest]

Cheers for the responses guys! I appreciate the reassurance. If I have the power, I'll go ahead and close this thread.

[LinZhenPu]

That's reassuring for Napkat, but I'm still scratching my head at this one. Ok, he has a residence permit, but he has no working permit. What would happen if the school gets raided by immigration agents and they demand to see all of the foreign teachers' working permits? Napkat won't have one to show them, despite the fact that his residence permit should look the same as every other foreign teacher working in China legally, the only difference being the duration of stay.

Napkat, out of curiosity, is your residence permit exactly the same as other foreigners working in China? Are you able to compare your residence permit with any of your colleagues' ones? 

[Guest]

[deleted]

[LinZhenPu]

That said, there's a distinct lack of guarantee about all of this - that's just Chinese bureaucracy though, I guess.

Too true.

[Baby Charlie]

It was my understanding the you can only enter China on a Z visa from the country listed on your passport. I am an American who has not lived in the states since 1998, I live in Germany. I had to return to the states both times I came to China to work. All documents had to be mailed to an American address and my visa had to be issued in the states. It was an expensive hassle to do this but I refuse to do anything dodgy as I have ethical integrity! 

[Guest]

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[Angelina]

I recently converted an X2 visa into a residence permit. Usually, you can only do that holding an X1 visa. To be more precise, you can't convert an X2 visa into a residence permit, seems like they cancelled my X2 visa first and then issued the new residence permit. The actual process is not conversion. 

 

They accepted my application form, then called my school the next day requesting a new admission letter. The only thing they needed was this one piece of paper and I settled the issue in one day. During the G-20 summit. 

 

 

my L-visa was cancelled with a residence permit for work being put in its place, and I've been told today that my application for a foreign expert certificate has been successful 

 

 

 

yay

[Guest]

I recently converted an X2 visa into a residence permit. Usually, you can only do that holding an X1 visa.

 

 

Really? I'm quite surprised by that! I had my X2 visa converted to one last year with no issue - I didn't realise it wasn't a strictly kosher thing to do. I'm glad it all went smoothly for you! May I ask what university you're studying at?

 

Many yays. Nay - all the yays. All of them.

[Angelina]

I think X1 is the one where you convert it into a residence permit, while X2 gives you like 180 days in China. 

 

I go to ZheDa.