Breaking the Great Wall of citizenship

• Source: Globaltimes
• [21:26 September 28 2009]
• Comments

By Gerald Schmidt

In May this year, I was starting to get concerned. In July, my residence permit would expire, I did not yet know if my present (one-year) contract would be extended, and did not know whether to try and look for work elsewhere. In the end, it took until the end of June to get a new contract and residence permit. All went well, but the same situation will be coming up again, only too soon.

The visa situation is a common topic on expat discussion boards: If you want to live in China, let alone work in China, you need the appropriate visa. Facing the officials can be daunting, especially when it is in a language that is probably not one you know too well. Add how criticized the Chinese bureaucracy is, and apprehension mounts.

Bureaucracy is similarly complicated all around the world, and seems to work by its own magical rules everywhere.The issue made me think about the attitude toward "own" and "others," a central and complicated theme of cultural anthropology.

One noticeable thing is that China usually allows only for annual contracts and year-long residence permits. Even if a foreigner marries a Chinese citizen, this only entitles him/her to a year-long visa for "visiting relatives," not a work permit.

A Chinese version of a "green card" exists, but for most foreigners, it is more myth than possibility. Becoming a Chinese citizen is only usually possible by being born to at least one Chinese parent or making tremendous contribution to the country. Thus, a foreigner remains an outsider; government policy and public opinion seem to be of the same mind when it comes to this.

Chinese face similar problems when they want to go abroad. There are bureaucratic hurdles from both the Chinese and the foreign government agencies. In all too many countries, Chinese citizens can only visit in tourist groups or after showing sufficient financial resources.

However, at least Chinese can become citizens of another country, not least through marriage – and indeed, that is a well-known (and hotly debated) step taken by both some young women and successful businessmen, actors and actresses.

Any public figure who does this, though, faces an outcry. Especially online, those people are criticized as being traitors.

So, if you are Chinese, these voices seem to say, you cannot – and must not even want to – fit in, in any other country; and as a foreigner, you cannot become a part of Chinese society.

In fact, however, overseas Chinese form the largest ethnic group outside their country of origin, and are to be found in nearly every country of the world.

China itself is often seen as not only a single state, but also as one made up of a single people. Yet, it is a multi-ethnic and – considering the difference between city and countryside, and the increasing influx of foreign products, ideas, and people – possibly even multicultural nation.

Equally, even stared at and "hello-ed" a lot, foreigners in China are typically treated well, and are becoming more and more common.

Such mixing is a normal part of the state of our world. It shows that is possible to love a country you were not born in, and to continue to love your motherland even as practical considerations make a change of citizenship a good step. It also holds great promise for a better understanding between different peoples and different nations.

Living between here and there, however, I hope that all countries can manage to overcome more and more of the barriers that keep them apart. With the establishment of the European Union, Europe has taken steps in this direction which seemed impossible only a few generations ago.

Maybe, in the future, Russia will be the shared border between the EU and China, and people at home in more than one country will be the true patriots.

Wherever they come from originally, they love their country even as they know its flaws, and are uniquely positioned to solve its problems.

The author is an Austrian ecologist and cultural anthropologist working as German lecturer at Xiangtan University, Hunan. His website is www.positive-ecology.org