With China becoming an increasingly attractive destination for global talent, the government is considering revising rules to its permanent residency. The government is considering implementing more flexible and pragmatic standards for applications.
The green card system was introduced in China a decade ago. By 2012, only about 5,000 foreigners had obtained permanent residence— a very small number compared to 600,000 living in China at the time. About 1,300 of them were granted green cards through a foreign scientist recruitment plan.
South Korea, the Philippines and Brazil are the top three countries whose citizens settle down in China.
Having lived in Shanghai for the past ten years, Dai Liang has totally adapted to the city. Working as an independent artist, most of time in singing, Dai has enjoyed his life here, and six months ago he started to prepare his application for a green card.
"If you get a green card that is great so that you can have long-term plan, and also it feels like recognition of your achievements in the country," Dai said.
Dai’s old passport is a collection of all kinds of visa he required to stay in China, from student visa to business visa and his current work visa.
Working as an independent artist, he finds difficulties in finding specific documents required for the green card, so he can only try hard to collect recommendation letters by his own means. But the question is: where should he hand in these files?
Dai first went to the exit and entry bureau of the district in which he lives, but he was told only the municipal bureau has the right to deal with his case. He headed to the main bureau, and came out 45 minutes later.
"It is very difficult to get green card. First, the information is very hard to get, as to people like me who work for themselves, such as freelancer, the situation will be even more difficult, but at least I got the answer how to do it, already better than six months ago," Dai said.
China has not set up a complete migration system to cope with the global competition for human resources. The upcoming policy of lowering the threshold of green card could be step forward to welcome more talented people from around the world.
Source: Xinhua
