I'll echo Ole and Brian. In general, I find the Chinese consulate/
embassy not very demanding. If you have a business reason for a multi-
entry visa, get one, but in general the standard tourist visa is
simplest to get and works fine.
Not advertising the service, but to give you an idea of what it looks
like, I'll point you at the web site of the company Cisco uses for
visas.
http://www.peninsulavisa.com/russia-.htm
To get a visa to China, you need a visa application (download from the
web site) and a color "passport" photo. If you go for a "business"
visa, you need some demonstration of the business. "business" implies
you're trying to sell something or staying there for an extended
duration; to attend a conference such as an IETF meeting one generally
gets a tourist visa. Some countries need letters of invitation; I
would expect the host will have a facility up to get such.
The visa process at the Chinese Embassy is usually on the order of a
week; safety would suggest two. My multiple entry visa will expire
just before the meeting, so I plan to file for a new visa sometime in
October.
Interesting reading from the Los Angeles PRC Consulate.
overview: http://losangeles.china-consulate.org/eng/visa/chinavisa/t27606.htm
tourist: http://losangeles.china-consulate.org/eng/visa/chinavisa/t27605.htm
business: http://losangeles.china-consulate.org/eng/visa/chinavisa/t27604.htm
Non-US folks should of course look at the web site of whatever
consulate is relevant to them for specifics of the relations between
China and their country.
On Jan 12, 2010, at 7:26 AM, Ole Jacobsen wrote:
Since Andy mentioned visas I would like to give some vague and
unhelpful advice :-)
It turns out that the DURATION of your visa depends on what country
you are from, and even what consulate or embassy you apply at. In
all cases the clock starts running the day the visa is issued.
Real example: As a Norwegian, applying in San Francisco, I was only
grqnted a single-entry visa valid for 3 months. I applied in March
2009 which was a mistake since the trip didn't happen until August,
so I would have had a visa that expired sometime in June. They all
say "must not arrive after <date>". I was able execute an "undo"
on this particular occasion and came back again in July and received
a visa that covered the period of my visit.
Your mileage may, no, WILL, vary, so check the wiza wizards,
consulates, embassies etc. Fred Baker regularly gets a one-year
multi entry visa, but he's American and he uses the visa brokers,
something I clearly should have done instead of foolishly applying
too early.
The form has a box which asks when you intend to arrive in China, but
that information is NOT used to start the clock for the validity of
the visa itself, in some sense that date isn't used for anything, at
least as far as I can tell.
How long you can stay in China again depends on what country you are
from and what kind of visa you have.
Ole
Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher, The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco Systems
Tel: +1 408-527-8972 Mobile: +1 415-370-4628
E-mail: ole@xxxxxxxxx URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj
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