Fact check: Is China welcoming Overseas Ethnic Chinese to “Return Home”?

In the months and years ahead, this article will pop up now and again as "proof" that the ethnic Chinese in Malaysia can go back to China.



But is that true?



I wouldn't go into the history of Chinese nationality law. Suffice to say that the current Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China dates from 1980, so that is what the rules are now. So please leave stories of your Chinese uncle school bus drivers brother who managed to go back to China in 1941 at the door.

The current "Cina can go back to China" stems from this article in the China Daily, which somehow has been interpreted to mean "time to balik Tongsan!" and "I'll keep this option open in case another may 13".

Can they? What does the Ministry of Public Security mean when they are streamlin[ing] the process for overseas Chinese to "return home"?

It all comes back to a press conference by the PRC Ministry of Public Security (公安) held on 22 January 2018. It was to announce the 8 new policies on travel. They are:

1. Enabling Chinese citizens to apply for exit visas anywhere within a province 
2. Enabling Chinese citizens to apply for independent travel permits to Hong Kong and Macau anywhere within a province
3. Allowing residents to apply for immigration documents in other provinces (yes, in China, if you want a passport, you have to go back to your home province to get it done!)
4. Allowing holders of e-card travel permits to Hong Kong and Macau to check their endorsements electronically
5. Providing photo services for visa applicants free of charge
6. Improving the "non-citizen Chinese" visa process
7. Push for self-service e-services
8. Providing photo services for visa applicants free of charge
9. Setting self-service autogate checkpoints at entry and exit points

I wonder why the other 7 didn't get as much attention?



So, what does it mean to improve "the non-citizen Chinese visa process"?

Well, as the China Daily article said, it is to allow "Ethnic Chinese living overseas to apply for a Chinese visa starting next month that will be valid for multiple entries over five years" from the current 1 year maximum.

And to increase "the validity period of residency permits for the group from three years to five years".

So what is this amazing visa that is now valid for 5 years that allows multiple entries?

There are 3 types of visa's ostensibly open to "ethnic Chinese living overseas". They are imaginatively called:

• Visa Q (which is issued to those who are family members of Chinese citizens or of foreigners with Chinese permanent residence and intend to go to China for family reunion, or to those who intend to go to China for the purpose of foster care, where the intended duration of stay in China exceeds 180 days)
• Visa R (which is issued to those who have high-level talents or whose skills are urgently needed in China)
• Visa S (Issued to those who intend to visit family members who are foreigners working or studying in China, or to those who intend to go to China for other private matters.  The intended duration of stay in China for more than 180 days)

So you need either a "family member" in China whom you're "visiting", or have "high-level talents/skills are urgently needed in China", to qualify for the visa with 5 year validity that allows unlimited entry and exit into China for 5 years.



I have no idea what "high-level talents/skills urgently needed in China" (中国需要的外国高层次人才和急需紧缺专门人才) means. The guidance on what that means seems to be vague.

Most countries have something that supposedly allows "experts" to enter and live and work in their country. Malaysia has a professionals and expert program, but try getting a white collar "professional" or "expert" into Malaysia legally.

I have a friend, who's mother is a foreign national married to a Malaysian national male. It took her 14 years to get her Malaysian PR. In that time they had to renew her "social visit pass" 3 - 4 times a year just so she could stay in Malaysia. And his father was one of the deputy vice-chancellor's of UNIMAS.

This was not a case of a rempit banging up a foreign maid. One of a university professor. The other was a educated professional. Yet Pilak's and Pakistani's who have minimal education have an easier time getting blue IC's.

So fine, you don't have "high-level talents/skills are urgently needed in China". But my ancestors are from China right? Surely there is a relative I can visit in China?

So what is a "family member" (家庭成员) for the purposes of the Q visa? Well,  "Family members" is defined as:

• spouses
• parents
• sons
• daughters
• spouses of sons or daughters
• brothers
• sisters
• grandparents
• grandsons
• granddaughters 
• parents-in-law

So your "my grandfather knows some relatives in China" probably is not going to cut it. Unless you marry a PRC national I suppose. Or lose your wife and kids but their spouses are still alive.

But but but I'm a "Overseas Chinese"? I'm Chinese and I live overseas from the People's Republic of China. That qualifies me right?

And this is where the English language falls short. The terminology used is 外籍华人. Literally "external resident/registration Chinese people".

So what does that mean? Well, 外籍华人 has been defined as "Chinese nationals who take up residence in a given foreign country". In other words, they were People's Republic of China nationals who took up another nationality/citizenship, but still have "family members" in China.

The vast majority of ethnic Chinese in Malaysia have never had either Chinese nationality, either under the Nationality law of the People's Republic of China, or under the Nationality law of the Republic of China. So it is questionable if they would qualify for the Q or R or S visa's anyway.

But hey, don't let facts get in the way of "Balik Cina" rhetoric or the delusion of "superiority" by the Chinese no matter where they go.

(Sad thing of this? This will never go viral. But the says.com story will live on forever like the undead)

Pangkalan Ah Pun

Picture of Pangkalan Ah Pun in “Kuching 1950-1959 Sir Anthony Foster Abell's Era Vol 2”, by Ho Ah Chon, page 10

My great-great grandfather was Lim Ah Pun. Sound familiar? Probably not if you don't remember a Pangkalan Ah Pun along the Sarawak river.


An article in the 26 Aug 2013 issue of International Times (国际时报):
http://intimes.com.my/fukang/order/orderpic/130826order.pdf

At the turn of the early 20th century, my great-great grandfather Lim Ah Pun was described as a trader, who had 2 shop houses along Main Bazzar, and a wharf named after him, as part of his business named the Eng Huat company.

A 1950 PhD by A. Zainal, Abidin and Abdullah, Mohd. Salleh, documented that Pangkalan Ah Pun was also an important conduit between the northern and southern banks of the Sarawak River in "Life in the Malay kampongs of Kuching, fifty years ago"



While the Eng Huat business is no more, when the Kuching Waterfront was built in 1993, a wharf for the tambangs that ply along the Sarawak River, not far from the old Chinese Chamber of Commerce building (now the Sarawak Chinese Museum) was named after Lim Ah Pun.


A picture of Pangkalan Ah Pun in 1993 when the Kuching Waterfront was constructed. Picture courtesy of Chan Lek-Swee

However, some time since then, the wharf mysteriously had a name change, and is now known as Pangkalan Haji Omar.

There is a wealth of independent reference in various literature sources referencing Pangkalan Ah Pun, yet with one stroke, my great-great grandfather's contribution to the development to Kuching has been totally erased.



And this is not new. How many things have been erased in Malaysia to be "Malay-ifyed"?









I don't know who Haji Omar is. Maybe he was there before my great-great grandfather. Maybe not. But with documentary evidence from the early 20th century showing Pangkalan Ah Pun, how far back do you need to show?

I can trace the history of the Lim family in Sarawak 5 generations. Arabs moved by the Ottomans to the area west of the Jordan river claim that is their homeland after that same time, yet I'm still classified as a "pendatang".

Unlike Uganda, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Malaysia does not mass deport their minorities. That would be too obvious. But slowly, from renaming roads, "rezoning" buildings, removing signs, time and natural attrition takes their toll, and it disappears from conscious memory and history.


I've gone through all the proper channels, from the Sarawak State Secretary (Mohamad Morshidi bin Abdul Ghani) to the Local Government Minister (Sim Kui Hian) to DBKU. Granted this is not exactly on top of their priority list, but a distant relative of mine did this in 1995 with the State Minister of Social Development & Minister in charge of Historical Places (Adenan Satem) and the Minister of Culture, Youth & Sports (Alfred Yap).

Muslims in Malaysia make a fuss when Israel erases Palestinian towns. Chinese in Malaysia get upset with "revisionist" Japanese history books. Yet when a part of history in their own backyard is erased and revised, there is silence. Deafening silence.

It is left to weirdo's like me to actually know stuff like this and petition the authorities for an additional sign of “Originally known as Pangkalan Ah Pun”, in recognition of its history, to be installed and maintained by the relevant authority.

So what can I do?

 
 Kuching Town map produced by Land & Survey Department in 1980 showing Pangkalan Ah Pun

2 sides of the same coin

22 Nov 2017: Malay-language activists say ‘no’ to English schools

28 Dec 2017: The posting of many non-Mandarin speaking teachers at these [SJKC] schools has eroded their identity, says Jiao Zong

When will people realise that both the Malay nationalists and Chinese culturalists are 2 sides to the same coin?