Unable to get police clearance?

[hollywood251 1]

Hi all, my wife went back to the Philippines 6 months ago and she has been able to get her local police clearance. However we lived in china for 3 years before that and we are unable to go back and get it now. Is there anything we can do?

[Alex B 9]

Hi all, my wife went back to the Philippines 6 months ago and she has been able to get her local police clearance. However we lived in china for 3 years before that and we are unable to go back and get it now. Is there anything we can do?

How hard did you try?

My wife had trouble getting her police cert from China too. We got a lot of grief on this at interview in Canada. The basic problem is that she was born Chinese and naturalized to Canadian later. The Chinese government doesn't give a damn what you were, they care what you are right now. If you aren't a Chinese citizen or on a work visa in China they won't help.

What's worse, if you go in person (or send a representative) to a PSB, not only will they not issue the certificate, they also refuse to issue a letter saying that you're not eligible to receive one. Maybe the bureaucrat is worried that if they write the letter they could get in trouble for incorrectly denying the request. By doing nothing there's nothing to ever prove that you were there.

If you look at the reciprocity table for China there is a note at the bottom stating that this isn't available to people on tourist (L class) visas. Even with a letter pointing out their own note and providing a copy of the last L-visa in a Canadian passport they still weren't happy and were saying, "well, other people have been able to get them". In reality I think it depends on which PSB you go to, and many (should be ex-) Chinese citizens do not give up their citizenship when receiving another.

If I was dealing with any bureaucrat other than a consular officer, who could really screw with our lives, I'd have probably have given them more grief on reading their own documentation. As it was, I kept pleading that we tried hard to get the certificate and that they weren't co-operative.

They did seem to indicate that a letter from a consulate or PSB indicating that it wasn't available would suffice. Maybe this would be your best option. We only tried calling the Chinese Consulate in Vancouver but thinking back, if we'd written to the consulate asking for a certificate they would then need to reject us by mail which would be what we really needed. Maybe your wife could try this with a Chinese consulate in the Philippines?

With all this said, we were successful in getting the CR-1/CR-2 visas. I'm sure having obtained the Canadian certificate helped and showed that we'd at least made an effort to comply. We also had a recently issued notarial birth certificate which showed we weren't averse to getting the docs from China either.

Good luck!

Edited October 29, 2011 by Alex B

[hollywood251 1]

How hard did you try?

My wife had trouble getting her police cert from China too. We got a lot of grief on this at interview in Canada. The basic problem is that she was born Chinese and naturalized to Canadian later. The Chinese government doesn't give a damn what you were, they care what you are right now. If you aren't a Chinese citizen or on a work visa in China they won't help.

What's worse, if you go in person (or send a representative) to a PSB, not only will they not issue the certificate, they also refuse to issue a letter saying that you're not eligible to receive one. Maybe the bureaucrat is worried that if they write the letter they could get in trouble for incorrectly denying the request. By doing nothing there's nothing to ever prove that you were there.

If you look at the reciprocity table for China there is a note at the bottom stating that this isn't available to people on tourist (L class) visas. Even with a letter pointing out their own note and providing a copy of the last L-visa in a Canadian passport they still weren't happy and were saying, "well, other people have been able to get them". In reality I think it depends on which PSB you go to, and many (should be ex-) Chinese citizens do not give up their citizenship when receiving another.

If I was dealing with any bureaucrat other than a consular officer, who could really screw with our lives, I'd have probably have given them more grief on reading their own documentation. As it was, I kept pleading that we tried hard to get the certificate and that they weren't co-operative.

They did seem to indicate that a letter from a consulate or PSB indicating that it wasn't available would suffice. Maybe this would be your best option. We only tried calling the Chinese Consulate in Vancouver but thinking back, if we'd written to the consulate asking for a certificate they would then need to reject us by mail which would be what we really needed. Maybe your wife could try this with a Chinese consulate in the Philippines?

With all this said, we were successful in getting the CR-1/CR-2 visas. I'm sure having obtained the Canadian certificate helped and showed that we'd at least made an effort to comply. We also had a recently issued notarial birth certificate which showed we weren't averse to getting the docs from China either.

Good luck!

We tried quite a bit but they told us that we need to come to Guangzhou and get it as she was on a Z visa (working). Anyway there is no way for my wife to go back now as her work visa is now cancelled and she can't set foot inside the country and I don't know anyone who can do it in person for us (all her coworkers went home already). At this point I don't know what else to do except like you said, hope they would send a rejection letter or something.

[Darnell 8,478]

can yer wife inquire through the employment agency that hired her? Sometimes they can magically produce these, suggesting a small service charge.

[hollywood251 1]

can yer wife inquire through the employment agency that hired her? Sometimes they can magically produce these, suggesting a small service charge.

Well she wasn't hired by an employment agency. The school held some kind of job recruitment directly at her school and hired her in this way. I will keep looking around for other options and if nothing else, I will just send a piece of paper with an explanation and hope they accept it.

[Darnell 8,478]

'the school' can handle this, usually. i'm sorry to piece meal my answer, but yer piece mealing yer info.

my answer changes, as the info increases.