Someone talking about “surviving old comrades who supported the revolution from before 1949” live in a world long gone by. Old China hands like Cloudtraper apparently missed the point that things are changing. Cloudtraper writes that he can’t imagine there are more than 15,000, well that is the problem of Cloudtrapezer's limited imagination.
This lima is “anyone_here_gotten_a_chinese_green_card?” and I responded to that and speak off personal firsthand experience and Cloudtrapezer states that "he knows far more about it than I do”. This is exactly the problem with forums like this. Someone ask about an update on this topic and one gives one and Old China Hand Cloudtrapezer thinks he knows better.
So how many green cards have been given out?
@Haali: In regard to green card, perhaps - ideas like that of 'race' and 'Chinese blood' are certainly still around in China, as elsewhere. But I'd think the behaviour of persons within the relevant administration would be quite a bit more carefully regulated according to official policy than that for bus cards.
@luier
Mate you started this by telling me I don't know the difference between a green card and Chinese citizenship. And that I was talking about the past. I am talking about people who are alive now, that I know personally and have green cards but not Chinese citizenship. I don't claim to be an old China hand but I certainly know better than you.
@liuer
By the way I got the figures for the number of green cards issues from a South China Morning Post article from April 2017 - last year.
"In the 10 years after 2004 when the green card scheme was introduced, 7,356 foreigners have been granted permanent residency, even though some 600,000 foreigners were estimated to have lived in China. The number of cards issued has risen recently, with 1,576 foreigners approved for permanent residency last year, 163 per cent more than in 2015."
You can read the article for yourself.
www.scmp.com/[...]
Next time check some facts before you accuse people of "living in a world gone by."
@cloudtrapezer
In my opinion, 163% annual rise from 2015 to 2016 is actually quite big, an probably any reference to "world gone by" in this context refers to years before just 2016, not sometime last decade or last century.
While the absolute numbers are still probably trailing far behind USA or other countries, also in this context China's annual "growth rate" seems to be >150%, which I suspect is competitive to any developed country.
Of course given the Chinese system, it should be understandable (even if not agreeable), why they employ more scrutiny and perhaps have refused more applications in the past.
@ Cloudytrapezer
Funny! Your fact is a newspaper article from more than a year ago which gives you more authority then somebody who actually did the whole procedure and is the holder of the card in question.
These figures were already given before. (Geezer 11 month ago). But you prove my point with coming up with figures from 2016. If you actually read the article it becomes clear that the situation is changing and that the trend is up. Two year can bring a lot of changes in China.
My experience is contrary to what the newspaper article talks about; that this PRP ID card is better accepted then a passport, people can actually read them and they can be scanned by ID-card scanners.
@JanJal
So 967 were issued in 2015 and 1576 in 2016. Added to 7365 that makes a total of 9899 by the end of 2016. If guessed that 5000 have been issued since, that's how I arrived at my ballpark total of 15000 issued so far. Hence my conclusion that things are changing for the better but slowly. As for what "living in a world gone by" meant when it was addressed to me it's crystal clear it didn't mean pre-2016.
@liuer
Give it up mate. You started by telling me I don't know the difference between getting a green card and taking Chinese nationality. Since you haven't got a leg to stand on regarding that one you start quibbling about figures. Maybe my figures are wrong - if so please post the correct ones. Believe me, I'd love to be proved wrong and that last year the government issued 10,000, 20,000 or 50,000 green cards. I'll leave aside your gratuitous insults about me living in a world gone by etc.
Has anyone here with this 'Greencard' been able to order train tickets on line then print them at the station using their card?
Or do you still have to go to the ticket seller to get the ticket printed?
