Our kid is now a year and a half. We haven't actually done much regarding the citizenship thingies yet since back home I can apply up until his 18th birthday. Anyway, I have a vague idea of what to do with the exit/entry issue. Get out of China, get a passport done at home, apply for his visa in the new passport, go back to China. Bob's your uncle. Flaws?

@ Culture
From what I understand, there is no legally recognised dual citizenship/nationality for Chinese citizens.
Doesn't mean people don't do it.

@Dan
We didn't have to exit/re-enter with our new baby - it's unreasonable and if you talk to the visa control office SUPERVISOR - they'll take care of the entry/exit stamp for you with the OTHER department that controls immigration and stamps...it's a bit troublesome for them, so bring a nominal gift...once you get the right person (and try to be subtle about it).

"We didn't have to exit/re-enter with our new baby - it's unreasonable,,"

Not that this has ever stopped the famous Chinese blanket of red tape. But yeah,, you're right. It ought to be the first thing we do. So if I get this right: Go to the embassy/consulate, order his passport, receive it 4 weeks later, go to our go-to-lady at the PSB, get the exit stamp/apply for family visa, go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint and wait for all this to blow over. Is Bob your uncle now?

@culture
US citizenship and Chinese citizenship are completely separated, uncoupled and independent events. For the US citizenship - you'll have to got to (expletives) the US Consulate in Chengdu as they can't/won't handle baby things during their visits to Kunming.

You can do both the US Birth Certificate - which is evidence of US Citizenship, the passport, AND the social security number all in one big bang (just bring appropriate cash in either USD or CNY) AND all the appropriate translated paperwork. Check the US Consulate's website for details.

For Chinese citizenship - you'll have to go through a few more hoops as I believe you'll need your marriage certificate to register the child and get his/her hukou, not to mention translated documents. You MUST register birth of your child by a certain age, or the fines can be horrendous. One of my friends in Beijing skipped the Chinese Hukou until she got divorced - she ended up owing something like CNY 80k in fines - it was something like CNY 200 a month and her daughter was entering her second year of primary school - big ouch, but Beijing's more strict than say....Kunming (perhaps).

So DO NOT DELAY registering your baby's Chinese Hukou. It's good for a bunch of stuff, like free schooling, social insurance, etc etc etc...

dual citizenship? yes, there is a way and it is legal. provided the baby is born in Hong Kong, China. the baby, by virtue of having a chinese mother and born in hong hong, the baby automatically acquires (hong kong) chinese citizenship (different from the 'REAL' chinese citizenship) according to hong kong's mini constitution (The Basic Law.) As hong kong's basic law recognizes and accommodates dual citizenship, the baby can also acquire a foreign passport of the country of the father. both the HK immigration department and the foreign embassies there do that kind of paperwork on a daily basis, so you would face no red tape when applying permits and passports on behalf of the baby.

in essence, the baby will have a hong kong SAR passport and a Home Permit which would enable the baby to enter/exit and to remain in china unrestricted. the baby also will have a passport (say a US passport) which would allow the baby to travel to the States without restriction. so it is worth to explore that for your new born. that is exactly what i have done for my little sweet heart. :-)

laotou gave a pretty good list of important items but missed one that you would regret later if you don't have it. That is the all important digital camera. Infants and young children change so quickly you want to record all of those "special" moments. If you've got a DSLR with hot shoe attachment you may want to have a flash attachment that can be pointed at the ceiling.

I've read through this thread, some of which was helpful. I'm British, my wife is local Chinese. Baby is 3 weeks old. As I understand it, my son is automatically Chinese in the eyes of officaldom here. So I think there are three processes we could/should do now:

1. Register the child with the police/PSB and get it a hukou etc. (Are there advantages of doing this and delaying steps 2 or 3?)

2. Register the birth with the British Consulate in ChongQing (does anyone know the deadline for this? Can't spot it online and no answer by email from consulate as yet. Does it affect Chinese citizeship?)

3. Apply for British citizenship/passport and then renounce Chinese citizenship (is that the correct order? Can the child still stay in China under my work visa/residents permit?).

I don't think these queries are definitively answered above, certainly not for the British situation. I'm also trying to get advice from British Embassy, or course. Has anyone been down this route before??

Don't wait for Chongqing to respond. Never just wait for a consulate to respond with anything important. Espoecially if it may be time sensitive. Try phoning, and try Shanghai, and/or Beijing.

Also check the other expat websites. Try Asiaexpat.com there is a forum board just for parents and families, do a search or post your question there, as it is a busy forum.

Sorry GoK, I don't often redirect to other websites, but this is an important issue.

Thanks for the advice to ring the consulate, @tiger. They were helpful on the phone, and it turned out their website wasn't totally accurate anyway. Still waiting for a reply to my email...
To now answer a few of my own questions (for future readers):

"Registering the Birth" with the British Embassy isn't the same as getting a Birth Certificate or a Passport. But it's worth doing if you intend to get a Cert or Passport later. No deadline on when you can register by. You have to do this in person (the option to do it by post in Beijing was the mistake on the website). You can apply for a Passport straightaway if you want, which negates the need to Register. Then you'd have to renounce Chinese citizenship for the British passport to be recognised by the Chinese authorities and then sort out the visa situation in the newly recognised British passport (I'm told my work visa can have a dependant added to it).

So still a little vague, but getting there!