+1

You do not have to leave your passport with the consulate. Once you have done the paperwork, it goes fast, you get top keep your old passport. You do as you like and return to pick up your new one when it is finished. All an agent is going to do is mail your passport to the consulate by some sort of service like EMS. I have known two foreigners who lost their passports this way. If it is lost (stolen actually) then you have the pleasure of getting to Chengdu anyway without a passport.

I believe your ID is checked as you board trains (ie not just for ticket purchase). Airlines can accept you on an internal flight with written permission from the PSB (plus, I think I recall, a photocopy of your passport info page).

@viborg I sent you a private message

I don't know if it's too late to get an appointment for renewal, but an embassy officer will be at the Green Lake Hotel this Saturday the 26th. I got an appointment via email about two weeks ago. My understanding is that I will submit forms that I downloaded, and pay the fees to the officer. He will take the forms back to Chengdu and a new pass port will be issued within two weeks. It will be mailed but providing its registered, I see no problem. Upside is no traveling required. good luck

Thanks for the info, especially finlay. I just had a personal email exchange with the consulate, don't know why they couldn't let me know about that. Maybe they're already booked. Anyway I'll ask again.

I had a teacher friend here in KM do the passport through consulate visit then have it mailed back route. He did get his as sport, but it sat in some back room of the school mail room for three weeks. The lady kept saying "meiyou" but he consulate said it was received by some one in KM. He finally (his Chinese was good enough) demanded to search the mail room and he found the express packages buried under a bunch of old folders. The mail room lady giggled and said "you". He said
he would never do it that way again.

I did find an agency in CD willing to deal with this kind of thing. If anyone needs the contact info send me a PM or you can try hitting me up on Wechat @viborgu

The USA Chengdu consulate sends a Officer quarterly to Kunming. They can handle passports. The last visit was March 26. Contact the American citizen services section or register with the consulate.

Yeah, yeah I know. This has already been covered in this thread before. Sometimes we have to take care of passport issues on short notice, or the quarterly visit doesn't have any available app'ts and we need to seek out other options. I am merely presenting an alternative option.