Word of caution on Home Return Permits (HRP)

[packy_crusher]

Several times per year, there are postings from members who have foreign citizenship and a HKID and are seeking to obtain a home return permit for easier travel to the Mainland.

I have always argued that the benefits do not outweigh the costs due to the fact that once one obtains a home return permit, they are making an implicit declaration of Chinese nationality. The alternative is an APEC travel pass (if you are a business person), which will get you in and out of China faster than anything else. A yearly renewable visa is another alternative.

You might ask what's wrong with having the HRP? Besides declaring yourself as a Chinese national, you will lose consular protection in all Chinese territories, including Hong Kong. In China, business disputes can often end up with one party being put in jail by police who may be closer to the other aggrieved party, who may also have better Guanxi. Without consular protection, your government cannot lobby to get you out of jail and has no right to visit you and find you a lawyer. The same would be true if charged with a crime. Furthermore, the sentencing is different and you will be sent to a standard Chinese prison if convicted.

Please see today's news: http://www.scmp.com/news/china/artic...imes-guangzhou

"US citizen being tried as Chinese national on organized crime charges in Guangzhou"

Regardless of his alleged crimes, note this paragraph:

"We must prove that he is a American citizen, otherwise the whole sentencing is going to be different," Wu said. The court cited a Ministry of Public Security statement deeming Wu to be a Chinese national, as he entered the mainland using his Hong Kong resident's home-return card. China does not recognize dual citizenship. "The court regarded him as a Chinese national without going through diplomatic procedures and yet it allowed the presence of a US diplomat in the court," said Wu's legal adviser, Li Zhuang . "The Ministry of Public Security stripped away his US citizenship. This is clearly ridiculous."

Thus, if you really cannot justify an HRP and you are a foreign national living in Hong Kong, it's probably best not to try and obtain one, otherwise you may regret it one day.

[East_coast]

This is a tricky one. The PRC may not understand dual citizenship but the US does. One of it's citizens decided to effectively have dual citizenship by getting a HRP. So by deciding to take the advantages of the HRP he has surely also decided to take the disadvantages.

From Wiki
Dual citizenship (7 FAM 1162), the Supreme Court of the United States has stated that dual citizenship is a "status long recognized in the law" and that "a person may have and exercise rights of nationality in two countries and be subject to the responsibilities of both. The mere fact he asserts the rights of one citizenship does not without more mean that he renounces the other"

[packy_crusher]

it is not a question of understanding dual citizenship, it simply is not permitted under Chinese nationality laws. So if the Chinese government treats you as Chinese, you are only Chinese. However, there have been cases where former Chinese nationals who have been properly naturalized as foreign nationals who once in China, find out that China still considers them Chinese. In the PRC, there is no escaping your Chinese nationality. This is a big problem.