kets

Hey guys,

we found pretty good deals for a flight to Japan from Germany via China to Tokyo. But we are a little hesitant, because we are not sure if we would have to leave the transit area or if there are even passport controls inside the international transit areas. Does anyone know if they check the passports in Shanghai or Beijing when you just have a short layover there?
The problem is that naturally China doesn't recognize Taiwan. For China, my wife is "chinese". As a chinese she shouldn't have a German passport without her resigning her "chinese/taiwanese" citizenship. She has been to China and Hong Kong before when she was younger, so they do have all her biometric data etc.
It's just a little "scary". I don't want my wife getting detained and questioned in a foreign country while we travel with our baby girl.

mlin32

Just travel with your German passport. Don't even bother carrying the other one.

kets

That wouldn't matter, the German passport would also state that she was born in Taiwan, if they'd crosscheck her name or biometric data they will find out that she is in fact "Taiwanese".
So, there is definitely a passport checkpoint in the transit area?

plunet

I can't imagine you're going to get through transit in many places without some check on government ID to confirm that the boarding pass is being presented by the named traveller. China especially so.

And although the document check for you to be able to transit and enter your destination will have been done back at your origin, you can be sure that Chinese paranoia for rules can ensure that would be another document check by the airline at the gate for the destination.

Even if they should not need it, when someone in a position of authority wants to see your government ID in China you're not going to refuse are you? You going to try and argue that they don't need to see it? Good luck!

mlin32

Well you're not entering the mainland so I don't see why it would pose a problem as long as you're using the German passeport.

Being born somewhere does not automatically make you a citizen. I am sure many dual nationals with a Chinese ROC passport travel to the mainland on their other passport without too much hassle. Indeed I plan to do the same in a few months with my father, and he'll just apply for and enter using the L visa using his US passeport and not bother with a Mainland Travel Permit.

kets

Well, as I am German, I can't imagine it either. But it is a fact that China doesn't allow a dual citizenship as far as I know. So once we get to that checkpoint and they see
"oh, she is German, but she is actually Taiwanese in our system. Lets find out what this is about, since even Taiwanese need a special Travel Permit when travelling to China. But now that she has another citizenship, she would acutally have to resign her "chinese citizenship" since we don't recognize Taiwan as country. So now we are going to find out if she resigned her previous citizenship, if not...."

Like I said, I have no idea if they would react that way, but I just wanted to get some information beforehand. But as I can see, there will definitely be another checkpoint so I suppose we won't book this flight.

YariGuy

China looks at whatever passport you hand them / enter the country with. Unless you think they are willing to start an international incident by "claiming" a German citizen as one of their own, you and your wife will face no issues at all on this itinerary.

I am a dual citizen (including TW). You are way overthinking this.

tauphi

The official policy of the PRC is to treat all ROC citizens with a foreign passport as foreign nationals. So your wife is absolutely fine to use her German passport while in the PRC.

BTW, not recognising dual citizenship does not mean that holding two passports breaks the law. It simply means that China will choose to only recognise one citizenship in such cases.

kets

Yes, I admit I am definitely overthinking it I just dont wanna see my wife getting detained and questioned while my baby daughter and I have to figure out whats gonna happen.

I suppose it could go the way you described, but... "Unless you think they are willing to start an international incident by "claiming" a German citizen as one of their own"
I mean thats what they are doing already isn't it?! They are already claiming that she is Chinese although she is Taiwanese. That is the whole problem wouldn't you agree as a Taiwanese???
They do have all her data so they would definitely know if they crosscheck. Thats why I am asking here in hope that some people might actually know how those checkpoints work. If a passport
could get flagged because of stuff like this. I myself think it is unlikely but I'd rather be on the safe side.

That would be awesome, is there a website where I can see that official policy?

I didn't really mean that she is breaking the law, my point is, that I am unsure what would happen to her in case she got flagged and maybe would be taken away to get questioned. We would travel with our
baby girl and I don't speak Mandarin so that would be a "scary" situation for my daughter and I. It's not something I wanna put her through seeing her mom get taken away if you know what I mean =)

By the way I have nothing against China, I would love to travel the country because it has so many beautiful places, I just wanna make sure that everything works out flawlessly and my wife feels safe.

YariGuy

Well, Taiwan does it too. Taiwan considers people from the mainland (and Hong Kong for that matter) ROC citizens as well. Obviously we need to make a distinction in practice however -- they can't get government benefits, or even travel to Taiwan, but officially that is the stance. They are citizens, but don't live in the "free area" of the ROC. Most importantly, they don't have household registration, which is the key to being a "real" citizen of Taiwan and being able to exercise all the rights.

Having lived in China for 20 years and having US and TW citizenship, I can tell you almost for certain that nothing will happen if she just uses her German passport. Unless she is otherwise important, such as being an outspoken critic of China, or CFO of a public company.



Again, the law in this case is that she is treated as a citizen of Germany.

tauphi

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