Beijing’s Visa Crackdown

Every Olympic host takes counterterror precautions before the Games. But Beijing's housecleaning also includes foreign activists seeking the Olympic spotlight, some of whom condemn what they call the "Genocide Olympics." Chinese officials have also promised to deal harshly with any illegal protests by domestic dissidents. Recently, human-rights activist Wang Guilin was sentenced to re-education through labor, and blogger Hu Jia was charged with "inciting subversion." When NEWSWEEK visited Hu at his apartment on Dec. 20, he said that "if it weren't for the Olympics, I'd be behind bars now." A week later, he was.

Until now, Beijing has never worried much about foreign protesters or terrorists. But a "clean up the expats" drive kicked off last August to combat the "gray market" visa industry run by shady agents who bribe crooked cops, allowing footloose foreigners to take casual jobs in Beijing. They include American copy editors, Philippine nannies and Russian traders, with some prostitutes and drug dealers thrown into the mix. But authorities are now tightening the screws on dodgy visa sales, reducing their number and length of validity. As a result, more than 100 Filipinos have left Beijing since August, says Garry Glimada, who heads the city's Philippine religious community. The crackdown has become so serious that Philippine and Indonesian diplomats met separately with Chinese public-security officials last fall to ask why so many Southeast Asian nannies could not get visa extensions. (The cops said they were simply upholding Chinese law, which bars foreigners from working as domestic helpers.)

Foreigners with steady corporate jobs have little to fear. But others are feeling the pinch. "[We're] all getting kicked out," said one Westerner who recently visited his customary agent to renew his visa, but was told he couldn't get anything valid past Aug. 1 "because China can't trust foreigners during the Olympics." That's an exaggeration. Still, Chinese cops have resolved to round up the usual suspects, and with much at stake, they're working off an unusually long list.

© 2008