Job Discussion Forums

Voyage4life · Joined: 29 Jun 2016 Posts: 6 Location: China

I am currently trying to come back to China with a new Z Visa. I am trying to complete the necessary paperwork but I am stuck at a roadblock.

I left China in July 2018 when the residence visa and contract expired on my last job. I was a good employee and had a professional relationship with my job when I left. I left to travel and take a break back home. Flash forward 5 months later and they have proved to be extremely unhelpful in giving me a necessary document to allow me to redo my visa from the USA.

It took them a month to issue my new job the release letter. However when my new school turned this document into the visa office in the city I am trying to relocate to, the new visa office now also said that my old job had not completed my paperwork to cancel my old work permit correctly. So the new visa office wants my old school to provide a new letter fixing the errors they had completed while filing my originally cancellation of work permit letter. (I don’t know how this was even successfully submitted to the work permit office in the first place if the information on the letter had errors in it…)

It’s been over a month now of contacting my old job through email, having my new school contact them and even having old coworkers ask them to complete the paper work in person. They said they would do it to these people, and have not delivered anything nor responded to my own emails. I have sent friendly reminders, explained my situation and still nothing. It’s been a month waiting for some small document: literally one piece of paper. This is troubling to me because I left the job on good terms and they even offered me a second contract.

What can I do? What are my options? It’s literally the last document that the visa office needs to process my new working visa.

Keep contacting my old job?

Can SAFEA help me?

Any advice would be very helpful. Thanks.

teenoso · Joined: 18 Sep 2013 Posts: 365 Location: south china

I would hand the problem over to your new employer - there is nothing you can do . If the new employer wants you enough and has enough clout maybe they can persuade the old school, or the local Fao in the old city, but maybe not.
If not , just move on to the next possible job. You might find a better situation, and the next employer may not care (or can overlook) the missing paperwork. Also provincial offices/psbs seem to vary massively in how stringent or lax they are , so they too may be able to 'fix'/ignore the problem with the release letter.

BruceLeeWannaBe · Joined: 12 Jun 2012 Posts: 210

Since you have a history of teaching and living in China before, odds are you are someone who is targeted directly. They wanted an old letter from your company, and if your company provided it, they would ask for something else later on. About two weeks later. The expert bureau in the city you are applying is making it hard for you. You just got unlucky and they may be just trying to discourage you from coming. I have a friend who had connections to an inside source that told me that bureaucratic runarounds are just a way to discourage those who are qualified from coming. Not all of them are unlucky, but they don't want too many of us there. Just go onto Google or YouTube and search "why foreigners are leaving china". They do target those who may know too much and they like it better when we are a smaller minority and don't know a whole lot. We become easier to control that way.

Also considering their ethnonationalism being how it is, also the social segregation we get and being kept at arm's length, that alone is why many of us don't stay for more than a year or two.

Blistering Zanazilz · Joined: 06 Jan 2018 Posts: 180

voyagerksa · Joined: 29 Apr 2015 Posts: 140

I think you're talking about you're 'foreign expert dog certificate'. That's the only thing that I know of that has to be cancelled if you still are in China on the visa you worked on for the company you left. Hmm with what's happening you might have to wait until your visa expires.

happeningthang · Joined: 08 Oct 2003 Posts: 117

I agree with voyagerska - there's no such document the visa officials would want from a prior job that I've ever heard of or encountered. It does sound like your local Foreign Expert Bureau who would want to see a properly cancelled Foreign Experts Certificate and something declaring your contract is ended on good terms - but only if they were trying to transfer your old Foreign Expert Certificate (FEC) to your new job.

If they could do that - you wouldn't need a new z-visa and they would have the paperwork to get you your Resident Permit.

But since you're getting a new z-visa - that means the whole process is starting over again - including the authentication of degrees etc which wouldn't require anything from the old employer.

So either you're just getting a new z-visa for the new position... which would be the usual thing to happen as I understand it (considering it wasn't transferred immediately after finishing your previous job).

Or your new employer is trying to take a shortcut by simply transferring over your old FEC instead of going through the Z visa rigamorale.

The rules change on a near constant basis - and they can vary city to city - province to province - but from what I've seen - you should be going through the whole Z visa process anew - which has nothing to do with your old employers.

The bear · Joined: 16 Aug 2015 Posts: 483

If your residency permit has expired so has your foreign expert certificate.

You should be able to come on a completely new visa with no other requirements. I'm not sure why the new job is asking for another document. There is a document called something like a 'recommendation letter' that employers must complete if you transfer jobs, however, you're on a new visa so this wouldn't apply.