A Welcome Overstayed:Chinese Immigration Policy And Its Effect On Chinese-African And Chinese- Arab International Families

As a result of several decades of political stability and rapid economic growth, China has become an attractive destination for a growing number of foreigners in recent years. While many of them come to China for only a short time as tourists, students or professionals on short-term contracts, China’s economic opportunities have also attracted a growing number of people who, whether or not they initially intended to stay in China, have made the decision to settle in China long-term. Many have married local Chinese people and started families, which they are raising in China. For much of recent history, China has been largely an emigrant sending country instead of an immigrant receiving one, and even those foreigners who married local Chinese people were expected to leave within a year or two, taking their Chinese spouse with them. Although several scholars have begun to suggest that China is in the midst of what many see as an inevitable transition from emigrant sending country to immigrant receiving country, long-standing notions of what it means to be "Chinese" have caused China to be slow to recognize and respond to this new phenomenon. Despite a recent overhaul of China’s Entry and Exit rules for foreigners, China’s current policies still do not recognize foreigners as potential immigrant settlers and do little to help those who are already in China integrate into and be accepted by Chinese society. These oversights have an especially negative impact on those foreigners living in China who are involved in international marriages with Chinese spouses. Despite the fact that they have been in China for many years and are often the parents of children with Chinese citizenship, they have been largely overlooked by China’s underdeveloped immigration policies, which continue to see them as temporary sojourners rather than permanent settlers. In order to examine the effects of current Chinese immigration policies on one segment of China’s new immigrant population involved in Chinese-foreign marriages, the present study examines the experiences of African and Arab businessmen and their Chinese wives and children. The study investigates the experiences of the two groups with an eye to understanding how they are received by various sectors of Chinese society, and how current Chinese immigration policies affect their everyday lives and their plans for their own and their children’s future. In order to avoid future problems caused by the challenge that this growing immigrant population poses to the notion of a largely homogenous Chinese society, China should accept the existence of foreign immigrants and work to find ways to integrate them into the local population.