People's Republic of China passport - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The People's Republic of China passport ( Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó hùzhào), commonly referred to as the Chinese passport, is the passport

Passport

A passport is a document, issued by a national government, which certifies, for the purpose of international travel, the identity and nationality of its holder. The elements of identity are name, date of birth, sex, and place of birth....

issued to citizens of the People's Republic of China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

(PRC) for international travel.

Issued to Chinese citizens as defined by the PRC's Nationality Law

Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China

The Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China regulates citizenship in the People's Republic of China . Such citizenship is obtained by birth when at least one parent is of Chinese nationality or by naturalization....

, the passport is not for use by nationals travelling to Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, Macau

Macau

Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...

or Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

as these regions are considered parts of the PRC and, thus, does not constitute international travel. Two-way Permit

Two-way Permit

Exit-Entry Permit for Travelling to and from Hong Kong and Macao, , colloquially known as a Two-way Permit, , are issued to mainland Chinese as entry and exit travel document for purpose of travel to Chinese Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau...

are required to travel to these regions. Conversely, Chinese citizens residing in these regions cannot use their SAR passports or Republic of China passport

Republic of China passport

The Republic of China passport is the national passport issued to nationals of the Republic of China with household registration in the Taiwan Area and certain Overseas Chinese...

s to enter mainland China. However, mainland China residents transiting Hong Kong or Macau when travelling to other countries may use their passports to enter Hong Kong or Macau for 7 days.

Chinese citizens who are also permanent residents of Hong Kong or Macau Special Administrative Regions of the PRC are issued Hong Kong or Macau SAR passports by the respective immigration departments of the SARs. The SAR passports are special types of the PRC passport with colours on the cover different from that of the ordinary PRC passport. Holders of SAR passports enjoy visa-free entry to more countries than holders of regular PRC passports.

Types

According to Articles 3 through 9 of the 2006 Passport Law of the People's Republic of China, there are three types of passports issued by the PRC:

ordinary (formerly known as "private regular/ordinary") passport;
service (a.k.a. official) passport;
diplomatic passport

The Ministry of Public Security

Ministry of Public Security

Ministry of Public Security can refer to:* Ministry of Public Security of Burundi* Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China* Ministry of Public Security of Costa Rica* Ministry of Public Security of Israel...

and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are reported to begin issuing biometric passports by the end of 2010.

The passports for Macau

Macau

Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...

and Hong Kong

Hong Kong

are issued by the special administrative region authorities for these locales and are not covered in this law.

Validity

The passport previously had an across-the-board 5-year period of validity. Since 2007, it is valid for 10 years for bearers above 16 years of age, and for 5 years for bearers below 16 years of age. According to the 2006 Passport Law of the People's Republic of China, renewal of previously issued passports ended on January 1, 2007. However, passports renewed before 2007 remained valid until expiry.

Format

The newest version of the regular Chinese passport is "Form 97-2", which replaced its predecessors "Form 92" and "Form 97-1", and was released to the general public in 2007. "Form 97-2" passports consist of 48 pages.

Ordinary Passport - Inside

The "Form 97-2" ordinary Chinese passport is a machine-readable passport

Machine-readable passport

A Machine Readable Passport is a travel document where the data on the identity page is encoded in optical character recognition format. Many countries began to issue machine readable travel documents in the 1980s....

.

Personal data is on the inside front cover along with a coloured photo printed using digital security technology. Details include:

Passport code (P)
Country Code (CHN)
Passport number (X########) - consists of one letter indicating passport type (G = ordinary), followed by eight digits
Name (Surname and Given names)
Sex (M/F)
Date of birth (DD.MMM.YYYY)
Date of issue (DD.MMM.YYYY)
Place of birth (Province, or country if born abroad)
Place of issue (Province, or place of diplomatic/consular authority if issued abroad)
Date of expiry (DD.MMM.YYYY)
Authority (Exit & Entry Administration Ministry of Public Security
Ministry of Public Security
Ministry of Public Security can refer to:* Ministry of Public Security of Burundi* Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China* Ministry of Public Security of Costa Rica* Ministry of Public Security of Israel...

or the Chinese diplomatic and consular mission)

Languages

All information is printed in Simplified Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

and English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

Passport Note

In Chinese

中华人民共和国外交部请各国军政机关对持照人予以通行的便利和必要的协助

In English

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China
requests all civil and military authorities of foreign countries to allow the
bearer of this passport to pass freely and afford assistance in case of need.

External links

Text of the 2006 Passport Law of the People's Republic of China

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