I am informed that it is unlikely for my mainland Chinese girlfriend to get a visa to visit Taiwan, unless of course, she goes with a tour group. I am USA citizen with Taiwanese grandparents, and my mother is dual resident Taiwan/USA. I was wondering if anybody could enlighten me on this subject?
If my girlfriend and I register for marriage in China, does it help this situation in any way?
Just forget it. It is not very likely that your GF get any kind of Taiwan visa if she is not part of an official delegation or has any other kind of very good connections. Marriage doesn’t change anything on that situation. We had a case of a German engineer trying to get his mainland wife over, but no chance even with good guanxi of the company.
If you are an ROC citizen then you can apply for her to come if you ever get married. If you aren’t married or aren’t an ROC citizen, then it’s unlikely to happen under the current government. Even if you are an ROC citizen, getting a mainland spouse into the country is a somewhat difficult process. If she gets a US Green Card then she could come in as part of a tour group, but they are very strict about making sure she will stay with the tour group.
I have a mainland Chinese friend in the UK. She has been working there for a British company for about 3 years. So she is resident there, but not permanently resident there (ie doesn’t have “Indefinite Leave to Remain”). She only has Chinese citizenship.
She has recently gone through a procedure there (via the TECO in London) to visit Taiwan. It was complicated - from memory it involved getting various documents certified in London before TECO issue her a document which she can then use with a body in Taiwan (can’t remember - maybe just a travel agent) to get a some kind of entry permission.
This was for a business trip. For the time being the trip has been postponed - but this was for commercial reasons rather than “visa” hassles.
I believe a key factor in all this is that she is based in the UK, not China. I did once have a mainland Chinese girlfriend in the UK. She also believed it was possible for her to visit Taiwan - a key requirement being that she was living outside (mainland) China. She was a student in London at the time.
This may not be applicable to the original question, but may be of interest to others reading the thread.
When I was looking through the regulations for visas myself before coming here, I seem to recall that the key part for getting mainlanders visas to Taiwan was that they not have even visited the mainland for a set amount of time. The amount was very long, as I recall. By long I mean measured in years rather than weeks, months, etc. Exactly how long, I can’t be sure, and I’m far too lazy to dig through the TECO website again, but I’d say it was at least five years, maybe ten. Are you willing to send your girl to another place and wait that long to import her?
It’s certainly possible for business people to get visas to come here directly from China (well, through HK, of course). In Alishan I met a bunch of steel factory bosses from Hunan or somewhere. And a friend of mine from Guangzhou came here on a company-sponsored visit, too.
Without knowing the regulations exactly, but it seems to me that the key for getting a Taiwan visa as a mainlander is to make the government believe, that
You don’t have any political agenda
You don’t want to stay in Taiwan
You have enough money
You have a good reason for the visit.
I believe that if you can positively proof all of these, you maybe have a chance.
Both of girls I was referring to were regular visitors back to the mainland - at least annually, though only the one working in the UK (not the student) actually went through the procedure. But the delay you mention does ring a bell - could that be for non-business trips or people wishing to live in Taiwan?
since you are married to her in China. Go live with her in the USA for 3 years and apply for a US passport for her. Once she has a US passport, she can visit Taiwan just like any other American. NO matter she had/has China citizenship as well…
Visa rules are PASSPORT related. US passport = good, China passport = bad for taiwan visas (with exceptions)