Crackdown on bogus passports
THE purchase of foreign passports, which are mainly obtained from Hongkong, is illegal, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security reiterated in the China Daily yesterday.
It added that the Chinese Government does not recognise the purchased foreign passports.
The passports are sold to Chinese nationals in Hongkong for high prices. A much smaller number is also purchased from criminals on the mainland.
The main reason Chinese buy passports is to do business in China as a foreigner, according to a recent state probe.
The frontier inspection station in Haikou, in South China's Hainan Province, had discovered a number of people crossing the border from Guangdong Province, Shanghai and northeast China. They held both Chinese passports and foreign passports.
They planned to return to China as foreigners after travelling abroad. The passport trade represented a serious breach of Chinese law and must be quashed, said the officials.
