Limited edition

As China's foreign residents are complaining about visa problems, some Chinese citizens are facing difficulties obtaining the temporary residents permits they need to conduct business in cities where they do not have a hukou, or household registration.

The Beijing News reports today on the case of Mr. Zhong, who recently tried to apply for a temporary residence permit.

His first stop was the police station, which told him to take his forms to the local Migrant Population Management Office. He called the office at 11 am, and was told that he would have to wait until the next day, because the temporary residence permit department had already gone off work. The next day at 9 am, he arrived at the office only to be informed that the maximum 10 permits had already been issued.

Mr. Zhong, who took two vacation days without anything to show for it, complained, "The migrant population is so large, if they only work at a speed of 10 a day, when will it end?"

The newspaper visited the Management Office, located in the Beijing neighborhood of Balizhuang:

Yesterday at around 10 am, no one was lined up outside the Balizhuang Migrant Population Management Office to apply for a temporary residence permit.

One worker said that permit processing had already concluded for the day. The limit of ten permits was set by the local police station; currently there were lots of people who had pre-applied: "I'd estimate that the schedule is full for the next half a month." As for Mr. Zhong's problem, there was nothing they could do.

Yesterday, a police officer with the Gaobeidian station, which is responsible for police services in that area, said that the limit was due to insufficient system hardware. Going over the limit would make it impossible to update the records. If Mr. Zhong needed expedited service, he could fill in the form at the police station itself.

The Chaoyang branch of the Public Security Bureau said that it has never placed limitations on issuing temporary residence permits.

Police computer systems aren't the most technologically sophisticated, so the Gaobeidian station's explanation makes some sense, at least. But in this case, it's the PSB itself that issues notices reminding non-residents that they ought to register, so you'd think that if they want to sign up everyone, they'd be able to handle more than ten records a day without crashing.