A green card is only the size of a city transport card but it would be worth a great deal to a British citizen, who goes by the name Oliver. He is married to a Chinese woman who comes from Shanghai. But that doesn't count for much in the world of green cards. For him a green card is like pixie dust.

On the other hand, Lai Kim Yin, the president of the Malaysian Association in the People's Republic of China, is a perfect candidate for a Chinese green card. He is of Chinese descent and has worked in Shanghai for nearly 30 years. Twenty-six years ago he was the vice president of Pepsi Asia in Shanghai. Later, he opened his own business and employs 200 people in the city. But, on consideration, he doesn't want a green card.

Oliver and Lai are two of the 180,000 foreigners who have been living in Shanghai for more than six months. For most expats, obtaining a Chinese green card is no easy task. For a few, it is not an easy choice.

Love not enough

Oliver never expected the process of being legally accepted by his wife's motherland would be so difficult. The 29-year-old met his wife at university and married her in the UK after she graduated. He followed her to Shanghai as she developed her career in the city. He quickly discovered that true love and marriage were not enough to win him a green card in China.

After being married for four years Oliver lives here on an extended tourist visa. Legally he cannot work here and he has no rights to residency as such with this visa. He has to visit the Shanghai Exit-Entry Administration Bureau regularly to renew his visa and sometimes has to leave the country to renew it.

On one level Oliver is a Shanghai resident and son-in-law to a city family. He speaks some Shanghainese, visits his in-laws at weekends. He even goes tomb-sweeping with his wife's grandparents. He has a lot of friends here, but his visits to the visa office remind him that he is just a temporary foreigner with a spouse visa in Shanghai.

"The fact that I am married to a Chinese woman, pay my way and follow the law should entitle me to some kind of right, the kind of right that my wife can get in the UK as a Chinese citizen," he told the Global Times.

From 2000 to 2010 nearly 30,000 Chinese married foreigners in Shanghai. In 2010 alone, 2,232 locals married foreigners, according to the sixth national census.

Oliver said most of the foreigners he knows think that a Chinese green card is pixie dust - it doesn't exist. Most of them know about the green card but none of them believe they will ever get one.

To be in the running for a Chinese green card, Oliver needs to wait another two years when the marriage to his Chinese wife and his residency in China each total five years, according to the green card regulations introduced in 2004.

An immigration law specialist at the Beijing Institute of Technology, Liu Guofu, has criticized the five-year wait as being too long. "Perhaps it helps test whether the marriage is genuine but it can also delay couples being reunited, which means it comes under attack from some stakeholders and human rights watchdogs," he said.

Other international immigration regulations say that foreigners, who prove they are married or about to get married, can be granted two-year temporary visas. If they remain married for another two years, the visa will be changed and the foreigner will be given permanent residency, Liu said.

In the US, anyone who is about to marry a US citizen can apply for a visa to enter the country and then, once they are married, they can apply for a green card. To back up their visa application they have to provide tangible evidence of their relationship.

Annual chore

Having worked in Shanghai for nearly 30 years, 73-year-old Lai Kim Yin still holds a visa he has to renew every year. He doesn't think he wants to become a permanent resident here, the country from which his grandfather fled last century.

To obtain a green card in China at present, regulations say that foreigners have to be in senior management positions, or people who have made outstanding contributions to China, or people who have invested more than $500,000 in China.

A Chinese green card is not the same as Chinese nationality. China does not recognize dual or multiple nationalities. And holders of green cards have to make sure they stay at least three months in a year or one year in five in China.

The requirements needed for green cards deter most foreigners from applying - although it would seem that Lai would be entitled to a green card if he wanted to apply.

He was the vice president of Pepsi Asia in China for over five years. He runs his own company and employs more than 200 Chinese nationals. He can speak Putonghua and the Guangdong dialect.

Lai admitted that it was a nuisance renewing his visa every year but, after considering the disadvantages of having a green card, he has decided against applying for one.

One of his big concerns is China's tax laws. A foreigner who stays in China for over five years might have to pay tax to the Chinese government on all his or her international income. "It's not worth it to make money in China and also have to pay tax for assets outside the country," Lai told the Global Times.

The tax policy also worried David Tang, a 41-year-old Malaysian of Chinese descendant, who holds a China Foreign Expert certificate. Tang launched his company in Shanghai in 1993.

"To be patriotic is one thing but to apply for a Chinese green card is another thing completely," he told the Global Times. "I would first need to see the advantages it offers and the costs involved."

The current regulations do not list the green card benefits apart from visa-free entry to China, equal employment conditions and protection under Chinese laws. According to a Beijing government website in 2006, Chinese green card holders can also enjoy social welfare benefits and can enjoy advantages if they establish businesses, buy real estate or need schooling for their children.

"I am interested in applying for a green card," Tang said.

Changes mooted

China introduced its first modern regulations on foreigners living here in 1985. It began to issue some permanent residency permits to foreigners in 2004. Before the green card regulations were introduced, Shanghai had granted permanent residency to more than 130 foreigners, most of whom were of Chinese descent.

In 2006 the Shanghai authorities received more than 400 applications for green cards and issued 224 - the largest number of applications and cards issued in the country. Of the successful applicants, 41 percent applied for family reasons and 30 percent were of Chinese descent. Only 21 percent of the cards went to foreign professionals or investors, the Shanghai Law Journal reported.

One of the first recipients of a green card was Mark DeCocinins, the former general manager of Shanghai Portman Ritz-Carlton Hotel. But having won a green card, he has had to leave town. He is now general manager of the Hong Kong Portman Ritz-Carlton. Sometimes the ideal applicants have to move on when they work with international companies.

"When you work for a multinational company, you don't know how long you will stay in China," said Lai Kim Yin.

By the end of last year, 4,752 foreigners had been given permanent residency in China. They included 1,735 green card holders who were mostly high-level executives and their family members; and 3,017 people who were given residency for family reasons, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

Professor Liu Guofu said that the current green card policy is partly to blame for China's failure to attract and retain more foreign talents. "It doesn't follow the rules of the market for human resources. The green card policy favors high-level executives, which the market has no big need for. Professionals and highly skilled technicians are what the market mainly lacks. But the current green card policy doesn't favor them."

In the US legislators passed a bill seven months ago which allows highly skilled immigrants from China and India to become permanent US residents. Every year the US government issues 140,000 green cards for immigrants based on their job skills.

China is not a migration-targeted country. When the green cards were introduced in 2004, senior government officials predicted that there wouldn't be many foreigners applying for them and that most of the eligible applicants would be working in China's major cities, like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Liu Guofu believes that China has the ability to attract and retain foreign talents despite its current cautious attitude towards granting permanent residency. He said that a lack of experience in dealing with expat issues and understanding international migration regulations was preventing the government from moving more positively on immigration.

Moving overseas

Since the reform and opening-up, more than 4.50 million Chinese have moved overseas. Up to 27 percent of the mainland entrepreneurs, whose assets surpassed 100 million yuan ($15 million), have migrated and another 47 percent are considering moving, the Oriental Outlook reported last year.

The laws are under revision at present and more changes are anticipated as experts and government officials agree that the current regulations, introduced in 1985, are "outdated and ineffective." The legislative body passed the second draft of immigration regulations in this April.

Senior government officials have raised the prospects of issuing more green cards and introducing a green card system more in line with international practices. This could make life easier for scores of well-meaning people married to Chinese and other keen foreigners eager to add their skills to help China advance.

The census last year recorded that there were 593,832 foreigners living on the Chinese mainland.