Are Australian citizens now or in the very near future about to get ten year visas for China?

6/8/2016 8:21:20 PM

It does not seem so. At least not related to the free trade agreement. It likely depends on politics and those are hardly forecastable.

First of all, the 10-year visa for Chinese citizens you refer to were not agreed upon in ChAFTA, the free trade agreement you mention.
You can find the text of that here. Annex 10-A has the commitments of Australia “on the movement of natural persons” but that text only handles business visa and the maximum duration mentioned is four years.

The commitments of China for movement of natural persons can be found in Annex III. I’m not sure I understand all the legalese there but I believe the relevant text is on page 74 here and also that only handles business type visa.

An easier-to-understand breakdown is here. In summary, the ChAFTA only discusses business visa and ten-year visa are not even mentioned there. Your only hope could be Article 10.6 of the agreement:

ARTICLE 10.6: COMMITTEE ON MOVEMENT OF NATURAL PERSONS
1. The Parties hereby establish a Committee on Movement of Natural Persons that shall meet within two years of entry into force of this Agreement, or as agreed by the Parties or on the request of the FTA Joint Commission, to consider any matter arising under this Chapter.
2. The Committee’s functions shall include:
(a) reviewing the implementation and operation of this Chapter; and
(b) identification and recommendation of measures to promote increased
movement of natural persons between the Parties; and to improve the
commitments undertaken by the Parties under this Chapter, on a mutually
advantageous basis.

Now all of this only refers to the free trade agreement and chances are that you are looking for a tourist visa that is completely unrelated. My guess is that your politicians are not aware that this is a desire of their citizens and have not made a strong point of this in their negotiations. It also seems that China is not very eager to give away 10-year visa, having done so only for Americans so far. Edit: and Israelis, thanks to @JonathanReez in comments.
Not sure it is any consolation, but also the Australian 10-year visa for Chinese citizens are only a pilot program for now.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

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Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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