Chinese passports to get chipped China has updated the technology it uses to secure its passports, with chip-equipped documents to be issued from March 15th. People’s Daily reports that the nation’s Ministry of Public Security has noted the 90-odd other nations to have adopted chip-equipped travel documents and decided China needed to play at the same level. …
"The new passports will also use “colorless fluorescent printing, shaped rainbow printing, multi-level, multi-color wiring, gravure luster ink, laser perforation and high-resolution holographic protection film"
Thats a shed load of technology. Remind me again, why would anyone want to fake a Chinese passport? Surely you'd be better off faking one that didn't restrict your movement to a controlling, authoritarian state.
i'd imagine quite a few people in china would like a passport under a different name so they can get around local house arrest/leave country/have a different i.d. Think dissendents,falun gong,smugglers,gangsters the usual bunch of people that need to hide there identity to stop the police rightly (smugglers,gangsters) or wrongly (dissendents, falun gong) having a "firearms malfunction" within the vicinity of their frontal lobe
out of a country of 1,347,350,000 people.
That comes out to about 0.74 per cent of the population are allowed to leave the country, less than 1%.
In this age when we like to compare our (UK, USA, Aus etc) governments to that of China, this sorta puts things back in perspective. Lest we forget the Bamboo Curtain, like the Iron Curtain of Cold War provenance, is there to keep people in, not out. Because communism works, right?
When I visited North Korea last year we were told (by British guides) that NK (DPRK) has several hundred thousand Chinese visitors each year because they're able to go there without needing a passport or permission. I guess the Chinese don't have to worry about them not wanting to return home. Apparently the Chinese visitors like it because it reminds them of how China used to be.
There are only about 2000 Westerners who visit NK - it's easy to visit but expensive as you have to be accompanied by guides, Chinese pay about 10% of what Westerners pay.
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