What is the difference between R visa and K visa? It's not just that the K visa has reduced requirments, or they would just reduce the requirements for R visa and go with that, right? We have to remember that there are people like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg who dropped out of college to do tech and won, so lowering the requirements only increases our selection pool but it does not mean that worse people can slip in without approval.
R visa is designed for foreigners who are highly talented or have urgently needed specialized skills, skills that are in short supply among Chinese workforce. When there is an actual shortage, Chinese public would welcome foreign talents. In other words, if the concern is truly about skills or talents, existing R visa already has it covered. There is a little need to create a new visa with much relaxed requirement.
Since K Visa applicants don't need job offers or invitation letter from Chinese companies, I question their competitiveness in an already crowded domestic job market. For truly talented individuals or workers with in demand skills, Chinese firms would have headhunted, provided them with job offers/invitations or even promise funding before the whole visa process. Chinese employers would have comfortably managed the R visa process for talented foreigners.
So... you want them all to be born to further increase the youth unemployment or you want more to be terminated to drop the unemployment rate? When it comes to foreigners working in China, we discuss it (again, same point) at the bottom.
With youth unemployment so high, who knows where they'd be working, how many Alexandr Wangs and Jensen Huangs were terminated to prevent the excess from strengthening foreign talent pools or sucking away resources from Chinese education to feed them.
They can be concerned but they need to watch what happens. If the K visa is made to increase existing talent that is already an excess in China, then it is likely a mistake. If it was made to introduce lacking talent to catalyze China's tech landscape then it's a great thing. And let's not forget, at a time when America is becoming hostile to foreign tech talent, the added bonus is sucking away America's resources.
Who knows maybe some of those aborted children could turn out to be great innovators and helped to create new industries that managed to reduce Chinese domestic unemployment. As a result, China would not have record youth unemployment. We are both arguing hypotheticals really just coming from opposite directions.
For many Chinese, single child policy was privately justified as a sacrifice they endured for a better developed china, something they would enjoy/benefit. A kind of social contract between Chinese people and CCP.
Creating a less stringent visa
without public consultation when R Visa already exists is seen as a betrayal. Many Chinese don't believe these potential immigrants have earned the same benefits given the preferential treatments foreign students have already received. They believe Chinese locals deserve to be better treated after making extraordinary personal sacrifices. That's why there is so much anger.
