When our daughter was born in November 2012, everyone we talked to, said because born in China (even though she is a US citizen by birth), we didn't need to register her. We called the Entry and Exit Bureau (EEB) in Suzhou to verify and they said the same thing.
Now, 2 years after her birth, it suddenly comes to light she should have been registered and a residence permit issued for her within 60 days of her birth (we didn't even get her a passport till she was nearly 10 months old). When Mrs. Casey called the Suzhou EEB again to verify, they admitted to making a mistake. My company's HR tried to get things done in Nanjing, but the EEB in Nanjing said they couldn't do it because our temporary home registration was in Suzhou. Suzhou wouldn't do it because Mrs. Casey and mt temporary registration permits were done in Nanjing.
After a couple of weeks of the EEB offices saying we don't do it, you do, I e-mailed the US consulate in Shanghai asking them if they knew exactly who in China was responsible for it. They sent me back saying basically it was my company's responsibility to sort it out, but the EEB has the final say. I forwarded the message to our HR person. The next Mrs. Casey got a call from our HR person telling her to come to Nanjing with our passports and daughters paperwork to start the process for our daughters's residence permit.
When Mrs. Casey got back from Nanjing, she said our HR person must have done some judicious editing of my message. Evidently she told the EEB "THE US CONSULATE SAYS ITS YOUR JOB TO FIX IT, SO FIX IT!!" and they ""OK, WE FIX!"
We did have to pay a fine because we didn't register our daughter in the required time, but where the baby is concerned, no price is to small.
So now our daughter is perfectly legal and if we stay another year, we all get new residence permits as needed.
What strikes me funny was it took the supposed and fictitious threat from the US consulate to get results.