Criminal background check for all of your time *in* China?

For the locality you're currently in, it's relatively easy - just go to the police station and inquire. (And as a matter of fact, the police station here said go see the "safety officer" at your school, who turned out to be an entire department of police officers stationed on campus...)

But what if you've been places, man, seen things, been employed in other provinces. The "safety officer" says they can provide a background check extending only as far back as my current stint of uninterrupted employment. In particular, they can't provide background for my two earlier periods of employment even though those periods were at this same school in this same location.

So, is there any recognised procedure for obtaining a complete Chinese criminal background check that will cover a foreigner's entire time in China from beginning to end , even if they've changed employers and even province a few times?

There seems to be - judging by what I can find online - no national service. And there appears to be a number of documents required for each city you've been in - original passport with original residence permits, original work permit, letter from employer that there is no criminal record.... but this list is neither complete nor necessarily accurate... check with your local area.

Well, I'm screwed, I think. 2003-2005 I changed jobs (and cities) every six months, which is a lot of police departments to contact given that my passport from that time has long since expired and been tossed...

Complicating the matter is the fact these clearances are issued only when there is no criminal record. Meaning, you can't quite say this is China and there are no records....

It may be possible to obtain a certificate of unobtainability. Which is to say, get a suitable law firm to try obtaining a police clearance from a given city and if they discover such a certificate cannot be obtained let them ask for a written explanation for which they can vouch. The written explanation needs to state that the certificate could not be obtained *not* because there exists some conviction but because the bureaucracy could not obtain a statement of no convictions. (Police "clearances" in China are only issued if there is no criminal record


"Certificate of Good Conduct" is what these things appear to be called. The official Chinese term appears to be this: 无犯罪记录证明

You tossed an old passport?!?  I've had things come up that required me to go back one or even two passports.  If I can ever finish all the updates I need for my current one, I'm going to have all my old ones locked up in a vault somewhere so they can't get lost.

Yep. Pretty sure I did.

Kept it for ten years past its expiration date too. And probably threw it out some time last year. Because if I'd kept it I would have had three - one current and two expired.


Sucks to be a Chinese super surveillance state when the police in one city still can't find out if you're a criminal in another...

Well whaddya know - I still have all of my passports! The one I thought I tossed I in fact merely archived (left it in a pile of documents at my mother's house).

So...

For a complete criminal background check covering all of my time in China, do I really have to go in person to see the police in all the cities I lived in? There's really no national database? Or even cross-provincial communication? I'd have to hit up seven cities in five provinces

It's worth trying to make friends with someone at the local bureau of naughty foreigner control.  Hopefully that person will not only know all the procedures, but also any exceptions/exemptions that could speed up the process.