On October 1, just over a week after President Donald Trump announced that his administration will impose a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications, China launched the K visa. On the heels of Trump’s tightening of immigration policy, the new visa carried a diplomatic message: China is a different kind of global leader.
The K visa showcases “a more open and confident China in the new era to the world,” the state-run Global Times said. “At a time when some countries are turning inward and rejecting external cooperation, China continues to pursue development through openness and innovation through cooperation.”
Yet when Domino Theory called the Chinese consulates in Los Angeles and Tokyo, their visa offices advised against applying for the K visa if one hoped to get to China soon. It will take a “really long time,” they said. They wouldn’t say exactly how long.
The K visa purports to “streamline” the visa application process and provide more flexibility in navigating China’s job market, according to official sources. Unlike other professional visas, the K visa does not require a domestic employer or an invitation letter, and there is more leeway given in terms of the number of entries, validity period and duration of stay.
Per the text of the law, the guidelines are as follows: “Applicants for a K visa must meet the conditions and requirements for foreign young science and technology talent stipulated by the relevant Chinese authorities and submit corresponding supporting documents.” Young science and tech talent are defined as those who have graduated from a “well-known” Chinese or foreign university with at least a bachelor’s degree or have done related work at such a university.
The relevant authorities, specified as the Chinese embassies and consulates abroad, have not yet provided further information on the requirements, including which supporting documents should be submitted. The K visa can be applied for online, but when Jayous Mata, a recruitment specialist and founder of Career Pond, visited the Shanghai immigration office last month to enquire about applying, the office said they hadn’t received any detailed instructions on the visa. Three immigration lawyers in the U.S. and India that Domino Theory spoke to were similarly unaware of specific requirements and said they did not feel sufficiently acquainted with the visa to advise on it.
The lack of clarity here might seem like a symptom of shoddy bureaucratic rollout, but it is by design. Experts told Domino Theory that the visa is not meant for just anyone with a science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, degree.
“The K visa is a highly calculated move rather than an open invitation,” said Alfredo Montufar-Helu, a managing director at Ankura Consulting Group, a firm that provides consulting services in risk and business management. “This is targeting people that are really, really, really experts in their fields.”
Mata, the recruitment specialist, agreed that China wants talent but “they only want the good ones.” By delaying the full rollout of the K visa, China is “testing the water” to better understand the scope of interest in it.
This is in line with China’s approach to policy implementation. Ghulam Ali, a former deputy director at the Hong Kong Research Centre for Asian Studies, said that for most major Chinese projects and policies, China will announce a broad idea first and allow the public and relevant stakeholders to react to and discuss the policy before refining it.
Despite not facing voter pressure, the Chinese government takes public sentiment into account, Ali said. For example, China eased “zero-Covid” restrictions in 2022 following domestic protests. In 2023, China withdrew a proposal to criminalize comments, clothing or symbols that “undermine the national spirit” or “offend national feelings” following public backlash over the threat to free speech. The government also softened amendments to the controversial company law in December 2024 following 17 shareholder rights protests.
The K visa has generated a significant amount of domestic backlash itself. The South China Morning Post reported that by September 30, a day before the visa was launched, the hashtag “China decided to introduce the K visa” had gained over 60 million views on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. With a STEM degree being one of the only requirements, young people are particularly worried about an influx of low-quality job seekers and unequal treatment in China’s oversaturated job market.
There seems to be a bias against Indians, in particular, on Chinese social media.
Heena Mukadam, a recent graduate of the International University of Japan who studied in Taiwan and China, thinks people associate the K visa with Indians because it has been framed as an alternative to the H-1B visa, and 70% of H-1B visa holders in the U.S. are Indian. (11.7% of H-1B visa holders are Chinese.)
Chinese state media responded to the backlash. “It’s not that there are too many foreigners in China, there’s actually too little of them,” Hu Xijin (胡錫進), the former editor-in-chief of Chinese state media Global Times, wrote in a post on Weibo.
Still, the government is treading carefully in its implementation of the K visa. “The first week when it was announced, everyone was talking about this [visa] importing more Indian engineers on social media — people were not happy. Even around me, people are not happy. So, the government is careful about making it so that locally produced engineers will have their positions,” said Dan Wang (王丹), the China director of Eurasia Group.
Wang thinks the K visa is meant to target people of Chinese descent in the U.S. and Europe. The narrative about competing with the U.S. via high tech and manufacturing is “a very good way to raise patriotic feelings inside Chinese descendants, even if they are Americans,” said Wang.
“It will take some rounds of experiments. But whoever gets it, I believe the first person will have to be someone China-related, in a strategic industry, with remarkable research in the West — either U.S. or European background,” said Wang.
The K visa fits within China’s broader strategic vision of “opening up,” according to Wang. As state media put it, “global competition for talent reflects a country’s overall innovation capacity and institutional attractiveness.”
But for now, when it comes to the K visa at least, “opening up” seems to be happening in theory rather than in practice.
Correction: This article was updated on November 14, 2025 to respond to a concern from Heena Mukadam that she was paraphrased incorrectly as saying that online responses to the K visa on Chinese social media were biased against Indians. The article was changed to separate the sentence “There seems to be a bias against Indians, in particular, on Chinese social media,” from her comment. The sentence now links to a New York Times article that details the issue.
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