A child born in the United States to a Chinese parent may not be able to hold a Chinese visa at all. Whether the child is Chinese depends on where the parents had settled at the time of birth.
This is the most misunderstood rule in the whole subject, and the consequences of getting it wrong are practical: the family applies for a visa, the file is returned, and the trip is delayed. The Nationality Law decides it, and it decides it at the moment of birth.
The two outcomes
The Chinese parent had NOT settled abroad
The child has Chinese nationality by birth. A Chinese national cannot hold a Chinese visa, so the document the child needs is a travel document (旅行证), issued by the consulate. Applying for a visa in this situation is not a shortcut: it is a file that cannot be granted.
The Chinese parent HAD settled abroad: a green card, for instance
The child does not have Chinese nationality and is eligible for a Chinese visa like any other foreign national. The consulate will ask to see the parents’ passports and their proof of permanent residence as they stood at the time of the birth, plus naturalisation certificates if they have since changed nationality.
Applying for the visa route
What the file needs
The child’s passport, over six months’ validity, with blank pages
The unabridged birth certificate, original and a copy
Copies of both parents’ passports and their U.S. immigration status at the time of the birth
A form signed by one parent. The child does not normally have to appear
If the child has held a Chinese visa before, a copy of it; the birth certificate and parents’ documents can then be waived
China does not recognise dual nationality. A child who is Chinese by birth is Chinese only, whatever other passport the family also holds, and travels to China on a travel document rather than on a foreign passport with a visa in it.
Born in the U.S. to a Chinese parent
Why the parents' documents matter so much
The consulate is not being intrusive when it asks what immigration status the parents held on the day the child was born. That single fact decides the child's nationality, and it cannot be established any other way.
A green card obtained two years after the birth does not change the answer, and neither does one obtained two years before it being lost since.
Which is why the file asks for the passports and residence proof as they stood at the time of the birth, and why families who bring current documents instead are asked to come back.
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