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I am sponsoring my cousin's studies at Liaoning University of Technology for the years 2019-2023.
Upon arrival in China, my cousin obtained his 1-year visa, and this was due for renewal in April 2020. Due to Covid-19, there was a 2-month extension given up until June 2020. My cousin was worried as he was stuck in Guangzhou and needed to renew his visa by post to remain legal on Chinese territory. The University supervisor (Mr Lee) confirmed by WeChat messages that there would be "no problem".
Later, I advised my cousin to remain in Guangzhou to avoid health risks associated with travelling to Jinzhou in the midst of the pandemic. However, when my cousin asked to renew his visa by post, his request was denied, and he was told to "come back to Jinzhou". This was a U-turn on what was previously agreed and caused a lot of frustration, especially because of the hazardous journey across the whole Chinese territory.
Nevertheless, we took all the precautions and care to ensure that my cousin would travel via the safest possible route to Jinzhou, as I did not want him to lose his blue card (health code). When my cousin submitted his passport and all documents to apply for his visa, Mr did not produce an application receipt.
I called Mr Lee on two occasions to have the details about the receipt and the visa timeframes, but I never got clear information. After a month, there was still no news of whether the application had been submitted to the immigration services or not. I had no news about whether the application had been approved or rejected, no news of where the passport was, no news about what the problem (if any) was.
Lines of communication between my cousin and Mr Lee repeatedly failed because Mr Lee kept changing his accounts as he pleased. I have records of him denying the existence of a visa receipt, a record of him affirming that the visa was 2 weeks away. I also have recordings of him saying that the receipt was in his office, as well as him telling me that the visa had been issued for 6-month only; even though my cousin had made a payment for a 1-year visa.
On the 20th July, I made a final phone call to Mr Lee summing him to tell me once and for all what was happening with the visa application. Mr Lee then changed his discourse to say that the visa was being processed, and that it could be ready soon "if you [I] want". To this day, I still have no idea what he was expecting me to deal with his "if you want" statement.
I would like to bring to your attention that this has been a very disappointing experience for me, as an overseas sponsor. I have had to intervene from my foreign residence in Australia to sort a problem that should never have occurred in China. Moreover, Mr Lee has shown appalling standards and poor professionalism over the past 3 months, and I have all grounds to doubt his ability to carry out his duty of care as a supervisor at Liaoning University of Technology. Furthermore, despite my numerous attempts at contacting the university by phone, my calls have remained unanswered and the University is still, to this day, unreachable.
For this reason, I believe that Liaoning University has failed to look after its cohort of new students: no support, no guidance and no information was provided when needed, which has had a negative impact on my cousin and many other international students.
As an educator myself and someone who has been in this field for over 15 years, I am downright shocked some of the practices of Liaoning University of technology. Nobody should be forced to deal with such a blatant lack of professionalism and illegal acts of passport confiscation, let alone young international students on a foreign soil during a time of global turmoil.
I am currently investigating ways to alert the immigration and diplomatic services on these issues, as well as flagging the malpractices of Liaoning University of Technology for international agencies to see.
