Do I need an electronic passport to enter China?
 

Hello everyone,
Ive tried to look this up on the forum but couldnt find it.
Im heading to China (Shanghai) next month and Ive been looking at the chinese embassy for details on how to apply for a visa.

I was just wondering, has anyone on here entered with a non-electronic passport recently? im pretty sure my passport is not electronic and altho it states that en e-passport is part of the requirements, id like to know if anyone has been through on a non-electronic.

Thanks

What's an electronic passport? You mean it has some sort of chip in it? How can you tell?

US (and I guess EU) passports now contain an RFID chip encoding the information the State Dept. thinks is most interesting. I got a new passport right before they started doing that, as a number of experts hold that the data is not secure, so I can't say for sure, but I believe you can tell from looking for a raised area on the front cover.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rfid_passport
http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001003.html - which has a diagram of the identifying logo
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/security/910f/

Where does it say it is a requirement? Through last year, I had no problem getting a Chinese visa with an old US passport with no chip.

Sorry I shouldve said that I am a UK passport citizen and applying through the Chinese embassy in Spain. Their website states "electronic passport". Im hoping they are just trying to be modern in the text.

Although that does ease my worrying a little knowing that you got through with no chip,. i.e. electronic.

Who knows who did the translation for them into Spanish, but my guess is that they mean a passport with a machine-readable information page, which has been standard for most countries for at least 20 years.

I have just found a seemingly up-to-date PDF with the information.

They request electronic passports, but say that the old passport format will take a day or two longer to process.

Hopefully this means I don't have to start the passport race :)

Thanks everyone for your replies.