Not so many years ago, income from visa fees collected by Chinese embassies around the world, was an important source of foreign currency for the new Chinese nation.

During the years of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) and just after, China was also an extremely difficult place for foreigners to enter.

In fact, it was not until 1982 that I managed to get my first peek into China by way of a New Zealand Trade Mission as an official guest of the Chinese Government. We dined on many occasions with veterans of Chairman Mao's Long March, which was an experience to tell the grandchildren about.

Those were the days when most of the population wore drab blue or green uniforms with matching workers' caps and identical haircuts.

Those were the days when Nanjing Lu was pitch dark and deserted after 9.00pm

However, it is now 2003 and it should be common knowledge to the Chinese security services that 99.99 per cent of all foreign travellers to China, ie, of non-Chinese ethnicity, have absolutely no political or subversive motives.

Yet, my trying to get an extension to my business visa in Beijing just before the onset of Golden Week made me feel that China is still practising according to "cultural revolution" rules and made me feel that China is not as business friendly as she makes herself out to be.

The case: As my Sino-German Joint Venture was liquidated recently, my "Z" Visa had to make way for a "F", business visa which was to expire during the Golden Week. Being a good boy, I presented myself at the Beijing Visa office where a kind lady officer informed me that I needed an invitation letter duly chopped by a Chinese organization, replete with business licence number.

"But," I said, "I have presented that to your Embassy in Singapore already and I now only want an extension for a month. Do you REALLY want me to go through the thickest pre-holiday traffic-jam that I have ever seen in Beijing just to get that silly chop?"

"Yes, very sorry, those are our RULES."

Well ... three hours and more than 100 yuan in taxi fares later and just before closing time and the start of the seven-day holiday of the visa office, I duly presented my invitation letter and the red chop and the business license number.

My petite and sweet looking officer had a long queue in front of her and, against my better judgment, I went to a much smaller queue which was chaired by a buxom and sour looking lady. (September 30, 3:00pm. What a mistake.

She carefully checked the business license number and examined the official stamp on my invitation letter from all directions. Then her face lit up. BINGO, Got you! "This organization is a sub-branch and you will have to get the chop of the Mother Organization," she victoriously blasted.

I requested to see her superior but this was denied. She did, at my insistence, refer the matter to someone only to confirm the verdict: "Get out and do as we tell you or you leave China.".

Totally flabbergasted at so much ineptitude and blind following of the "RULES", I left for the second time.

Now I was dressed in sober business attire, I was not wearing a beard and turban, nor a moustache and neither do I have tattoos nor earrings or other body piercings; my European Union passport featured several "Z" Visas valid for one year and, obviously, I am a friend of China.

Doesn't Beijing want my business? Is it not high time that anyone who wants to do business with China, who comes from a respectable, China friendly nation, can fly in and out and get a Visa on arrival by presenting a letter from his own company or something even less formal. A once or twice extension of a business Visa should also be granted on demand. After all, the business person is not only spending his money in China but there is also a good chance that he will be helping the economy. More business, more jobs, more new companies.

My opinion was confirmed again: China is the country where everything is possible, like building a very large multi-bed SARS hospital in one week. Or nothing is possible, if some petty official doesn't want it.

Maybe there are one or two black sheep among the millions of non-ethnic Chinese business travellers flocking to China each year. But that is no reason to give seasoned China friends such as myself the runaround. It is unfriendly, un-business like, bad for the economy and rude.

Amen.

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