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So a year or so ago there was some announcement between China and USA to increase tourist visa validity to ten years. I thought this was related to some free trade agreement.

Now I believe the Australian and Chinese governments also made a similar free trade agreement around the same time.

Searching the Internet now I can find mentions of Chinese citizens being able to get ten year visas for Australia. I'm not sure if that's already started or still to come.

But so far I couldn't find anything about whether Australian citizens can or will soon be able to obtain ten year visas for China. Can we? Or will we be able to soon? Do we have some idea when it could be?

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  • If Australia grants 10 year visas for Chinese, surely the arrangement will be reciprocal?
    – Berwyn
    Jun 3, 2016 at 8:57
  • I'm hoping so but you never know!
    – hippietrail
    Jun 3, 2016 at 8:58
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    Not quite reciprocal in the past: centiem.com/Project/Details.aspx?IdDataSource=31
    – Berwyn
    Jun 3, 2016 at 9:02
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    I don't think the premise of the question is correct. The US has always granted qualified China nationals 10 year B visas, just like they do almost every other nationality, even when China only allowed Americans short term limited entry visas. There have been no recent trade deals with China. I believe the US may have just demanded parity in the visa terms and China matched the existing US terms to avoid the US instead matching China's. Or something. Whatever happened was not done in public.
    – user38879
    Jun 3, 2016 at 15:32
  • @Dennis: Hmm I'm no expert but apparently there was some agreement announced on November 10 at the 2014 APEC summit in Beijing: lawandborder.com/…
    – hippietrail
    Jun 3, 2016 at 23:20

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It does not seem so. At least not related to the free trade agreement. It likely depends on politics and those are hardly forecastable.

First of all, the 10-year visa for Chinese citizens you refer to were not agreed upon in ChAFTA, the free trade agreement you mention.
You can find the text of that here. Annex 10-A has the commitments of Australia "on the movement of natural persons" but that text only handles business visa and the maximum duration mentioned is four years.

The commitments of China for movement of natural persons can be found in Annex III. I'm not sure I understand all the legalese there but I believe the relevant text is on page 74 here and also that only handles business type visa.

An easier-to-understand breakdown is here. In summary, the ChAFTA only discusses business visa and ten-year visa are not even mentioned there. Your only hope could be Article 10.6 of the agreement:

ARTICLE 10.6: COMMITTEE ON MOVEMENT OF NATURAL PERSONS
1. The Parties hereby establish a Committee on Movement of Natural Persons that shall meet within two years of entry into force of this Agreement, or as agreed by the Parties or on the request of the FTA Joint Commission, to consider any matter arising under this Chapter.
2. The Committee’s functions shall include:
(a) reviewing the implementation and operation of this Chapter; and
(b) identification and recommendation of measures to promote increased movement of natural persons between the Parties; and to improve the commitments undertaken by the Parties under this Chapter, on a mutually advantageous basis.

Now all of this only refers to the free trade agreement and chances are that you are looking for a tourist visa that is completely unrelated. My guess is that your politicians are not aware that this is a desire of their citizens and have not made a strong point of this in their negotiations. It also seems that China is not very eager to give away 10-year visa, having done so only for Americans so far. Edit: and Israelis, thanks to @JonathanReez in comments.
Not sure it is any consolation, but also the Australian 10-year visa for Chinese citizens are only a pilot program for now.

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