This is rather shocking. I am an American currently in California but I do not have time to go the Chinese consulate for visa procedures, since I have a last minute business trip to Korea and need to leave tomorrow. I have several previous 1 year visas to China in my passport, but my last one expired a few days ago. I wanted to take care of my Chinese visa while in Seoul but it looks like this is more challenging now - seems like I need to find a passport agency to manage this. Moreover, only getting a 3 month visa for this kind of fee is absurd. I only intend to stay in Korea for 2 days and expected to be in Shanghai for the same amount of time. I think I will defer my trip to Shanghai until the Chinese government adopts a more reasonable visa policy toward Americans. Those of us who have the discretion to travel to locations of our choice for business will choose to go to places like Korea and Singapore which have more reasonable policies. I am certain the US government policy is not easy for many foreign applicants but that doesn't mean you should choose to retaliate but alienating those Americans who may come to your nation for commerce, spend significant sums of money and conduct business.

In the mean time my Chinese colleagues will have to live with video conferencing!