RedCat, you are full of it. The SAFEA can cancel your FEC, and the local police your "residency" you've applied for prior to your visa for work and that much is true. However, your foreign passport visa can only be cancelled after a legal action is filed against you. Breaking a local law may allow your employer to have your visa cancelled. So, has this happened to you???

On topic of the Safea Blacklist and Red Cat's suggestion not to run, I'd say either way running or not you may end up blacklisted by the SAFEA which may put you in danger when applying for your future FEC, local job posts and even work permits as you need the FEC to get it. It's worth mentioning that many local SAFEA offices in fact are run poorly and by some corrupt officials and some FTs do not even sign or are not presented the organization's official contractual agreements before signing into their employers' contracts. Then, some local employers abuse not only their employees that've to sign two contradictory agreements, but also the SAFEA official contracts that are numbered and registered as some FTs are presented with a copy/counterfit SAFEA contract which may not serve them well in the local court of law then. Speaking of the local arbitrations, they are quite difficult on mainland and they most often serve the local employers, not the foreign workers. Even though many local employers are worried about any negative publicity, they often succeed and that due to so many options that they have and we don't have. Most importantly and as I have mentioned before, many local employers' evaluation system is often highly questionable and your choices to accept it or not are so limited on mainland. Most often you have to enter a land full of mines where if you stand still till the end of the given time you'll survive till the end of it.

Now, what should worry about the Safea Blacklist is the organization's approach to the foreign experts on mainland China. There surely are some foreign experts or nonexperts that deserve to be listed, however, there also are some that do not deserve the "honor" to be on it and consequently the nuisance they might have to go through then. If the SAFEA wanted to be more organized and if it wanted to standardize its function around the country, its officials would have to keep their honesty and integrity a bit more than they have. Creating a negative database of foreign teachers, that is adequately fair and transparent, requires a lot more than what they have offered. First of all, the local SAFEA officials would have to be more approachable to us and also speak English a bit better than many of them do, and then they'd have to look into the local employers evaluation system of their foreign teachers as well as the local employers contractual agreements with their foreign teachers. Agreeably, the local employers can and should be able to offer anything they wish to, although many of them should be looked at much closer by the SAFEA when it authorizes them on mainland and the Foreign Expert Certificates should only be issued to the ones that pass much stricter measures of this organization. But we all know that this is quite impossible on mainland given the circumstances. So, many FTs are going to be left in the dark and frustrated if local employers choose to either bypass their job applications or corrupt some local officials for the "appropriate documentation", and then some FTs will choose to go home or work illegally if they cannot obtain the FEC or the legal work permit. The local system seemingly counts on the internet to attract more foreign teachers on mainland, but many of us know what the current trend on mainland is and news spread fast. More and more poorly qualified foreign teachers will arrive, more and more foreign "spies" will squeeze in, and more and more local employers will "improvise" which is going to eventually destroy anything the field of education should stand for.

Cheers and beers to education :)

There are three documents the PSB needs and then they can cancel your residence permit without notifying you.

Your Employer must submit these three documents:
1．单位申请。（说明申请内容，用人单位盖章）；
2。原用人单位离职证明（说明离职原因及离开时间，由原用人单位加盖公章），如原单位已注销或关闭的，应提供有关部门的批文；
3。《外国人就业证》原件

1.Application Form from the Employer with an official stamp (stating what they are applying for, example: cancelling foreign teachers residence permit)
2.A letter proving you are not working for them with an official stamp (stating reasons why you no longer work for them, the date you left) if the company employing you shuts down they have to provide relevant documents.
3." Alien Employment Permit " Original OR Foreign Expert Certificate Original

If they dont have the Foreign Expert Certificate Original then they can report to SAFEA to cancel it; they say you cant be contacted and disappeared.

Here is what I know. This is all the information I can give at this point. I am not trying to scare away any bad white monkeys, though I am sure some do exist. My situation deals with Hubei Province in China, specifically Wuhan city.

My situation was as follows. My previous employer lied to Wuhan's PSB saying they could not contact me in order to cancel my residence permit. Wuhan PSB did not call or contact me to confirm this, they simply cancelled my residence permit without question and since the school labeled me as a runner, they blacklisted me. I was not a runner though. I found out about the blacklist once I had tried to transfer my work to another employer. I have just dealt with the PSB and soon will be taken off the blacklist.

What it means when the local PSB blacklists you:
When a city's PSB blacklists you, you cannot enter or exit China or extend your visa. You have to meet their fines in order to lift the status of being blacklisted.
They can fine you for overstaying your visa or residence permit expiry date (up to a max of 5000RMB)
They can fine you for working without a valid foreign expert certificate (1000RMB)
If you do not give them timely notice of changes regarding your residence permit they can fine you (up to 500RMB)

This can be avoided if within 10 days the foreigner goes to the local PSB and informs them of the change of employment or anything else.
第二十一条 在外国人居留证上填写的项目内容(姓名、国籍、职业或者身份、工作单位、住址、护照号码、偕行儿童等)如有变更，持证人须于10日内到居住地公安局办理变更登记

Foreigner entering/leaving country control law regulation
Article 21 Any change regarding residence permit( name, nationality, occupation or status, working place, residential address, passport number, accompanying children etc.) must go to Public Security Bureau within 10 days.

BLACKLISTED BY SAFEA:
What this means is, you cannot work in China, any place, because central SAFEA will send the blacklist to every province and tell them can't hire this person. This is a problem concerning your foreign expert certificate.

If you want to quit your job without any problems you need to submit to the school a resignation letter 1 month in advance. Then go to the PSB to inform them of the change when you stop working for the school. Then return your foreign expert certificate to local SAFEA. You should be able to leave China without any problem then.

From: Jim Jackson:
I have questions. How did they cancel the residence permit? Was the person called by the PSB and they stamped "cancel" on it? Or did they find out when they passed through customs? Is the next employer telling them they are on this list?

1. My previous employer submitted a letter saying I had disappeared, run away without fulfilling my contract and they couldn't contact me. So PSB cancelled my residence permit.
2. No, I was never contacted. The PSB never checked to see if it as true because the school said they couldn't contact me. They did an investigation and discovered the school was lying because i took them to arbitration (court). Thus I was not fined for this.
3.I found out when I tried to change my place of employment and extend my residence permit, but you could also find out at customs sure.
4. Yes, the person (recruiter) of the next employer called me and told me he could not get everything handled because PSB blacklisted me.

I hope this helps, anyone out there really. I am sorry if it adds more confusion in an already confusing environment but this is what I know from first hand experience.

Best wishes all.
Redcat

It is my understanding also that unless a Residence Permit has been stamped "cancelled", that it is still valid. I left a university last year ( did not do a runner ) , I paid a breach penalty, but four weeks weeks later I was told by that crap university that my RP had been cancelled. The local PSB ( in a city in Guangdong province ) told me that my RP was still valid in that province ( I had applied for a new job with my existing RP ) , and it was legal there until it's expiry date. However, I am sure that it is illegal to do this in most places. A new RP must usually be obtained in a new province to work legally.

This new university job also turned out to be garbage, so I went back to Australia then returned to China on an L visa in February this year, which was amazingly turned into an F visa, and then a new Residence Permit.

What I am trying to say is, that like other people here have said, it is now quite possible that a university could blacklist you if you do a runner, but I don't think that a school or uni could cancel your RP, it would have to be stamped as cancelled in your passport.

If you have a crappy employer, you are very unhappy at your work, and you are employed on a RP, then I think that it is best to say you are going to leave ( give adequate notice ) and then just pay the breach penalty stated in the contract ( provided it is not an unreasonable amount ) If you have no intention of ever returning to China then it is OK to run, as running is a great way to punish a lousy and corrupt Chinese employer, especially when several FT's run.

A problem I had with my new university this year ( a good one at last ) is that I did not have a letter of release from my last uni, but they ended up accepting a reference I had from a previous Australian employer.

My advice to newbies is this: If you are lucky enough to find a good job at a public university then stick with it for maybe two or three years, unless you want to risk working on L visas in different places ( some people prefer this option, although it is illegal ) Moving around to different places on RP's is a big hassle if you get a bad employer, crap accomodation, and you have trouble getting paid.

As for me, I have decided to stay at this new uni, but it can be a hassle as far as romance is concerned, if you GF or wife is from another city, need to commute.

Hey,

The residency wont be cancelled. It will be stamped when your next school or employer renew it for you.
when your residency expires and you go out of the country.... and use it to maximum day in your visa then the custom will stamp it cancell. You always can go to the PSB and ask

I have questions. How did they cancel the residence permit? Was the person called by the PSB and they stamped "cancel" on it? Or did they find out when they passed through customs? Is the next employer telling them they are on this list?