A woman from Arunachal Pradesh, Prema Wangjom Thongdok, says Chinese immigration at Shanghai Pudong Airport declared her Indian passport invalid, insisting “Arunachal is not India.” She claims officials mocked her, urged her to “apply for a Chinese passport,” and delayed her transit to Japan. Prema, an Indian citizen living in the UK, says she was singled out and humiliated over her identity.
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00:00Yes. So basically, I am an Indian citizen residing in UK for about 14 years.
00:07And I was traveling on my holiday from London, Gatwick to Japan via a transit in Shanghai.
00:15And basically, I went past the e-gates, happily queuing up for the security gates to transfer on to my next flight to on to Osaka and Japan.
00:26And one of the officials from the Chinese immigration came over and singled me out of the queue, basically said, look, India, India, you know, took my name and something and took me out.
00:40So I asked her what is happening. And she she basically didn't say much and just basically asked me to follow her.
00:46Took me close to the e-gates where there is the immigration, the bad news counters for the immigration.
00:53And then she went on to say, Arnachal, not in not India, China, China, your visa not acceptable.
01:01Your basically passport is invalid. Very confusing moment, obviously, because never heard of that before.
01:09We obviously are a proud Indian citizens, all residents of Arnachal Pradesh.
01:14And basically, she wouldn't give me an explanation. She wouldn't let me go back into the queue, said, you cannot board the plane.
01:23Then other officials came. So actually, I probably interacted with around 10 other immigration officers.
01:29So another lady came, took me to another part of the airport.
01:35And in fact, when I tried to question them and ask them what what was the issue, they said, Arnachal is not part of India, very clearly.
01:45And they said, you should apply and started mocking and laughing and saying things like you should apply for Chinese passport.
01:50You're Chinese. You're not Indian.
01:52Some mockery around there. Then basically, they took me to the transfer desk of China Eastern, which is next to an immigration desk.
02:02And they would just keep basically sending me from one desk to the other.
02:06So if I ask the Chinese airline, they tell me to go to the immigration.
02:10The immigration tells me to go to them. And they basically didn't give me a straight answer.
02:15I said, where is the law? What what rights have you got to hold me back here?
02:19Yeah. So ultimately, it took about 18 hours for me to get out of Shanghai.
02:25What is shocking to me is I have, in fact, transited through Shanghai in the past a year ago with no issues at all.
02:34In fact, the first time that I ever transited through China, I spoke to the Chinese embassy in London and they said with a short layover of about three to six hours, you don't need a visa.
02:45So obviously, I work actually in the regulatory space in London as well.
02:50So I know that how important rules are and I'm well aware of the regulations.
02:56And obviously, I wanted to make sure that I knew what I was doing before I flew out.
03:01And obviously, I have transited very successfully and easily through Shanghai before through China, having consulted the Chinese embassy in London.
03:09But at this time, I feel maybe it was the weekend.
03:13They knew that they, you know, the offices are closed.
03:17The timing was as such that I couldn't actually call the Chinese embassy in London.
03:23So I after a lot of ordeal because there was no Wi-Fi, the Wi-Fi was really slow.
03:30And even if I did get connected to Wi-Fi, you can't open Google, you can't open any of the socials like your Facebook or WhatsApp.
03:37So I couldn't get in touch with my family for a very long time, ultimately with a lot of harassment and basically no access to food, not allowing me to leave that part of the terminal.
03:49There wasn't a proper space given to us to basically rest after a 12 hour flight all the way from London at one point in time, because I kept going up to them every hour or so asking them what is the issue, why they're holding me back.
04:03What what legal rights or rules do you have that says that Indian nationals and they would just dismiss every time I try to speak to them.
04:12In fact, in a very unprofessional manner, there was one point in time when I was near the counter, I was trying to speak to them.
04:19And there was about three or four airline staff of China Eastern and about two other immigration officers.
04:27And all of them were basically speaking in their language and saying and pointing out and saying, Arnachal, Arnachal and laughing and calling it China, no India.
04:36Yeah. So that kind of very humiliating, you know, questionable behavior from the immigration staff as well as the airline staff.
04:46Yeah, so it was quite an ordeal until finally I got hold of a friend basically by calling using their landline.
04:54I basically said to them, look, I have legal rights. I need to call a lawyer or something.
04:59You have to give me ways to communicate with somebody. Nobody knows I'm stuck here.
05:03So I called up a friend in London. They helped me to basically get the details, because even if I had a little bit of Internet, it doesn't open Google.
05:13So I couldn't find the immigration details. So I called up the Shanghai and Beijing Indian embassies.
05:20And within an hour, very, very, you know, helpful.
05:24In fact, I'm very glad that the Indian officials came to the airport and then basically they got me some food and basically spoke through the issues with them and helped me get out of the country.
05:36So a very long ordeal, 18 hours, but glad that I'm out of there.
05:41Yeah. Yeah. But obviously, I've missed my flights, my, you know, all the plans that I had took a lot of time to even get the visa for Japan.
05:49I had all the right documents, everything. I don't understand. And I can even check on the rules.
05:55It says that you don't need a transit visa if your stay is less than a couple of hours.
06:01It was only there for three hours. But their argument was I don't have a valid document.
06:06I mean, I've traveled to 58 countries. I have used my Indian passport everywhere.
06:13It's a valid document, but apparently not in China.
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