There's a story about Zhang Yimou, the acclaimed Chinese film director who also happens to be my favourite, applying for a US green card only when his daughter needed to get there for her studies and promptly returning it when she got there.

I can't vouch for this, but a movie-crazy and usually well-informed colleague does, and I'll take her word for it.

The American green card is, of course, such an object of an I-want-to-live-there desire famously immortalized on celluloid by the inimitable Gerard Depardieu - that many of us take for granted it is so.

But there's another green card officially the Alien Permanent Residence Permit - of China that seems no less daunting to obtain.

The criteria for eligibility, by a senior official's own admission, are seen as stringent:

Hold a senior position in the country. (That usually means the top guy, or at least his deputy, in a big, big company.)

Make a large direct investment. (That's beyond the number of digits I'm familiar with.)

Made outstanding contributions or are of special importance to China. (That would be someone like Sidney Shapiro but would Zhang Yimou qualify if he were not Chinese?)

Live in China with their families for more than five years. (But what if you were single, like me?)

But not many people have applied, points out an American friend - till last month, only about 1,800 had sought permanent residence.

That's the point, I say. They didn't because they couldn't easily slot into the four categories mentioned above. And, only about a third of them got their green cards.

The good news is that procedures for granting permanent-resident status to foreigners may be revised.

"We've heard complaints that the existing requirements for foreigners to get permanent residence in China are too stringent, and we're studying possible changes," said the director of the Bureau of Exit-Entry Administration in Beijing last month.

Admittedly, having a green card is not going to make a dramatic change to the way foreigners live; after all, there are more than a quarter of a million who get their work or residence permits renewed annually.

But it does make life a little easier.

For one, you could live for almost any length of time, travel in and out without a visa and don't need a passport when you check into a suburban Beijing hot-spring resort, barely an hour's drive from home.

More importantly, it's a matter of attracting and retaining talent. If you've read any issue of China Business Weekly, the widely-appreciated Monday insert in China Daily, you'd know every top executive in China (local or foreign) emphasizes in every interview the same words (which I've liberally borrowed): attract and retain talent.

I'll give you a hypothetical case (to use Rumsfeldesque logic, might or might not be true): There's this bright Indian IT chap (they all seem to be, except me) who's joined this big tech company but he's unhappy with his boss and a rival corporation wants him. His work permit is sponsored by his employer and quitting is a hassle. He'd have to leave his company and his potential boss has to go through the whole procedure of hiring him again. If only he had a green card

I'll give an example of how two other countries I've lived in handled talent.

The first is a certain Middle East country where if a foreign employee quit, he'd automatically be banned from entering the nation for a year to work - the fear was he'd defect to a competitor (usually nothing to do with trade secrets) for a higher pay packet.

The other is Singapore: When I first went there to work, I shared a flat with two smart Indian offshore engineers (it was good because they were rarely onshore) who I knew in the same unnamed Middle East country and left at about the same time.

Within months of our arrival, both my friends got letters from the immigration department asking if they would be interested in becoming permanent residents - the talent had been attracted, the government was working on retaining them.

One of them is happily married to a Singaporean Chinese, became a citizen, and calls Singapore his home and country. The other has moved to Australia, but still has a flat in Singapore and one day wants to call it home and country.

Me? I didn't get any letter. I could have applied, of course.

Ultimately, it all boils down to a sense of belonging. And someone making you feel you belong.

Zhang Yimou didn't (if the story is true) belong there. But there are others who feel they belong here.

Email: ravi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 12/23/2005 page4)