Foreign nationals may naturalize if they are permanent residents in any part of China or they have immediate family members who are Chinese citizens.

Although mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau are all administered by the PRC, Chinese citizens do not have automatic residence rights in all three jurisdictions; each territory maintains a separate immigration policy.

While Chinese law makes possessing multiple citizenships difficult, a large number of residents in Hong Kong and Macau have some form of British or Portuguese nationality due to the history of those regions as former European colonies.

[2] Customary law dictated that children born to Chinese subjects took the nationality of the father, but did not have clear rules for renunciation of citizenship or the naturalization of aliens.

[4] Disputes arising from nationality questions became more common as the Qing dynasty was forced through a series of unequal treaties to open up trade with Western empires and allow its subjects to migrate overseas.

[11] A strict policy against automatic expatriation was adopted to prevent this; a Chinese individual's foreign nationality was not recognized by Qing authorities unless specifically approved.

[25] Towards the end of this lease, the British and Chinese governments entered into negotiations over the future of Hong Kong and agreed on the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984.

[28] Following the 1974 Carnation Revolution, Portugal formally relinquished Macau as an overseas province in 1976 and acknowledged it as a "Chinese territory under Portuguese administration.

"[29] After negotiations on Hong Kong's future had concluded, China and Portugal began deliberations on Macau in 1986 and agreed on the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration in 1987.

[33][34] Hong Kong BDTCs who did not have strong ties to another British Dependent Territory lost BDTC status on July 1, 1997.

[41] Near the end of the Chinese Civil War, the Nationalist government was forced to retreat to Taiwan by the Communist Party, which subsequently established the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949.

[54] Acquiring Chinese nationality is more common in Hong Kong; the Immigration Department naturalized over 10,000 people between the transfer of sovereignty and 2012,[55] and continues to receive over 1,500 applications per year since 2016.

[63] Although mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau constitute a single country, Chinese citizens do not have freedom of movement in all three jurisdictions.

Each region maintains a separate immigration policy and can deny entry to or deport non-resident Chinese citizens visiting from outside that territory.

The type of social welfare a person receives from the state is tied to hukou; individuals with rural hukou are allocated a housing plot with land for farming, while urban residents are provided with a variety of government services in their locale including healthcare, public education, unemployment benefits, and subsidized housing.

[70] While reforms have relaxed these regulations in recent years, requirements for changing registration vary by location and can be very stringent in the largest cities.

[73] However, high numbers of former Chinese citizens were reported who are reluctant to cancel their hukou due to the social benefits bound to it.

[78] When temporarily visiting Hong Kong or Macau, mainland Chinese residents must obtain Two-way Permits from their local public security bureau authorities.

[85][86][87] It has been observed that mainland authorities will occasionally perform extraordinary rendition on Chinese citizens, abducting individuals of interest who are overseas and forcibly returning them to China.