Philip P. Pan is the Beijing bureau chief.

In an update to their China visa story, The New York Times misstated the name of their own Beijing bureau chief's job title.

"Correction: January 4, 2013 An earlier version of this article misstated the job title of Philip P. Pan. He is the new Beijing bureau chief of The New York Times, not the China bureau chief," The New York Times wrote.

Correction appended!

The correction ran in the follow-up to a story about China correspondent Chris Buckley, who was forced to leave mainland China on December 31 after his visa for his relatively new Times job failed to go through before the beginning on the new year, despite repeated requests from the newspaper.

But on Friday, the Times reported that China's foreign ministry weighed in on the case--saying that Mr. Buckley (who worked for Reuters until September) was not expelled, his visa application was simply filed incorrectly.

“So far, we have neither received any notice of resignation (from Reuters), nor has the press card, which was issued by the information department (of the Foreign Ministry), been returned by Chris Buckley,”  foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said, the Times reported. “So, we do not know who his real boss is now.”

But Mr. Buckley is not the only Times journalist waiting for a visa.

Mr. Pan, the new China Beijing bureau chief, is also waiting for his visa, which, as the Times notes, he first requested last March.

Hope they didn't mess up any paper work. Chinese bureaucracy is evidently no picnic.