Hay River's Steve Hurcombe can't understand why his fiancee in China can't obtain a visa to Canada.

Hurcombe calls the situation infuriating and frustrating.

"We're not asking for special treatment," he says. "All we're asking is if she can come over for a visit."

Hurcombe wants his future bride, Xiong Xueqin, to see Hay River and the NWT before they marry and she applies to immigrate to Canada.

"What if she comes over here and she doesn't like it?" he asks.

Since March, the Canadian embassy in Beijing has turned down two applications from Xiong for a temporary visitor's visa. The embassy is apparently worried she might not return to China once in Canada.

However, Hurcombe, an accountant, rejects that concern. "We're both law-abiding citizens."

He notes his well-educated fiancee works as an accountant with a multinational firm, making her well-to-do by Chinese standards.

"What would she gain by coming here as an illegal?" he says. "It's not worth it for either of us."

Xiong says the embassy is being unfair and she is saddened by its decision not to allow her to visit Canada.

"I don't have any intention not to go back to China after that," she states in an e-mail interview.

She says it would be pointless to give up the good life she has in China to live illegally in Canada.

Xiong says the whole experience has been hard -- financially and emotionally -- on her and Hurcombe.

His next trip to China will be in February, at which time he and his fiancee plan to marry. Xiong will then seek to immigrate, a process which can take about a year.

The couple will take a chance she will like Canada and the North, Hurcombe says. "We have no choice."

Hurcombe, 33, and Xiong, 27, have known each other for about a year, since they began chatting on the Internet.

Hurcombe has visited China twice since then. Unlike the Canadian embassy, the Chinese government has been very co-operative in granting him visas, he notes.

When contacted last week, the Canadian embassy in Beijing declined to comment on the particular case, citing Canadian privacy laws.