Passports are becoming a “please-off”: China tightened the people, capital and technology concerns behind exit and approval

The passports in the hands of Chinese citizens are becoming more and more like a “please note” that requires layered signature to be used.Radio Free Asia on September 3China's entrance and exit ports are scheduled to implement stricter personnel exit management from September 15, some civil servants, state-owned enterprises and institutions, university teachers, doctors, listed companies executives and even university students, are required to apply and obtain approval before exit; internally there is also a "who approves, who is responsible" responsibility mechanism, once approved persons are late staying or not returning abroad, the signatory approved may be held accountable.

The significance of such changes is not only that the management of units has become strict, but also that the state is re-integrating the right to exit into organizational control, risk prevention and political responsibility system. In recent years, China's economic slowdown, capital outflow, science and technology talent competition and "learning" prevalence, making exit gradually from ordinary individual choice, seen by Beijing as issues related to financial security, talent security and political stability.

From “Can you leave the country with a passport” to “Would the unit dare to sign”

RFA quoted financial system officials as saying that some financial institutions and public hospitals officials are limited to the number of exits per year, and the passports must be returned to the home after returning. The report also mentions that some banks require employees to leave the country twice a year and return within three days. More notably, "who approves who is responsible" changes the entire approval logic: the safest option is often not approval, but rejection once leaders take on the joint risk.

When the expatriate approver must be responsible for the "stagnation and non-return" of others, the system naturally turns individual travel from rights issues to risk items within the organization.

This is where administrative control is most effective.The state does not even need to publicly issue a paper national "restricted exit order", as long as through unit records, passport centralized storage, internal approval, border inspection risk advice and leadership responsibility system, a large number of people can actually lose the ability to freely decide whether to leave or not.

Why are young people included in the eye?

According to the report, some college students were subjected to additional checks at the airport, and on social media platforms were that students were blocked from leaving the country for “unsafe” reasons. Another college student said in the video that she was taken to the check room when she left Nanning airport, and that her mobile phones, chat records, bank flows, return flight tickets and hotel orders were viewed, and the visa was then cancelled.

Incorporating university students into overseas risk management reflects the deeper anxiety of Beijing.China is facing declining population, declining youth employment, increasing competition for tech talent, and the reality that some highly skilled people choose to develop overseas for a long time. When a government begins to worry that “young people will not return after they leave”, it reflects not the issue of borders, but domestic opportunities, confidence and institutional attractiveness.

Exit controls are extending from border controls to families and communities

RFA also that some Chinese citizens who have worked for a long time in Singapore, the United States, and other places, were asked to submit documents such as passports, certificates of employment, insurance, work cards, addresses after returning to their country, and that long-term residents said that domestic families were also contacted by the community or the police to help verify their overseas lives.

This approach shows at least three trends:

• Organization: Units and senior executives take responsibility for approval and individual exits are embedded at the administrative level;
• Dataization: overseas residence, work, location and social information are included in verification;
• Linking: Families, colleagues and approvals can all become part of the control chain.

China's "Exit and Entry Management Law" stipulates that Chinese citizens apply for travel documents such as passports in accordance with the law, and process the entry procedures in accordance with the law. But in reality, there is a growing gap between the general qualification in law and the actual permission in the administrative system. If an ordinary person's passport can be used, it ultimately depends on the leadership of the unit dares to sign, the border inspection system is lighted red light, and whether the dispatch requires supplementary materials, then the exit qualification granted by law can be redefined by administrative discretion.

The real question is not “why someone wants to go,” but why governments are increasingly afraid of someone going away. Capital outflows can be explained by financial regulation, sensitive technical talents can be explained by national security, but when teachers, doctors, university students and ordinary overseas employers are gradually entering the approval network, national security boundaries have expanded dramatically into everyday life.

Focus on China believes that the political significance of expanding foreign exit restrictions lies in the fact that the Chinese Communist Party is re-integrating population movements into the perspective of dominant security.A country that has confidence in its own system should rely on opportunities, treatment and social environment to retain talent, rather than allow passports to return to the unit safe and make airports a second political censorship threshold. When “leaving” is increasingly dependent on restrictions rather than attractiveness, this is itself a footprint on a crisis of confidence within China.