A social media post published on May 9 set off a wave of online discussion in China when a user going by the handle “Pathfinder” on X described what he called a new low: mid-level managers at state-owned enterprises under ordinary central ministries now need advance approval before leaving Beijing, regardless of whether the trip is for work or personal reasons, and regardless of whether they are traveling abroad or simply to another Chinese city.
“Is that necessary?” Pathfinder wrote. The post accumulated 586,000 views and 562 comments before circulating widely.
The responses suggested the Beijing policy was less a novelty than a belated catch-up. Commenters from across the country described near-identical systems already operating in their own regions. “This was already the rule before COVID,” one user wrote. “Civil servants and neighborhood-level government workers had to declare travel and get approval before leaving the city. Shanghai has been the same.” Another noted that the rule had outlasted the pandemic: “It started during COVID, and when the lockdowns ended, they just kept the system.” Users from Tianjin, Guangxi, and other provinces confirmed the same. Beyond conventional civil servants, prominent doctors in provincial capitals must now register before crossing provincial lines, and local authorities are routinely questioning civil servants’ relatives about overseas travel: who went, where, and when they plan to return.
Passport confiscations reach ordinary citizens in Gansu, Guizhou, and Yunnan
According to a report by Wanwei Net, ordinary citizens in Gansu, Guizhou, and Yunnan provinces have been told to hand over their passports, with international travel now requiring advance registration and approval. No government document or legal authority has been publicly cited to justify the policy; at the local level it is being enforced regardless.
Multiple people interviewed described the same sequence: once they booked an international flight, they received calls from police or neighborhood-committee workers asking about their destination, their stated purpose, whether they intended to settle abroad permanently, and whether the trip involved employment, family visits, or other activities.
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One overseas Chinese resident who had lived outside mainland China for many years found himself caught in the net despite his long absence. His household registration, the document China uses to tie citizens to a specific locality for administrative purposes, remains in Wudu District, Longnan City, Gansu Province. Local authorities informed him that residents there were required to surrender their passports for “temporary safekeeping.” To travel abroad, they would need to apply in advance, receive approval, and then collect their documents. No written legal basis was provided, no custodial period was specified, and no official document was produced. Reports from Yunnan described ordinary residents being required to deposit passports for centralized storage; in Zunyi, Guizhou, frequent international travelers have been required to surrender their passports and submit to questioning upon returning to China. In most cases the demands came directly from local police stations, street offices, or neighborhood committees, with timelines for “safekeeping” rarely stated and legal provisions almost never cited.
Under Chinese law as written, a passport is a citizen’s legally recognized travel document that no organization or individual may lawfully detain. Only courts, prosecutors, and public security organs handling specific criminal cases may confiscate one. What local authorities are calling “temporary safekeeping” and “travel registration” amounts to pre-emptive control over citizens’ freedom of movement, imposed outside any legitimate administrative framework.
The CCP has begun treating its own officials as potential defectors, commentators say
One commenter wrote that the policy “shows there’s already a trust crisis inside the system.” Another drew a historical comparison: “The Qing dynasty kept princes confined to Beijing to prevent them from conspiring against the throne. Now they’re treating mid-level state-enterprise managers the same way they once treated princes. How weak must this regime have become?” A third offered a starker formulation: “This is the first step toward becoming North Korea.”
Wang Duran, a political commentator, placed the controls in a longer trajectory. From the health codes and location-tracking apps deployed during the COVID pandemic to the current regime of passport confiscations, mandatory departure approvals, and cross-provincial registration requirements, the drift toward what Wang described as “quasi-wartime management” has been visible and accelerating. “In the past, the CCP primarily controlled ordinary people. Now even those inside the system are being watched. Passport confiscations, exit approvals, cross-provincial registration: these tell you that what the regime truly fears is internal collapse, not just public discontent. When the ruling class itself begins to lose its freedoms, the Party’s grip on power grows less stable, not more. When the regime starts treating its own people as threats, it usually means it has already begun to fear its own unraveling.”
Human Rights Watch: Beijing is extending Tibetan and Uyghur-style exit controls to all citizens
Human Rights Watch has documented a parallel tightening of China’s passport-issuance system. The Party has designated a growing number of localities as high-risk for internet fraud or undocumented emigration; residents registered in those areas must submit additional documentation and clear approval from multiple government agencies before a passport will be issued. In practice, the process is so burdensome that passports simply cannot be obtained. In Tibetan and Uyghur regions, exit restrictions of this kind have been in place for years.
Wang Yaqiu, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s China division, said: “While many Chinese citizens enjoy international travel, the right to leave China appears to be restricted for growing categories of people throughout the country. The authorities are going beyond existing restrictions on Tibetans and Uyghurs to limit the travel of people throughout China under the guise of anti-crime campaigns.”
On paper, all Chinese citizens may apply for a standard private passport using their national identity card. In practice, the Party’s public security bureaus, which control passport issuance, have progressively imposed far heavier burdens on residents registered in dozens of localities. Those residents must typically produce a no-criminal-record certificate, proof of social insurance payments, bank statements, and an employment contract; their applications must then pass through multiple police agencies and Party committees for approval. Regions subject to these rules add a further requirement: applicants must return in person to their original home locality to complete the process, even if their registration was transferred to another province years ago.
