On March 5, 2025, PLA delegates arrive at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to attend the opening of the National People&9;s Congress. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
[People News] Recently, People News received credible information from the military indicating that a department responsible for managing retired military personnel in a certain region has secretly issued an internal notice. This notice reveals that the authorities are initiating a sweeping campaign to "comprehensively collect personal exit and entry documents" from all retired senior military officials. The ordinary passports, Hong Kong and Macau travel permits, and Taiwan travel permits held by this group of retired officials, as long as they are still valid, must be surrendered and centrally managed by the department. So, why did Zhongnanhai decide to impose such a stringent measure on these retired senior military officers at this specific time in May 2026? What are they trying to prevent?
Many might wonder: What’s so surprising about this? Aren't civil servants, university professors, executives of state-owned enterprises, and bank managers within the CCP system required to submit their passports regularly in recent years?
The individuals whose passports are being forcibly collected are not active officials with real power; they are retired military officers who have been relieved of their duties, some even in their seventies or eighties, who have devoted their lives to this system and remained loyal to the Party. Zhongnanhai has now completely lost political trust, even in this group of "insiders among insiders."
The internal notice was issued on May 25, 2026.
This timing is quite significant. It is not just an ordinary date; it represents a turning point when Zhongnanhai's financial concerns and political anxieties reach a boiling point.
Around May 25, a significant upheaval is taking place in both domestic and international financial markets. Bloomberg has recently released alarming data showing that as much as one trillion dollars in capital has fled China over the past year. At the same time, the China Securities Regulatory Commission has chosen this moment to take decisive action against cross-border brokers like Futu Holdings and Tiger Brokers, imposing hundreds of millions of dollars in 'money-grabbing' fines. They are compelling mainland middle-class investors to liquidate their holdings and delist within two years, effectively dismantling the private wealth pipeline to the U.S. stock market. This is clearly a targeted siege, a coordinated assault from both domestic and international fronts, benefiting both individuals and finances!
Furthermore, the official notice outlines a precise administrative closed-loop process that effectively dismantles the complacent mindset of retired senior military officers who might try to hide or hoard their credentials. Retired officials can no longer simply claim to their offices, 'I have never applied for a passport' or 'I lost my passport long ago.' This time, the management department has directly tapped into the official digital database of the National Immigration Administration. They require all retired officials to log in to a WeChat mini-program using their mobile phones—this is the official portal of the National Immigration Administration, known as 'Immigration Bureau 12367.'
This mini-program is directly linked to the main servers of the Ministry of Public Security and the Exit-Entry Administration. By logging in with facial recognition, users can easily see when they have applied for a passport, when they have obtained a Hong Kong and Macau travel permit, and where the main entry point is. The official directive mandates that everyone must take a complete screenshot of the 'personal document inquiry result' screen and submit it to the retirement office for record-keeping.
In response to various situations, the authorities have devised three plans that leave individuals with no escape. This is also the strongest evidence supporting the authenticity of this information:
The first scenario applies if your documents are still valid: You are required not only to submit a digital screenshot from this mini-program to prove you possess the document, but you must also personally deliver the original passport to the police station, where both will be verified against each other. This process is referred to as dual alignment of digital and physical documents.
The second scenario, the most severe, targets those who wish to retain their passport while claiming, 'I lost my passport during the move.' However, this tactic has now completely backfired! The notice explicitly states: If the mini-program indicates that you have valid documents, but you assert that you lost them, you must print the page from the mini-program that shows you have the document in physical form, and then handwrite a complete confirmation statement with a fountain pen on the paper. There are strict formatting requirements, and it must read: 'I, [your name], hereby confirm that the document has been lost, and this is to clarify.' Finally, you must also provide your handwritten signature. What does this imply? This is about maintaining a political record. Should it be discovered in the future that you secretly retained your passport and left the country, this handwritten statement will serve as undeniable evidence of your deceit against the organisation and disloyalty to the party, potentially leading to disciplinary or even criminal repercussions.
The third scenario is that if you have never applied for an exit permit in your entire life, you cannot escape this requirement. You must print the blank page from the mini-program that indicates 'no documents' and handwrite your signature along with the date on the printed version. What if some elderly officials in their seventies or eighties are truly unable to use a smartphone or the WeChat mini-program? The authorities have already devised a backup plan. You are required to personally sign a 'Commitment Letter for No Valid Private Exit (Entry) Documents', which is uniformly printed by the authorities, to substitute for the screenshot.
This entire process, from taking screenshots to specifying formats, and then compelling you to handwrite a statement and sign a commitment letter, raises the question: Is this standard regulatory management? Isn’t this merely applying the evidence collection methods used for 'criminal suspects' to retired senior military officers? This stringent approach, which officially came into effect on May 25, eliminates all possibilities for these retired military officers to exit the country.
The notice also draws a clear line: senior retired military officers at the division level and above are mandated to surrender their documents for centralised storage; retired personnel at the regiment level and below are temporarily subjected to political pressure to 'voluntarily surrender' their documents.
What message does this convey? Commentator Li Yu suggests that it reflects a reality in contemporary China: even a military elite who has been loyal to the Party for a lifetime, once retired and wishing to see the outside world, is automatically viewed by Zhongnanhai as a 'potential traitor' or a 'possible escape risk'.
Why is Zhongnanhai now targeting even retired military officials? Li Yu analyses that there are three deeply hidden political motives behind this action.
The first motivation stems from Zhongnanhai's intense fear of 'overseas sudden political betrayal', which refers to potential uprisings by high-level insiders abroad. It is crucial to recognise that retired military personnel, particularly senior officers at the division level and above, possess extensive knowledge of military and national defence secrets accumulated over their decades-long careers. More significantly, they are aware of the internal factional dynamics within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) military, the power struggles among the leadership, and many political scandals that cannot be disclosed to outsiders.
In recent years, the international geopolitical landscape has become increasingly tense, with significant turmoil in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. Under these circumstances, if retired senior military officers, who are well-informed and hold valuable resources, are allowed to travel abroad frequently, there is a risk that one of them might suddenly declare an 'overseas uprising' due to ideological shifts or personal reasons, publicly revealing sensitive information to international media. Such an event would represent an intolerable political disaster for the CCP.
Recently, a major purge occurred among high-ranking officials in the Rocket Force, and there were rumours online about relatives of certain generals being involved in sensitive matters overseas. Whether true or not, this has inflicted serious political damage on Zhongnanhai. Confiscating the passports of veteran military officers is essentially a method of silencing them, confining them within the system for their entire lives and preventing them from serving as witnesses to history.
The second motivation reflects the genuine ideological collapse within the CCP system—an effort to eliminate the 'two-faced individuals' who engage in duplicity.
Currently, high-ranking officials in Zhongnanhai are demanding daily learning, political discussions, and loyalty. However, the reality is quite different. They may shout slogans on the surface, but underneath, they are busy handling passports. The mid-to-high-level elites within the system are the ones who understand the deep-seated issues of this system better than anyone else in China. They have long been using various channels to circumvent the Great Firewall, allowing them to clearly see the true political and economic situation abroad. They are aware that the big ship is about to sink, so they are preparing their escape routes.
Many individuals, despite being retired, have amassed significant wealth and family resources within the system. They enjoy generous pensions and privileged healthcare provided by the system while secretly sending their children to the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Recently, Zhongnanhai's initiative for a 'digital retrospective investigation' has uncovered that many former officials have quietly obtained multiple passports and Hong Kong-Macau travel permits under their names, ready to 'vote with their feet' at any moment. The authorities have come to realise that they can no longer control these individuals through Marxism-Leninism and political indoctrination, and are resorting to the most primitive and brutal methods—confiscating passports to prevent them from going anywhere.
The third motivation is to use overseas relatives as 'political hostages' and implement a new form of 'political collective punishment.'
This aligns perfectly with the recent campaign by the Communist Party to thoroughly investigate 'overseas connections' within the national system. Now, it is not just about scrutinising your spouse and children; even your uncles, aunts, and distant relatives with connections abroad must be meticulously registered in a comprehensive database.
When a retired military officer has his passport confiscated while his children and grandchildren are studying or settling in the US and Europe, it creates a "hostage loop." If your passport is effectively held hostage within the country, you become a hostage in mainland China; do your children dare to speak out freely abroad? Does your family within the system dare to harbour dissenting views?
For those currently in service, they face career stagnation due to overseas connections and are often removed from key positions; for retirees, the confiscation of their documents prevents them from reuniting with their families. Zhongnanhai is employing this brutal tactic of "detaining hostages" to forcibly uphold the stability of its internal governance structure.
(First published in People News)
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