China's Multiple Industries Required to Surrender Passports, Restrictions on Exit Extend to Non-System Personnel

The wealthy, professors, and doctors are all on the run; passports have become state-owned assets (video)

[People News] On August 9, discussions on social media platform X about personnel from various industries in China being required to submit their passports attracted over 100,000 views. Images circulating online list 13 categories of positions and personnel, including staff from research institutes and key laboratories, civil servants, public utility employees, employees of large state-owned enterprises, workers from state-invested and high-tech private companies, financial industry professionals, teachers from universities and high schools, and personnel from top-tier hospitals, most of whom are marked as "required to submit passports."

According to reports from Radio Free Asia, the images also detail several individual cases. For instance, subway maintenance workers are noted as having been "required to submit passports since last year"; employees of private companies with state-owned shares must obtain "prior approval for attending exhibitions in Hong Kong"; vocational school teachers may "not be approved for domestic travel during holidays"; and those leaving the aforementioned positions may face "restrictions on arbitrary exit for 3 to 5 years." The images also clarify that management standards may differ by region and unit.

Mr. Chen, a resident of a community in Lanzhou, recently informed our station that grid workers in some local residential areas had asked residents about their passport storage situations. He stated, "They claimed it was to help safeguard the passports, but not all communities are like this; our community does not have this requirement, but we cannot guarantee that it won't happen in the future."

A Gansu netizen known as "Yugong Baoliao" also mentioned, "Some neighborhood committees in Gansu Province even require residents to submit their passports to grid workers for safekeeping. This practice is gradually expanding to non-system personnel."

Mr. Ding, a taxi driver in Chengdu, recalls that in the past, there were instances in Garze, Sichuan, where the passports of Tibetan individuals were collected en masse. He stated, 'Seven or eight years ago, in the Tibetan regions, ethnic minorities (referring to Tibetans), regardless of their wealth or status—whether officials or ordinary citizens—were required to surrender their passports, and afterwards, they were not returned. I have heard that people from Xinjiang are also denied their passports.' 

Passport control has expanded to include more groups 

Han Liang, a resident of Chongqing, informed our station that he is currently unable to apply for a passport. He had previously approached the relevant authorities but was denied. He explained, 'I can't obtain one; I am under strict border control. They label me as a dangerous individual and a threat to national security. I attempted to apply, but they said it was due to my involvement in the pro-democracy movement. If someone has even a slight reputation in the pro-democracy movement, they are unable to get a passport.' 

Another netizen mentioned that the hospital where his friend works has broadened the scope of passport collection while enforcing related regulations: 'Although the official documents state otherwise, there are additional layers of requirements imposed. My friend's hospital even collected the passports of temporary workers.' 

Private passports are centrally managed by the organization 

On August 7, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission reiterated the regulations concerning the management of party members and cadres' private exit from the country. These regulations have been emphasized multiple times in the discipline and law section, mandating that individuals included in the registration and filing scope must submit their private exit documents to the personnel department of their respective organizations for centralized management. The individuals affected include certain leading cadres, heads of financial institutions and state-owned enterprises, as well as personnel involved in national security, state asset security, and industry secrets.

According to China's "Passport Law," citizens must apply for ordinary passports themselves at the exit and entry administration agencies of public security organs at the county level or above. The guidelines for processing ordinary passports issued by the national immigration management department state that military personnel and registered national staff must provide a letter of consent for handling exit and entry documents, which must be approved by their respective work units or superior authorities based on personnel management authority.

Independent scholar Mr. Fang shared with reporters that he applied for a passport less than a week after his release from prison in September 2012, and it was approved without any issues. Ten years later, he renewed his passport. However, by 2023, the police informed him directly that he was restricted from leaving the country. He stated, "The police told me outright that I was under border control, meaning I couldn't leave the country. Having a passport is useless; I can't go abroad."

Mr. Yao, a respondent from Hubei, noted that there has historically been a practice among administrative institutions and state-owned enterprises of centralizing the custody of private passports: "He has a private passport, not an official one, but someone is keeping it for him, and the intention is quite clear. At the very least, it implies that if you want to leave the country, you need my consent. It may not necessarily mean a restriction on leaving, but it certainly makes it inconvenient, or you must obtain permission to exit."

Local officials often interpret the intentions of higher authorities to formulate policies.

In response to the requirement for civil servants, employees of public institutions, schools, state-owned enterprises, and personnel in the financial system to submit their passports, Mr. Fang mentioned that he had heard similar reports before, but had not seen any systematic public documents. He remarked, 'I hear one thing here, and another person says something different in another place. There are many organizations, including public institutions, large state-owned enterprises, and schools, that have long been doing this. They won't issue documents for such matters; everything is handled without a trace, without leaving a paper trail in governance.'

Regarding reports from places like Lanzhou, where streets and neighborhood committees are asking residents to hand over their passports to grid workers for safekeeping, Mr. Fang expressed that 'without official documents, the interpretation of the higher authorities' intentions varies greatly across different regions, so it's not surprising that absurd situations arise. Especially in the absence of written documents, it becomes a free-for-all.'

At present, there is no publicly available information indicating that relevant departments in Gansu have uniformly required ordinary community residents to submit their passports to grid workers for safekeeping. If the situations reported online occur in more communities, the centralized management of passports may extend beyond public officials and certain key personnel to include ordinary residents as well. △