China Enforces New Rules Barring Citizens Who Commit Security Violations Abroad from Leaving the Country for Up to 3 Years
RegulationGeopolitics
China has begun enforcing new regulations on entry and exit, under which citizens deemed to have engaged in acts damaging to China's security or interests while abroad may be barred from leaving the country for up to 3 years after returning to China. Those who violate technology import and export controls may also face travel restrictions. Chinese authorities say the measure aims to protect national sovereignty and security, and deny that it restricts ordinary citizens' travel. The state's rumor-verification platform Piyao described it as a risk-prevention measure for travel to high-risk destinations and a response to the problem of citizens being tricked into going abroad. Tom Kellogg, executive director of the Center for Asian Law at Georgetown University, told BBC Chinese that the rules are another tool that could be used to control what Chinese citizens do or say abroad. Data from the human rights group Safeguard Defenders shows that the number of exit bans in the Chinese Supreme Court's database rose from 89 in 2016 to 188,760 last year, and that the share of civil judgments involving exit bans increased more than 30-fold between 2019 and 2025, from about 0.23% to 7.3%.
