After years of pandemic isolation, China decided it was time to open its main door to the world like never before. It eliminated visas for citizens of dozens of countries, made it easier for foreigners to use international cards in local payment apps, and launched a powerful tourism campaign with an ambitious goal: to reach 190 million foreign visitors annually by 2030. But what the promotional videos don't mention is that, as the door opens outward, Xi Jinping's Government is installing new bolts inward.
Since mid-September, a controversial 19-article regulation has been in effect that expands the authorities' capacity to control who enters, who leaves, and, above all, who must stay within the country. The focus narrows down to three profiles: the official, the dissident, and now also the engineer who knows the secrets of artificial intelligence.
The regulation allows preventing the exit of citizens who have committed acts abroad that "harm national security or China's interests." The ban can last between six months and three years. It also includes a particularly broad assumption: individuals who violate export control regulations or technology transfer in a way that threatens "national industrial or technological security" may be detained.
As usual with these guidelines, the concepts addressed are broad enough to cover anything from leaking a trade secret to a Chinese researcher being hired by a U.S. company.
Border agents may also "dissuade" citizens from traveling to countries or regions considered high risk. The regulation does not specify what makes a destination dangerous or at what point a recommendation can practically become an order. It also requires those applying for travel documents to prove that their reasons are "true and lawful," without clarifying what evidence will be necessary or which authority will decide if it is convincing.
Beijing argues that these provisions do not restrict the travel of ordinary citizens. Official media have presented it as a defense against corruption, espionage, scams, and technology leakage. Critics denounce the vagueness of the categories and the lack of a transparent procedure that would allow a person to know if they are subject to a travel ban, for how long, and for what reason.
Controls to leave China are not new. Officials, Communist Party cadres, and employees of state-owned enterprises have been handing over their passports to their superiors and requesting authorization for each international trip for years. A practice that used to mainly affect high-ranking government officials and has gradually extended to lower levels of the Administration.
"In order to travel to Europe on vacation with my family, I had to send a letter to my superiors explaining the reasons for the trip and the complete itinerary, including the hotels where we would stay," says an official from a cultural department of the local government in Shanghai. In the financial capital, a couple of young people detained at the end of 2022 for participating in protests against pandemic restrictions tell this newspaper that authorities have not allowed them to renew their passports in recent years.
In other cases, the ban comes without warning. "My boss found out he couldn't leave China without government authorization when he arrived at the airport checkpoint," says an employee of a major Chinese technology company.
The latest frontier of control is the technological brains. Bloomberg revealed this year that founders, researchers, and executives considered strategic in private companies like Alibaba and DeepSeek needed authorization before traveling abroad.
The selection depended not only on the position but also on the value of the knowledge of each professional for the national artificial intelligence plans. Now, according to sources familiar with the measures cited by Bloomberg, the control is extending to their direct family members. Spouses and children of certain executives in the AI and semiconductor sectors also need permission to leave the country, even for short trips.
Several affected individuals have reportedly received notifications. There is no public list, and it is unknown how many professionals or family members are included. This does not mean that all Chinese engineers are prohibited from traveling. But the leap is significant: the security perimeter no longer ends with the worker but extends to their family. Thus, making it difficult for the entire family to move reduces the chances of a specialist permanently settling in the United States or accepting a position in a foreign company.
In the midst of the battle for chips, algorithms, and advanced models, China has begun to treat the knowledge accumulated by certain researchers as if it were another strategic resource subject to export controls. The brain can also become sensitive technology.
The lock is not limited to Chinese citizens. The new regulation allows preventing the exit of foreigners included in countermeasure lists or "unreliable entities." In July 2025, a U.S. federal employee and a Wells Fargo executive were detained in China despite not being formally accused of any crime.
"The Chinese government is tightening its rules to arbitrarily decide who can and cannot leave," warns Maya Wang, Asia deputy director at Human Rights Watch. The organization recalls that international law recognizes the freedom to leave any country and only allows limitations that are necessary, proportionate, and subject to legal guarantees.
Beijing argues that these measures aim to prevent the escape of corrupt officials, clandestine technology transfers, or the disclosure of state secrets. The social media channels of China's main espionage agency often remind that foreign spies are always on the lookout for any high-value profile from the Asian superpower.
China remains far from the lockdown of the Mao Zedong era when traveling abroad was an exceptional concession from the State. During the first three decades of the People's Republic, borders remained closed to most of the population. Passports were reserved for diplomats, officials on official missions, and carefully selected students. Private tourism was considered a bourgeois custom and did not even have an ordinary administrative channel.
Between 1949 and 1978, barely 210,000 passports were issued nationwide. It was not until the 1990s and early this century that obtaining an ordinary passport began to become an accessible process for broad segments of the population. Last year, the National Immigration Administration counted over 160 million national passports, although this only represents around 11% of the population.
China has not returned to the seclusion of the Maoist era. Millions of citizens will continue to cross its borders to study, work, or travel. The difference is that, under Xi Jinping, freedom of movement is increasingly subordinate to an expansive and vague idea of national security. The border remains open for most, but now it closes around those whom Beijing considers too valuable - or too inconvenient - to let go.