The Chinese government has been acting to restrict travel outside the country by ordering some teachers, civil servants and executives of state-owned enterprises to hand in their passports.
Analysts say that under President Xi Jinping, Beijing is reinstating some internal controls not seen since the era of communist China’s founder, Mao Zedong.
Hong Jingfu, a professor in the political science department at Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University, told VOA Mandarin the Chinese Communist Party’s confiscation of the passports aims to prevent foreign infiltration and secrets from being leaked.
Hong said the CCP is also worried that as people's confidence in the economy slows, they will become less loyal to Xi's regime and China’s system, and that personnel and capital will flee the country.
Hong said Xi is taking China back to the Mao era path of "internal control and external defense," of closing the country to the outside world, because the CCP fears sharing the fate of its Soviet counterpart, which collapsed in 1991.
"Under the so-called overall national security concept, his demand for security is constantly rising, which, in fact, is ironically highlighting that China’s so-called ‘four self-confidences’ Xi promotes is [just] more lying and boasting,” Hong said.
Former Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2011 announced the so-called “Three Self-Confidences,” promoting China’s socialist path, theories and system. Xi in 2016 added a fourth one, socialist culture, as a way of cementing his authority and pushing for more communist and nationalist propaganda in education.
The Financial Times reported October 6 that since last year, an increasing number of schoolteachers and public sector employees in China have been required to hand in their passports, and those already abroad have been told to avoid contact with "foreign, hostile forces."
Chinese authorities have always regarded "instilling loyalty in students" as a top priority. The FT reports the passport controls aim to prevent teachers from being "ideologically polluted by foreign forces" and spreading ideas that are deemed ill-suited for the country.
It's not the first time in modern China that authorities have seized the passports of large categories of key workers. Radio Free Asia reports authorities ordered teachers to hand in their travel documents as early as 2018.
A university professor surnamed Li in China’s southeastern, coastal Fujian province, who didn’t want to give his full name due to the sensitivity of the issue, told VOA Mandarin that his university since 2019 has required teachers at the rank of associate professor and above to hand in their travel documents.
Even retirees are required to hand in their passports and entry and exit documents, he said, and department heads will only get them back five years after retirement.
Li said if a professor wants to travel abroad, they must report to their supervisor the country they are going to, the number of days they will be there, the purpose of the trip and the source of funds before they can get their passport back.
Li said the university also requires that passports be turned back in within five working days after returning from abroad.
The school did not give them a detailed explanation for the policy, said Li, telling its staff only that it’s to ensure that the teaching, research and management work “maintains normal order” and is in line with the "spirit of the relevant documents of the superiors."
Legal authority for Chinese universities to require custody of passports and travel documents appears to be dubious. Article 16 of China’s Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Law on the Administration of the Exit and Entry of Chinese Citizens states that no organ, organization, enterprise, institution or individual other than the public security organ, the original document-issuing authority, the people's procuratorate, or the people's court may revoke or confiscate people’s identification documents.
Observers told VOA Mandarin the practice increased significantly after Xi came to power in 2012. The Chinese government last year tightened restrictions on private overseas travel by civil servants and employees of state-owned enterprises, including banning overseas travel, vetting overseas relations, and strengthening approvals and confidentiality training.
Li believes his university’s policy was prompted by government fears that teachers may leak sensitive research information or fail to return to China at all.
Hong, of National Cheng Kung University, says the control of passports also aims to keep middle-class people from leaving the country in order to restore consumer confidence and consumption levels.
China's economic downturn has led to a drop in consumer confidence and spending among the middle class that Beijing has tried to reignite with a series of stimulus measures.
But Hong said the CCP’s passport controls are restricting economic activities and discouraging international exchanges that could help grow the economy.
"Actually, you are accelerating your so-called internal disintegration because there is no way to solve your internal contradictions,” he said.
Despite the increasing number of passports reported seized, analysts say it’s impossible for China to close off as much as it was under founding leader Mao, when everyone needed permission to travel abroad and being granted a passport was rare.
Wang Jian, a commentator living in the U.S. who used to work for the Hong Kong Economic Times, Ming Pao Daily News and Sing Tao Daily News, told VOA Mandarin that since China's reform and opening up after Mao died in 1976, there is no way to close the country as it depends on exporting products and importing raw materials.
"China's current foreign trade model has determined that China's door cannot be closed,” he said. “Second, the Chinese people [would] not accept it.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese authorities implemented strict controls on movement, including travel abroad, and stopped issuing new passports for nearly three years to try to control the spread of the virus.
The restrictions led to rare public protests against authorities known as the “White Paper Movement.”
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
