Chinese Authorities Tighten Passport Issuance to Hinder Citizens From Fleeing Overseas

A Chinese passport and some Vietnamese Dongs are left on one of the tables of the customs office for a Cambodian visa application on May 16, 2014 at the Bavet border crossing, Cambodia. Omar Havana/Getty Images

News Analysis

Chinese residents in many parts of China find it increasingly difficult to apply for passports. Political observers believe this could be a countermeasure by the Chinese Communist Party  (CCP) to stem the rising number of people fleeing the country with their assets.

The Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times interviewed several locals in Chinese cities and provinces and learned that CCP authorities have tightened passport issuance in response to the increasing willingness to emigrate from China.

A citizen of Donghai county in Lianyungang, eastern coastal province Jiangsu, who did not wish to be named, confirmed to The Epoch Times recently that the local authority had suspended passport issuance with concerns over a mass exodus of locals.

Donghai County is known as the “second Fujian,” a province in southern coastal China where many locals have moved abroad.

In central China’s Henan Province, Chang Yong (a pseudonym), a resident of Xinyang City, told The Epoch Times that it had been over 20 days since he applied for a passport, and he hadn’t expected how prolonged the waiting time would be.

He said he saw many others like him applying for passports, one of whom was immediately turned away.

Mr. Chang also revealed that, as far as he knows, many cities have stopped issuing passports. Some regional authorities in Guizhou, a southwestern province of China, have even confiscated passports directly from residents, claiming to “hold them on their behalf.”

“[I think] the authorities just discontinued processing [passports] as too many Chinese fled the country around the [New Year] holidays.”

A staff member in an agency dealing with passports in Qingdao, eastern Shandong Province, told The Epoch Times that the process has gradually become complicated and rigorous. “In the past, providing the necessary information was sufficient to obtain a passport. However, it is now difficult to access the authorization even when the required documentation is available.”

The staff also said they were notified by leaders not to accept applications from Fujian Province, considering most Fujian locals tend to emigrate to Southeast Asia and other countries. “[Fujian] locals have been ‘labeled’ as those who are generally banned to have a passport because they won’t return to China,” he said.

CCP’s ‘Vast Prison’ Captures Chinese Citizens

According to Liang Shaohua, a lawyer and former chief of a Chinese asset management company, the CCP’s move to restrict passport issuance to Chinese people can be traced back over the past two years.

“An acquaintance recently told me that he went to renew his passport, but the concerned authorities ignored his request just by questioning him, ‘Why do you need to renew your passport if you weren’t willing to go abroad now?’”

People stand at the check-in counters of China Eastern Airlines in Hongqiao International Airport in Shanghai on March 21, 2022. Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images

Mr. Liang indicated that while there have been no decrees issued stipulating limits to passport applications, all levels of CCP authorities have employed various obstacles for Chinese citizens, “just like the North Korean dictatorship, not permitting people to run away [out of its rule].”

He added that even those possessing passports are subjected to severe scrutiny when passing through the Chinese border.

Lai Jianping, a former Beijing lawyer and chairman of the Federation for a Democratic China (FDC) in Canada, believes that restrictions on the right of citizens to possess passports reflect “the most extreme authoritarianism of the evil CCP in an attempt to turn China into a vast prison.”

“You can’t leave, can’t take their assets out of the country as it [the CCP] is closing the door, for fear that the  Chinese are going to escape in every way possible.”

“Even if you can no longer bear [with the communist regime] and find it hard to survive, you still have to die here,” Mr. Lai said, describing the helplessness and predicament that Chinese people are suffering.

Chinese Migrants Cross the Mexican Border to the US

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the number of people leaving mainland China has climbed, including those fleeing to the United States through the Mexican border.

According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the number of Chinese nationals who illegally crossed the border from northern Mexico into the United States surged to more than 24,000 in the 2023 fiscal year (from Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 30, 2023). This figure continued to rise to 4,261, 4,797, and 5,980 for October, November, and December 2023, respectively.

Members of a caravan of Central Americans who spent weeks traveling across Mexico walk from Mexico to the U.S. side of the border to ask authorities for asylum in Tijuana, Baja California Norte, Mexico on April 29, 2018. David McNew/Getty Images

Due to the spike in Chinese illegal immigrants, a Chinese restaurant in New York that hired an odd-job kitchen worker for a monthly salary of $2,600 six months ago has now lowered to $1,800 as it is now easier to find personnel than before, according to a report on Bendi News China.

Political analysts suggest that Chinese citizens are fleeing their country, even risking their lives by passing through the South American rainforests to reach the U.S., partly because of the CCP’s harsh lockdown and zero-COVID policy. Moreover, the consequent declining economic and political environment adds to the depressed sentiments among the Chinese.

Generally, there are three notable motivations for the frenzied exodus of Chinese: to make money, to seek a better future for their children, and to seek freedom.

Qian Xiaozhe, who used to be a deliveryman in southeast China’s Jiangxi Province, decided to move abroad after struggling to survive in a sealed city under years of pandemic measures.

In April 2022, Mr. Qian embarked on an arduous journey that started from Hong Kong to Turkey and traveled through Italy, Serbia, Germany, and other countries. He worked as a cheap laborer in a Chinese factory to make ends meet. A year later, in July last year, he crossed tropical rainforests and arrived in the United States.

Mr. Qian told The Epoch Times reporter that the dramatic growth of Chinese immigrants has spawned a unique “industrial chain” such as catering and accommodation along the route to the United States.