HK Banks Impose Staff Travel Restrictions: Former HK Mainland Bank VP

Ng Ming-tak, who served as senior vice president of China Construction Bank (Asia) before 2017, pointed out on Oct. 18, 2023, during an online interview program "Precious Dialogue" that some mainland bank employees in Hong Kong have their freedom of overseas travels tightly controlled. File picture. Chen Hongming/The Epoch Times

On Oct. 18, senior Hong Kong banker Ng Ming-tak told the media that mainland bank employees in Hong Kong have been subject to tight overseas travel control in recent years.

Mr. Ng, who served as senior vice president of the China Construction Bank (Asia) before 2017, pointed out during an online interview on “Precious Dialogue” that higher-ranking mainland bank staff members employed by state-owned enterprises in Hong Kong have had their passports literally taken “out of their own hands.” “Unless they use a fake passport, like Meng Wanzhou, they can hardly travel to overseas destinations at will.”

Mr. Ng also acknowledged that because none of these party members can travel abroad now, some of them came to him for help. But as he mentioned in the program, there is nothing you can do because their passports are all held by the Organization Department of the CCP.

HK Born Senior Executives Also Bound

He also revealed that it’s not only mainland Chinese staff in Hong Kong who are restricted from leaving the country. A few “top management” staff members born in Hong Kong “now also have difficulty leaving the country freely” because their former senior executive contacts are subject to “Shuanggui (bribery investigation).” Even though they are bona fide Hong Kong identity card holders, without any CCP membership or mainland Chinese identity, they are still subject to similar restrictions. Maybe we can only say that these people are facing the consequences of their actions. On that very day (the day they signed their lucrative contracts with the banks), they should have been aware of the possibility of a situation like this arising, Mr. Ng said.

Mr. Ng also pointed out that under the restrictions, when all state-owned enterprises and relevant government departments in Hong Kong want to have face-to-face meetings with Hong Kong people, they need to do it in Shenzhen. If they really want to go out, they will need approval from the Organization Department.

Tightening on Outbound Travel a Result of the Sino-US Trade War

Since the onset of the Sino-U.S. trade war in 2018, Beijing was “prepared to fight to the bitter end.” It delayed signing the first phase of the agreement until January 2020. When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, the implementation of an internal economic cycle was initiated in mainland China.

There have been many types of barriers set up under the guise of necessary detail, forming a multitude of redundant procedures that people requesting to travel now need to contend with. If the CCP is practicing a closed-door policy, the outcome does not allow for any freedom of movement. If a person goes out and never returns, the outcome for China will be a loss in terms of both its people and its money, Mr. Ng explained.

Moreover, Mr. Ng believes that now, as CCP policy is returning to the vintage “Mao Zedong’s path” of seclusion, “all of them (the relevant people) just play quail and stop saying anything.”

CCP Tightens Controls on Public Officials Going Abroad

Reuters recently quoted two employees from the China Construction Bank’s Beijing and Shanghai branches. They only discovered the new restrictions when applying for leave earlier this year. For them, travel abroad is now only allowed once a year for personal reasons and only for a maximum of 12 days.

Lawyer Liang Shaohua, former head of the legal department of Beijing Construction Bank, told The Epoch Times that he has recently heard that “going abroad has become extremely complicated.” “It’s not just the civil servants and teachers. As far as I know, ordinary people are also not allowed to renew their passports now.”