SHANGHAI/HONG KONG, Oct 17 (Portal) – Chinese officials and employees of state-linked companies face tighter restrictions on private travel abroad and scrutiny of their foreign connections as Beijing imposes a campaigns against foreign influence.
Ten current and former employees told Portal that restrictions had expanded since 2021 to include bans on foreign travel, tighter limits on the frequency and duration of trips, burdensome approval processes and pre-departure confidentiality training. They said the measures had nothing to do with COVID-19.
Individuals’ accounts varied but agreed that foreign travel continued to face increased scrutiny after China’s borders reopened in January. The people, who worked across the country as civil servants, in state-owned companies or in the public sector in general, spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Portal also found eight public announcements from eight government departments over the past two years, including the national pension fund, indicating they would tighten rules on workers’ personal travel outside China, without detailing all the changes.
Other anecdotal reports and documents reviewed by Portal show parallel efforts by central and local Chinese authorities to map the personal and family ties of state and state-affiliated workers to other countries. Portal is reporting for the first time on these measures and the extent of some post-COVID travel restrictions.
The measures reflect President Xi Jinping’s focus on national security amid strained relations with the West, two experts told Portal. China has in recent months encouraged its citizens to engage in anti-espionage activities and introduced new laws that expanded the definition of espionage.
“Beijing is increasingly paranoid about the threat of espionage from Western countries, and preventing government employees from traveling abroad could be a way to reduce the opportunities for spying by foreign powers,” said Neil Thomas, a Chinese policy expert at Asia Society Policy Institute Center for China Analysis in Washington.
Political ideology is also a factor, Thomas said, with Xi wanting to “look inward for ideas” rather than looking to the West for inspiration.
Neither the State Council Information Office, which handles media inquiries on behalf of the Chinese government, nor any of the state-affiliated companies, Chinese government and Communist Party organizations described in this report responded to Portal questions about the travel restrictions or data collection.
NEW BORDERS
There have long been restrictions on personal travel abroad for high-ranking government officials and state leaders with access to sensitive information. Portal noted that these limits now extend to the ranks of Chinese civil servants – which numbered 7 million, according to the most recent data from 2015 – and 70 million workers in state-owned enterprises.
Lower-level employees of China Construction Bank in Beijing and Shanghai are only allowed to travel abroad for personal reasons once a year and for up to 12 days, according to two bankers, one of whom has served for nearly two decades.
Both discovered the restrictions, which they said were unprecedented, when they applied for furlough in early 2023.
Some public school teachers are also facing new restrictions on foreign travel, according to a teacher in the southeastern province of Zhejiang and a person with knowledge of the new rules introduced this year in a district in Shanghai.
A major branch of state lender China Development Bank has banned foreign travel this year, according to a person who works there, while an official at a state-linked investment fund said travel restrictions were recently expanded to include new hires in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Portal was unable to determine whether restrictions varied by destination.
The official notices seen by Portal included instructions from a government department in a district of the eastern city of Ningbo in September and another from the National Social Security Fund Council earlier this year. Both emphasized stricter scrutiny of employees’ requests for personal travel abroad.
In the eastern city of Wenzhou, a branch of the city’s eco-environmental bureau posted revised rules on an official website in September last year that said employees could travel abroad only once a year and for no longer than a month.
Wang Zhi’an, a former Chinese state television host who runs an independent media outlet in Japan, said authorities may be concerned about observations by officials outside China.
“This revelation could subtly influence the thinking and consciousness of these officers,” he said. “You might start to question the Communist Party’s management system and ask yourself why this is so.”
CONNECTIONS Mapping
Chinese authorities are also examining personal foreign ties, according to a document seen by Portal, one of the 10 people who discussed travel restrictions and three other employees of state-owned companies with expertise in the matter.
Around the end of last year, these people reported receiving questionnaires from organizations such as the Communist Youth League, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee (CPPCC), local authorities and their respective employers.
The forms ask for information about relatives with foreign citizenship or permanent residence abroad, as well as information about foreign assistance or experience, the people said, adding that this was the first time they had received the requests.
Portal saw one of the questionnaires but could not fully determine how authorities used the data.
The measures come as China ramps up public communication about foreign influence. In August, the Ministry of State Security said on its recently created WeChat account that it had identified a Chinese national in Italy suspected of spying for the US Central Intelligence Agency and warned of the possibility of Chinese nationals being imprisoned Recruit abroad.
The CIA did not respond to a request for comment.
Thomas said travel restrictions in particular are having an impact on China’s interactions with the world.
“The fewer Chinese officials go abroad, the less they can learn from the good things foreign governments do, the less familiar they are with foreign societies, and the less they understand how China is truly perceived in the world,” he said said.
Reporting by Engen Tham, Julie Zhu, Kane Wu, Xie Yu, Martin Quin Pollard and the Shanghai Newsroom. Additional reporting from the Beijing newsroom. Editing by David Crawshaw and Vidya Ranganathan.
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