China Tightens Control: Sweeping New Rules Restrict Travel and Exit from the Country

China has imposed a sweeping set of new rules restricting travel in and out of the country, a move observers say will give the government even more control over its citizens.

Citizens deemed to have “harmed” China’s national security or interests while abroad could also be barred from leaving China for up to three years.

But the law also says it will apply to anyone considered a threat to the country’s industrial or technological security.

China is keeping close watch on sectors such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence, as the race between Beijing and Washington for technological dominance heats up. Travel restrictions were reportedly imposed earlier on some executives from these industries.

In March, the co-founders of Manus, an artificial intelligence company that had been acquired by Meta, were reportedly barred from leaving China.

Under the new rules, border officials must now advise Chinese citizens against traveling to countries and regions considered “high risk”.

But even before the rules were announced, some people had been barred from traveling to certain countries. Civil servants were among the first groups subjected to these controls, which were later expanded to include state enterprise employees and ordinary citizens.

China was largely isolated from the world under Mao’s decades-long regime, and international travel became part of life for the Chinese only in the 1990s, after China underwent a series of reforms and openings.

Today’s various travel restrictions “bring back memories of that painful era”.

Piyao, a Chinese government platform that “debunks rumors”, published a statement last week saying the new rules “do not restrict the travel of ordinary citizens, but serve as a preventive measure against high-risk destinations and individuals with unusual travel patterns”.

The regulations were issued to address “problems” such as people being tricked into leaving the country or getting involved in illegal gambling and fraudulent activities abroad, the statement said.

According to publicly available information, Chinese citizens currently cannot check on their own whether they are subject to exit controls.

Unless an official written or verbal notice is issued, people generally only discover they have been barred from leaving when they apply for documents or when they try to leave.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and immigration authorities did not respond to questions from BBC Chinese.

Chinese authorities have drastically increased exit bans for their citizens in recent years, according to data provided to the BBC by the human rights group Safeguard Defenders.

While China’s Supreme Court database showed only 89 records mentioning exit bans in 2016, that figure rose to 188,760 last year.

The share of civil rulings involving exit bans also increased more than 30-fold between 2019 and 2025, from about 0.23% to 7.3%. The actual volume of such cases is believed to be even higher, due to a growing number of suspended rulings.