Chinese President Xi Jinping is further tightening his influence on society.

Authorities have ordered the passports of a growing number of public school teachers and other public employees to be recalled.

The new bans are the latest in a series of travel restrictions during the three-year COVID-19 restrictions on Chinese citizens.

Let’s take a closer look.

The passport recall campaign

The passport collection operation, carried out as part of the so-called “personal travel management abroad,” allows local government officials to control and monitor who can travel abroad, how often and where.

“All teachers and public sector workers have been asked to hand over our passports,” said an elementary school teacher in a major city in western Sichuan province The Financial Timesand added: “If we want to travel on board, we have to submit an application to the city education office, and I don’t think it will be approved,” the teacher said.

Because of the sensitivity of the topic, these teachers spoke on condition of anonymity.

Teachers in nearby Anhui province and central Hubei province Yichang told the outlet that they had also been ordered to surrender their passports.

Institutions in Guangdong, Jiangsu and Henan provinces expressed dissatisfaction with the latest move on social media.

“I studied English and my life’s dream is to visit an English-speaking country, but it feels like this dream will soon be shattered,” a Henan teacher posted on the social media site Xiaohongshu.

Wenzhou’s travel guidelines for educators indicate that the government is concerned about the viewpoints they may encounter abroad.

Educators traveling abroad are not allowed to have contact with the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong or other “hostile foreign forces,” according to instructions posted by the Ouhai District Education Office in Wenzhou in March along with new travel restrictions for teachers on its website of the district has published.

The rules restricting foreign travel have been publicly posted on the websites of several universities and educational institutions across China.

According to an April 2023 notice, teachers at Wuhan University’s computer science department must hand over all passports to university authorities “for safekeeping” within seven days of receipt.

At Taizhou University in Zhejiang, faculty and staff who want to travel abroad for personal reasons must obtain approval from the human resources department, according to an October 2019 notice.

A similar notice was seen on the Shanghai University of Sport website.

The approval process

To travel on board, teachers must apply to their schools and would generally be limited to a single trip of less than 20 days per year, the Wenzhou district notice said.

A Wuhan resident with family ties to the education industry shared Radio Free Asia (RFA) Mandarin points out that visiting Hong Kong requires several approval processes and reporting to the local government’s education office.

“First the school has to approve it, then the district education office and finally it is sent to the municipal education office, which has to approve it before you can leave China,” she said, adding: “Some teachers may now be prevented from taking admission “to do their children abroad during their summer holidays.”

Veteran human rights activist and former teacher He Peirong, who now lives abroad, said the restrictions appeared to target parents who want to send their children to study abroad as a first step towards emigrating the entire family.

“Sending your children abroad to study is the first step towards emigration. It is a very safe way to transfer assets and eventually emigrate,” he said.

Meanwhile, teachers who refuse to hand over their passports or travel abroad without permission will face “criticism and clarification” or be referred to China’s anti-corruption agency depending on the severity of their case, the statement said.

Violators would also be subject to a travel ban for two to five years.

Not limited to teachers

Well, the travel restrictions don’t just extend to teachers.

An entry-level worker at a bank in Nanjing said she was asked to hand over her passport when she joined the state-owned group last year. After quitting in March, she had to wait six months for a “de-secrecy process” before she could get it back.

In central Hunan province, a mid-level official at a local government investment fund said he had received approval from nine different authorities to vacation abroad but still could not get his passport back. “Nobody wanted to tell me what exactly it would take to get my passport back,” he said The Financial Times.

The restrictions also affect pensioners.

A 76-year-old who retired from a state-owned aircraft manufacturer more than a decade ago said his former employer revoked his passport this year for “security reasons” and banned him from visiting relatives abroad.

“I have no access to sensitive information and I am a patriot. My former employer has no reason to stop me from visiting my grandson,” he said Reuters.

Map connections

According to a report from Chinese authorities are also examining personal relationships abroad Reuters.

Starting in 2022, residents began 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 requested information about relatives with foreign nationality or permanent residence abroad, as well as details of foreign assistance or experience, the report said, adding that this was the first time they had received the requests.

The reason

The push to recall passports appears to be based on national legislation in 2003 that introduced a travel restriction system for key people, including mid- to senior-level officials.

The restrictions have been expanded since 2021 and include bans on travel abroad, stricter limits on the frequency and duration of travel, burdensome approval processes and pre-departure confidentiality training. These measures were not related to COVID-19.

The restrictions on staff at state-owned companies appear to be linked to a growing campaign to combat foreign espionage.

Neil Thomas, an expert on Chinese politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis in Washington, told _Reuters: “_Beijing is increasingly paranoid about the threat of espionage from Western countries, and preventing government employees from traveling abroad could be one way to do so “Reduce opportunities for espionage by foreign powers.”

He added that travel restrictions in particular would have 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 are doing, the less familiar they are with foreign societies, and the less they understand how China is truly perceived in the world.”

China’s Foreign Ministry said it was not aware of the situation and referred questions to relevant authorities Financial Times.

Xi’s government has long issued travel bans on human rights activists, dissidents, human rights lawyers and their families.

Similar measures are also being implemented in Tibet and Xinjiang following mass protests and uprisings by disgruntled ethnic minorities in 2008 and 2009.

Despite these restrictions and bans, hundreds of thousands of people have managed to leave China to start a new life abroad since the pandemic restrictions. This was called the “run” movement.

With input from agencies