Chiba exit ban
China ‘barring thousands of citizens and foreigners from leaving country’
Analysis of Chinese court records shows eightfold increase in cases mentioning exit bans between 2016 and 2022
China is increasingly barring people, including foreign executives, from leaving the country, according to a report and research.
Scores of Chinese nationals and foreigners have been ensnared by exit bans, according to the report from the rights group Safeguard Defenders, while a Reuters analysis has found an apparent surge in court cases involving such bans in recent years.
Foreign business lobby groups are voicing concern about the trend, calling it a jarring message as the authorities say the country is open for business after three years of tight Covid-19 restrictions.
“Since Xi Jinping took power in 2012, China has expanded the legal landscape for exit bans and increasingly used them, sometimes outside legal justification,” the Safeguard Defenders report says.
The group estimates “tens of thousands” of Chinese citizens are banned from leaving at any one time. It also cites a 2022 academic paper that found 128 cases of foreigners being exit-banned between 1995 and 2019, including 29 Americans and 44 Canadians.
Focus on the exit bans comes as China-US tensions have risen over trade and security disputes and contrasts with China’s message that it is opening up to overseas investment and travel after the isolation of its Covid curbs.
The Reuters analysis of records on exit bans, from China’s supreme court database, shows an eightfold increase in cases mentioning bans between 2016 and 2022.
China last week beefed up its counter-espionage law, allowing exit bans to be imposed on anyone, Chinese or foreign, who is under investigation. Lire la suite »
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