Passport · Full chronicle and history

Israel seized 33 Chinese citizens at the Allenby Bridge border crossing. These people had previously exited Jordan using genuine Chinese passports, then took out forged Japanese passports in an attempt to enter the Israeli-controlled West Bank.

According to a summary by blogger Qiqi Baba, passport application policies in Fujian, Jiangxi, Henan, Hunan and many other regions have been tightened, and the procedures for going abroad have become more cumbersome than before.

According to blogger Qiqi Baba, many people were contacted by relevant departments in their hometowns after returning to China with their passports and were asked to cancel them.

China began enforcing the 19-article Regulations on Exit and Entry Administration promulgated on July 31 starting September 15, expanding the scope of those barred from leaving the country from specific groups to all departing passengers at every port of exit, particularly affecting AI researchers and entrepreneurs, drawing widespread attention and concern at home and abroad. On September 10, officials issued a clarification saying the new rules mainly target cross-border gambling, telecom fraud, and the illicit transfer of technology. On the same day, the human rights organization Safeguard Defenders released a report noting an explosive growth in China's exit bans, with nearly 200,000 mentions of exit restrictions in Supreme People's Court rulings in 2025.

On September 9, a netizen who claimed to be someone working inside the system posted "Smashing the Iron Rice Bowl with My Own Hands, Unlocking the Iron Shackles with My Own Hands," saying that because civil servants' passports are kept by their employers and they cannot resign within five years, she reached a tacit understanding with her leader and then deliberately skipped work for 15 consecutive days to trigger the dismissal procedure, completing the formalities over three months to get her passport back. The post sparked discussion among netizens and was dubbed "goodwill absenteeism."

Sources in Beijing's financial circles revealed that some finance and state-owned enterprise executives, unable to resign normally, have asked acquaintances among doctors to issue critical illness certificates stating "late-stage cancer," while others deliberately drove drunk and asked traffic police to pull them over, preferring administrative detention, in order to force their employers to dismiss them and thereby recover the passports held in centralized custody.

A netizen in Gansu reported that some subdistrict residents' committees require ordinary residents to hand over their passports to grid workers for safekeeping; another netizen said that even the passports of temporary hospital staff were confiscated.

After members of the public in Paris left comments in the Google Maps review section of the Chinese Communist Party's embassy in France, the embassy replied about two weeks later, asking for the owner's name or requesting that the passport be mailed to the embassy.

A blogger posted a video saying that multiple followers reported that when they applied for ordinary passports online, the system showed their applications as not approved.

A blogger stated that followers reported being denied passport applications; she also mentioned that personnel in certain regions or departments require approval, guarantees, and sureties for travel.

The "2026 Henley Passport Index" report shows that mainland Chinese passports can travel visa-free to 83 destinations, ranking 60th.

Screenshots circulating on Weibo show that the CCP is requiring personnel in the system to surrender their passports, with some units even demanding the "voluntary cancellation" of passports and conducting audits of overseas travel records from the past five years.

A Paris resident found 8 Chinese passports at a local metro station and called the Chinese Communist Party embassy in France for assistance, but the staff member hung up after answering the phone.

Kuomintang legislator Hsu Chiao-hsin proposed freezing the Foreign Ministry's budget on the grounds that the English word "China" on Taiwan's passport is not large enough, drawing criticism that she is causing travel and residency troubles for overseas Taiwanese.