China’s new journey guidelines unsettle tech giants and expertise

For a long time, China has confronted accusations from the United States and the European Union of stealing their expertise.

From robotics and superior semiconductors to precision engineering and automotive elements, Chinese companies have recruited prime engineers, allegedly spied on Western rivals and been linked to cyberattacks aimed toward getting access to invaluable commerce secrets and techniques.

It is probably ironic, then, that China is now taking steps to forestall its personal high-end applied sciences and expertise from escaping overseas.

China’s Great Wall round its prime brains

Last week, new entry-exit guidelines took impact, giving Chinese authorities the ability to cease engineers, founders and different specialists from leaving the nation if their experience in batteries, uncommon earths or synthetic intelligence (AI) is judged a risk to “industrial and technological security.”

Recently, China has additionally tightened outbound-investment guidelines, cracked down on Chinese nationals holding their wealth offshore and restricted the posting of technical employees abroad.

Henry Gao, a legislation professor at Singapore Management University (SMU), believes that, taken collectively, the curbs “offer a rare glimpse into the true state of China’s economy.”

“These measures suggest that Beijing is deeply concerned about economic weakness and substantial capital outflows,” Gao informed DW, including that authorities are additionally decided to cease “entrepreneurs and skilled personnel from leaving the country.”

The pressure on China’s economic system is more and more arduous to cover. While demand for exports stays sturdy — particularly for high-tech items — the nation’s property crash has severely weakened home consumption.

Bank lending fell to a file low over the summer time, and new automotive gross sales in August dropped practically 1 / 4 year-on-year.

Beijing blocks offers, founders search exit

The identical anxiousness now extends to individuals and cash leaving. The most outstanding latest instance is Manus, an AI startup created by two Chinese nationals in Beijing. Last yr, the corporate moved its headquarters to Singapore, partly to keep away from US funding curbs and increase into world markets.

When Facebook proprietor Meta tried to amass Manus final December for $2 billion (€1.74 billion), Beijing blocked the transfer and barred the agency’s two founders from leaving the nation.

Just this month, Chinese social media has been awash with rumors that Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei and his daughter, CFO Meng Wanzhou, could have left the nation.

The claims have been picked up by Taiwanese and Indian media shops. On Wednesday, nonetheless, Chinese-language media shared a photograph of Ren in Shenzhen a day earlier, signing a cooperation cope with a Chinese automaker.

Wealthy Chinese wrestle to get capital out

Bloomberg Intelligence estimated that some $1 trillion in Chinese wealth had exited the nation final yr — the biggest quantity of “hot money” leaving since 2006, when information started.

Beijing has not tightened its annual $50,000 foreign-exchange quota that households could take in a foreign country. What has tightened, says Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at French funding financial institution Natixis, are the unofficial routes the rich used round that cap.

“They haven’t changed the $50,000 quota. They are now squeezing the people and agents that money usually travels with,” Garcia-Herrero informed DW.

An whole business has grown up, in China and overseas, to assist individuals get themselves and their capital out. Emigration brokers prepare visas and relocations, whereas offshore brokers and trusts assist Chinese nationals to park wealth abroad.

Companies generally use a international subsidiary, a list or a employees posting to take cash and know-how out collectively.

New guidelines could spur workarounds

SMU’s Gao believes the brand new curbs could show counterproductive, because the tougher it turns into to maneuver capital or individuals overseas, the larger the inducement for these with the means to seek out different methods out.

“Over time, that could further erode confidence, accelerate capital flight and deepen the very economic problems the measures are intended to contain,” Gao informed DW.

Garcia-Herrero, in the meantime, thinks the block on expertise will matter greater than the squeeze on capital.

“You can still move money slowly, with approvals,” she informed DW. “You cannot easily replace a process engineer who cannot board a plane — or who will not take an overseas job because of an indefinite ban.”

AI expertise now wants permission to fly

The threat is already hitting China’s AI companies, which are quick catching up with their US rivals within the race to supply essentially the most superior AI methods.

In May, Bloomberg reported that Chinese authorities now required prime AI researchers, founders and executives at companies like Alibaba and DeepSeek to acquire approval earlier than touring overseas.

Last yr, some DeepSeek employees have been requested at hand of their passports, in accordance with tech information web site The Information. Beijing has neither confirmed nor denied the observe.

Bloomberg reported in January final yr that different tech engineers face related stress, together with these serving to international companies lower their reliance on China by constructing factories in Vietnam and India.

Lawyers and officers tighten authorized recommendation

For international nationals, each Chinese and international companies generally disguise a working go to to China to keep away from scrutiny and visa delays. They could recommend a visit is for tourism, enterprise conferences or a manufacturing facility tour quite than precise work.

Ahead of the brand new curbs, worldwide legislation companies like DLA Piper suggested corporations to maintain visa filings “truthful” and “complete,” warning {that a} mismatch between the paperwork and the precise work might now imply an entry ban of as much as 5 years.

The new guidelines state {that a} customer ought to, in precept, be informed if they’re banned. However, Chinese authorities could withhold notification if it “may affect national security or the investigation of criminal cases.”

In an updated travel advisory earlier this month, the US State Department went additional, warning Americans to “exercise increased caution in mainland China due to … the use of exit bans without a fair and transparent process under the law, and the risk of unjust arrest or detention.”

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

Editor’s word: This article was first printed on September 23, 2026 and was up to date shortly after to replicate new reporting on the whereabouts of Huawei’s founder.