In 2011, Matthew, then a junior official in one of China’s most powerful finance ministries, treated himself and his bride to a two-week honeymoon at the resort destination of Maui, in the Hawaiian islands.
The restrictions, which in some cases resemble outright bans, have come into sharper focus in the past decade as Beijing seeks to neutralise a widening range of risks, including preventing corrupt officials from fleeing abroad, thefts of state secrets or threats from foreign spies. Dali Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, said limiting such a large part of the population that is tasked with carrying out China’s policies will exact a toll in the long run.
Trips to Hong Kong and Macao are subject to similar restrictions, but tend to be treated with more leniency. Sources told the Post that many people are too discouraged to even try to apply - since “theoretically” most annual quotas for foreign travel are less than 10 days. In northwest Qinghai province, authorities in Mangya county pledged in April to ensure that more than 1,000 officials in the county - over 5 per cent of its population - “held zero” overseas travel documents in their possession.
But the restrictions sped up significantly in 2014. Then, two years into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, the travel curbs had expanded to cover key state-owned financial institutions, as well as the leadership at state-owned companies and universities. In a 2023 revision, the Communist Party’s disciplinary action regulations, a binding document that applies to all party members in the country, stipulated that it was a violation of party discipline to quietly change one’s itinerary for a private trip abroad after approval.