China suspends issuance of private passports

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The Chinese Communist Party administration announced on July 30 that it would suspend the issuance of private passports to Chinese citizens indefinitely, repeatedly emphasizing measures against pandemics. But outside of China, many have asked what the real motives are to limit people’s movements.

Liu Hai Tao, director of the border inspection control bureau of the Chinese administration’s immigration bureau, said at a press conference of the Chinese National Council on Wednesday: measures. “

One of the measures was to “strictly restrict the cross-border movement of non-emergency and non-essential people.”

“The Immigration Bureau will not temporarily issue private passports or other immigration permits for non-essential, non-emergency reasons,” Liu said.

However, the administration did not specify when private passport issuance would resume.

Some Chinese citizens have claimed that strict management of passports actually began months before the official announcement and has already affected the lives of citizens.

As early as April, he posted on the popular mainland Chinese website Douban that he needed to renew his passport to handle the overseas business of foreign customers, but it was rejected.

According to Radio Free Asia (RFA), suspension is totally prohibited as there is no specification of how to define mandatory and urgent or non-mandatory and non-emergency and all passport applications for various reasons are rejected.

Renewal of passports for overseas Chinese citizens, such as the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles, was also refused.

Epoch Times Photo
On July 23, 2020, a person is standing in front of the Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in San Francisco, California. (Philip Pacheco / AFP via Getty Images)

Some analysts believe that pandemic prevention is just an excuse, and that the administration is using it to further strengthen control of the Chinese.

China’s current commentator, Fang Yuan, told RFA that non-urgent suspension of entry and exit documents may have something to do with a pandemic, but that’s not the main reason. He believes the administration sees it as a necessary means of control to centralize resources to deal with the trade war with the United States.

U.S. legal scholar Teng Biao said the actions of the Immigration Bureau of the Chinese administration violated China’s own laws that protect the basic rights of citizens, such as obtaining passports and permitting travel.

Mr. Ten believes that pandemic prevention is just an excuse for the government to tighten control of people’s movements and prevent the import of Western ideologies that affect the Chinese people.

The Wall Street Journal internally announced in June that the Chinese administration would extend cross-border restrictions for another year to avoid interruptions in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th National Convention. I reported that it was decided.

Alex Wu

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