China’s latest strategy to win the artificial intelligence race is to lock in its top talent. Literally. Under draconian exit rules that took effect this week, the brightest minds in tech can simply be barred from leaving the country.
It’s a reflection of how little trust China has in its own citizens; how fixated the Communist Party has become on overtaking the United States in the battle for AI supremacy; and how naive it is for American politicians to seek a bilateral deal to limit the development of frontier models.
“Decree No. 841,” which took effect on Tuesday, gives Chinese authorities carte blanche to stop anyone from leaving the country if deemed to pose a potential threat to national security. The decree seems to have been left deliberately vague in defining those to whom it might apply.
Specifically, anyone can be blocked from traveling if accused of violating China’s restrictions on exports of sensitive technology. This already happened in March, when China stopped two co-founders of the AI start-up Manus from leaving the country after regulators began investigating the firm’s sale to Meta. Beijing later scuppered that deal.
The U.S. will not fend off a rising China by mimicking its tactics. America’s open system comes with risks that must be managed, especially espionage, but welcoming the smartest engineers will be critical to prevailing in the new cold war.
Noncitizens aren’t spared from Beijing’s decree. Foreigners can be barred from leaving China if they appear on any of the communist government’s multiple blacklists for having “endangered China’s national sovereignty.” China routinely issues exit bans for foreign nationals, including American citizens, often with no explanation.
Beijing already had multiple regulations allowing exit bans on national security grounds, but the new policy codifies and expands those powers, including by linking the exit bans specifically to technological progress. China is also concerned about capital flight and wants to restrict its wealthy citizens from taking money abroad.
China began to open itself to the outside world with Deng Xiaoping’s reform policies in 1978. More freedom for its people to travel abroad came two decades later, starting in the early 2000s. Fewer than 12 percent of Chinese citizens are believed to hold passports, but they made an estimated 167.5 million outbound trips last year.
China grew wealthy and powerful by opening itself to the world. Restricting the movement of people, technology and ideas risks taking it in the opposite direction. Confident countries don’t worry that their citizens won’t return from vacation abroad.
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