Bloomberg: China expands travel pre-approval to families of top AI and chip executives
Bloomberg reported on September 28 that Beijing has extended its May pre-approval regime for AI and chip executives to their family members, covering top private-sector players like Alibaba and DeepSeek.
Bloomberg reported on September 28, cited by Web Pulse, that the Chinese government has quietly extended the May 2026 pre-approval regime for AI and chip executives to their family members, requiring government pre-approval before relatives can leave the country. The move is a significant escalation of China’s 2026 tightening of strategic-talent management.
The timeline: DeepSeek employees began surrendering passports in March 2026 around the R1 release; in March 2026 the co-founders of Manus AI were hit with exit bans over acquisition scrutiny; in May 2026 a pre-approval requirement formalized across top AI private-sector firms including Alibaba and DeepSeek; on September 15 nationwide rules took effect that explicitly tie exit-ban enforcement to "industrial and technological security" violations. The September 28 escalation folds family members into the same approval system.
The expansion marks a shift from state-linked individuals to private-sector engineers and researchers as a new category of intervention, where a spouse or minor child effectively needs government permission for an international trip. AI, chip, and hardware self-reliance is being further institutionalized. Bloomberg reports that employees at DeepSeek, Alibaba, and Cambricon have been asked to surrender or register passports, with some core technical roles seeing applications pile up or refused outright.