A Note Without a Seal: Reflections on the Rule of Law Triggered by Feng Zhenghu’s “Three-No” Exit Ban

“Under Article 12, Item （5） of the Exit and Entry Administration Law of the People’s Republic of China, because you may endanger national security and interests, the relevant competent department of the State Council has decided that you are not permitted to leave the country.”

After saying this, the police officer handed over a note bearing only a mobile-phone number. No official seal, no document number, no period of validity, no information about avenues of legal redress—nothing at all.

At noon on March 17, 2026, at the outbound border-inspection checkpoint of Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport. Just before boarding his flight to Tokyo to visit relatives, Feng Zhenghu was taken into a reception room. His wife, Ms. Chen, was left waiting outside. A few minutes later, an oral notification and a white note bearing the three characters “Officer Zhou” and a mobile-phone number became the entirety of the documentation for restricting this ordinary Chinese citizen from leaving the country.

This was Feng Zhenghu’s sixth trip to Japan to visit relatives in the past seven years. Since 2019, apart from the objective impediment of three years of pandemic lockdowns, he and his wife had travelled almost every year between Shanghai and Tokyo—staying in Japan for about two months each time and living the utterly ordinary leisure life of retired people. They held valid multiple-entry Japanese visas, had never had any criminal or other illegal record, and had never encountered any obstacle because of their entry into or exit from the country. This time, however, everything changed.

Without any prior notification, written document, or explanation, a retired man’s trip to visit relatives was suddenly characterized as conduct that “may endanger national security and interests.”

I. “No Document, No Reason, No Time Limit”: Enforcement in a Procedural Vacuum

Looking at the entire enforcement process, what is most disturbing is not the exit restriction itself—national-security grounds are indeed legally authorized grounds for controlling departures—but the procedural vacuum reflected in the manner of enforcement.

According to Feng Zhenghu’s account in his application for administrative reconsideration, the enforcement officers at the scene never issued any form of written decision or notification restricting his departure; did not explain the decision’s period of validity or conditions for termination; did not provide any specific factual basis directly related to him; and, still less, did not inform him in accordance with the law of his statutory right to seek administrative reconsideration or bring an administrative lawsuit.

The only “material evidence” was an unsigned note bearing contact information.

Within the framework of China’s administrative law, this constitutes a typical administrative act with “no document, no reason, and no time limit”—a “three-no” administrative act. Under the Administrative Penalty Law, the Administrative Compulsion Law, and the basic principles of administrative law, when an administrative authority imposes a major adverse measure on a citizen—especially an act restricting departure that directly touches on personal liberty and freedom of movement—it must do so in writing, stating the legally required formal elements, including the identity of the decision-making body, the factual and legal bases, the content of the decision, and avenues of legal redress. Oral communication and a handwritten slip of paper alone do not satisfy the statutory requirements for an administrative document.

This approach has two consequences: externally, it makes the boundaries of the administrative act unclear—how long is the ban valid? One year? Five years? For life? Feng Zhenghu has no way of knowing; internally, it effectively deprives the citizen of the rights to know, to defend himself, and to seek legal redress. When a citizen cannot even obtain the formal document restricting his departure, how can he apply for reconsideration? How can he bring a lawsuit before a court? How can he prove that this administrative act ever actually occurred?

II. “May”: A Legally Elastic Word Stretched Without Limit

In legal texts, the word “may” is not an empty vessel open to arbitrary interpretation.

Article 12, Item （5） of the Exit and Entry Administration Law of the People’s Republic of China authorizes the relevant authorities to restrict citizens from leaving the country when they “may endanger national security and interests.” But under legal principles and the general principles of administrative enforcement, applying this provision must be premised on conclusive, specific case facts directly related to the person concerned. It should be based on a real and verifiable risk, rather than abstract concerns, broad categorization, or blanket coverage derived from general policies.

In his application, Feng Zhenghu raised a forceful question: Over the preceding seven years, he had legally travelled between China and Japan five times, passing entry and exit inspections smoothly each time. His status—a retired citizen, neither a person handling classified information nor a state-agency employee—had not changed; his pattern of conduct—short-term visits to relatives and sightseeing, followed by returning on time—had remained stable and unchanged. So what kind of “new risk factor” emerged on March 17, 2026, causing a long-standing lawful trip to visit relatives suddenly to be deemed something that “may endanger national security”?

The respondent—the Political Security Protection Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security—has provided no answer.

Reciting a statutory provision as if it were a spell, and replacing the presentation of specific facts with the reading aloud of abstract legal language, represents a serious departure from the legally required standard of proof. The legality of an administrative act depends not only on whether the statutory provision cited is correct, but also on whether the facts on which it is based are established and whether the evidence is sufficient. If any citizen may be prevented from leaving the country without being told specific reasons, then the word “may” in the law becomes nothing less than a back door that can be opened at any time.

III. When the Macro Situation Becomes Shackles for Individuals

The evidentiary materials contain a thought-provoking analysis of the background. Feng Zhenghu speculated that the restriction might be related to two broader factors: first, some Chinese citizens had publicly opposed the Chinese Communist Party and the government after going abroad and applied for political asylum, prompting the relevant authorities to adopt a “one-size-fits-all” approach to control; second, China-Japan relations had remained tense since the end of 2025, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chinese diplomatic and consular missions in Japan had advised Chinese citizens to exercise caution about travelling to Japan in the near term.

Even if these speculations are merely the applicant’s unilateral inferences, the issue they reveal is of broad significance: when administrative authorities indiscriminately apply the geopolitical situation at the macro level and generalized concerns about a particular group to ordinary citizens posing no actual danger, the principle of case-by-case legal review is hollowed out, and the exception for “national security” is transformed into a “catch-all provision” for arbitrarily restricting citizens’ personal liberty.

This is precisely the core value of the administrative reconsideration system: through factual and legal review of individual cases, it prevents the generalized application of administrative power and collateral harm to individuals. The reason the law requires administrative acts to be based on case-by-case judgments is that between the “macro” and the “micro,” and between the “group” and the “individual,” there lies a red line of the rule of law. Once that red line is crossed, even action taken in the name of the noblest ideal loses its legitimacy.

IV. The Principle of Proportionality: Using a Cannon to Kill a Mosquito Is Not Enforcement but an Abuse of Power

Administrative authorities exercising their powers should comply with the principle of proportionality: the means must contribute to achieving the objective (suitability), must be the option that causes the least infringement of citizens’ rights and interests (necessity), and must maintain a reasonable balance between the interests harmed and those protected (proportionality in the strict sense).

In Feng Zhenghu’s case, the respondent adopted a measure that completely deprived him of the right to leave the country—with an unclear duration, comprehensive scope, and no flexibility whatsoever. The objective this measure sought to achieve was to prevent a retired man who had travelled in and out of the country normally for seven years from “possibly” endangering national security. The serious imbalance between the means and the objective has reached a point that is difficult to assess by any rational standard.

More cruelly, the decision caused real-world harm. Feng Zhenghu’s wife, Ms. Chen, suffers from chronic ailments including dizziness. After suddenly learning at the airport that her husband had been restricted from leaving the country, she was extremely frightened, her blood pressure rose sharply, and her physical condition became unsuitable for continuing the flight. To avoid an irreversible health risk, the two were forced to abandon their trip and return home. Their tickets became unusable, their family reunion was interrupted, and the psychological blow was severe.

An ordinary family with no record of any criminal or other illegal conduct has been forced to bear such a heavy cost in life because of an administrative decision whose reason they still do not know. Does this kind of enforcement really protect national security, or does it protect the arbitrary exercise of power?

V. “Classified” Is Not a Passport to a Place Outside the Law

The administrative reconsideration system was designed as an internal mechanism for correction and oversight within the administrative system. In practice, however, when a respondent refuses to provide any substantive materials on the grounds that a matter is “classified,” the system’s oversight function is hollowed out.

In his application, Feng Zhenghu expressed a clear understanding: he recognized that national-security matters might involve confidential information. But he also pointed out that “classified” absolutely does not mean that an administrative authority may depart from the rule-of-law framework and refuse all forms of legal oversight. Even when a case involves confidential factors, the respondent can fully submit to the reconsideration authority factual points with classified information removed, proof of the decision-making body’s qualifications, and records of the procedural handling. The internal legality review conducted through administrative reconsideration does not require the public disclosure of all confidential content—it requires only a factual framework sufficient to determine whether the administrative act was lawful.

If merely declaring something “classified” allows an administrative authority neither to issue a document to the person concerned nor to submit materials to the reconsideration authority, then the words “national security” become an all-purpose shield for administrative authorities to evade every form of legal oversight. That is precisely the real harm to national security—because the rule of law is the strongest defense of national security.

VI. Epilogue: How Much Weight Can a Slip of Paper Bear?

On April 3, 2026, Feng Zhenghu formally submitted an application for administrative reconsideration to the Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China, together with eight items of evidence: flight bookings, boarding passes, multiple-entry visas, a copy of the slip bearing the mobile-phone number that he received during the border enforcement, and a complete record of his six trips between China and Japan since 2019.

He made four requests: that the decision restricting his departure be revoked; that the administrative act be confirmed to have seriously violated procedure and misapplied the law; that the respondent be ordered to submit all statutory bases and enforcement records; and that implementation of the departure restriction be suspended during the reconsideration review.

This is almost everything an ordinary citizen can do in the face of administrative power—raise questions, submit evidence, request review, and await a decision. He chose neither silence nor an extreme way of expressing his dissatisfaction, but instead followed the path laid out by the law, proceeding step by step toward the door of the reconsideration authority.

Can this unsealed slip of paper bear all of a citizen’s expectations of the rule of law?

Article 37 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China provides: “The personal freedom of citizens of the People’s Republic of China is inviolable.” Article 33 solemnly declares: “The state respects and safeguards human rights.” These words are not decorative rhetoric, but the most fundamental cornerstone of China’s legal order. When they are replaced by a mere oral notification and a slip of paper, what is harmed is not only an elderly man’s right to visit relatives, but also the credibility of the entire legal system in the eyes of ordinary people.

As Feng Zhenghu wrote at the end of his application: “National security is certainly important, but its protection must be grounded in the framework of the rule of law.” This is the most simple and unassuming of statements, but when an ordinary citizen is forced to say it in an application for administrative reconsideration, it is no longer merely a statement of legal principle; it becomes a silent question posed by an era about the level of administrative civilization in a country.