China Detaining American Citizens, Including US Government Employees

I'm sure there are a lot of good reasons to visit China--especially if you are doing business there. 

However, it sounds like it can be quite risky, especially if you are of Chinese descent. Even US citizens working for the federal government or Fortune 500 corporations can be arbitrarily detained by China and prevented from exiting the country. 

JUST NOW: Two Chinese-Americans are actively being blocked by Beijing from exiting China —

• US Commerce Department employee exit ban confirmed yesterday
• Wells Fargo banker exit ban confirmed this morning pic.twitter.com/sIrfVxKMS1

— Kareem Rifai 🌐 (@KareemRifai) July 21, 2025

China may have modernized over the past 30 years, but it remains a modern totalitarian country. Its gloss of wealth and power hides an underbelly of corruption and the arbitrary exercise of power--and a seeming indifference to the rights even of foreigners who enter their borders. 

Chinese authorities have blocked a U.S.-based Wells Fargo banker from returning home, and separately sentenced a Japanese executive to more than three years’ imprisonment for espionage.

Although few details of the cases have been made known, they are a reminder of China’s expansive security apparatus and what to some executives, business groups and foreign governments is an opaque legal system that makes traveling to the country risky.

In a separate case, a U.S. government employee who had traveled to China on a personal trip has also been prevented from leaving the country for many weeks, said two people with a detailed knowledge of the case. The Washington Post first reported that the employee was unable to leave the country.

The Wells Fargo executive, Mao Chenyue, was not detained. But she has been ordered not to leave China, according to the bank. “We are closely tracking this situation and working through the appropriate channels so our employee can return to the United States as soon as possible,” Wells Fargo said in a statement.

On Monday, the Chinese foreign ministry confirmed at a regular briefing that Ms. Mao was not allowed to leave China for the time being, saying that she was “involved in a criminal case” and was obligated to cooperate with an investigation by the authorities.

The spokesman, Guo Jiakun, did not provide further details, but he said: “China will, as always, welcome people from all countries to visit China for tourism and business.” Asked about the U.S. government employee also facing an exit ban, Mr. Guo said he had no information to provide.

Eric Zheng, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, had on Sunday called for the release of more details in the Wells Fargo case in order to reassure the foreign business community.

Wells Fargo has suspended travel by its executives to China. Many Japanese companies have already been limiting travel to China and have been withdrawing family members of managers stationed in China.

China's modernization has been driven by its acceptance into the World Trade Organization in 2001. For nearly 25 years, China has undergone increasing integration into the global economy, emerging as the world's manufacturing hub. 

But politically, it has only modernized in the sense that the technical tools it uses to implement totalitarian rule have become more sophisticated. And as it has grown in economic power, it has flexed its totalitarian muscle against foreigners doing business in China. 

Wells Fargo, for instance, is a major player in China, so detaining one of its executives is a big move. However, the Chinese are aware that Wells Fargo doesn't want to exit the Chinese market, so the government feels free to push it around. 

The same holds true for Japanese companies, obviously. At least they seem to think so. 

But will offending the United States government under Donald Trump by detaining an American citizen who works for him be a smart move? I doubt it. 

All this brings into sharp relief a fact we often miss: free markets depend on free societies. You cannot have free markets if coercion is a normal way of doing business in other realms of life. If governments can exercise arbitrary powers such as detaining people with flimsy or no reasons, it's a fool's errand to do business in that country.

At least not to the extent that your own business depends on that relationship. 

Lie down with mangy dogs, and you will wake up covered in fleas. 

Decouple with China. 

• Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.

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