What? From CNN about a week ago,
China recently banned a foreign Wells Fargo executive and a United States government employee from leaving its territory, spotlighting its opaque judicial and security system and rekindling concerns over the risks facing foreign companies and nationals operating there.
I have written recently of American expatriates, moving abroad for various personal and political reasons. I had never considered the idea that you wouldn’t be allowed to come back of your own accord.
The CNN article digs deeper into the phenomenon of “exit bans,” where you haven’t been accused of any crime or wrongdoing, but kept from leaving because the local communists want to use you as a pawn in some geopolitical game they’re playing.
I concluded as a young man that I had no interest in living abroad, even as some of my close friends and business associates moved to places as varied as London, Switzerland, and Abu Dhabi to search out (and find) their fortunes.
In my middle age, I’ve concluded that America is my hill to die on, there is no backup country.
To each their own.
