China's tech export controls: travel bans, blocked deals, solid-state batteries

That is the sharpest edge of a wider turn. Beijing is restricting who leaves, what technology leaves and which deals close, while still pushing its own tech exports out into the world.

DW reported on 24 September that the rules give Chinese authorities power to bar engineers, founders and other specialists from leaving the country if their expertise in batteries, rare earths or artificial intelligence is judged a threat to "industrial and technological security." The same report says China has tightened outbound-investment rules, cracked down on Chinese nationals holding wealth offshore and restricted the posting of technical staff overseas.

Henry Gao, a law professor at Singapore Management University, told DW the curbs "offer a rare glimpse into the true state of China's economy" and suggest Beijing is worried about weakness and capital outflows. Bloomberg Intelligence estimated about $1 trillion in Chinese wealth left the country last year, the largest hot-money outflow since records began in 2006, according to the same DW report.

The most cited case is Manus, an AI startup founded by two Chinese nationals in Beijing. DW reported that Meta tried to acquire Manus last December for $2 billion, that Beijing blocked the move and barred the two founders from leaving.

Rumours also spread this month on Chinese social media that Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and his daughter, CFO Meng Wanzhou, may have left the country. Chinese-language media shared a photo of Ren in Shenzhen on Wednesday signing a cooperation deal with a Chinese automaker, DW reported.

Natixis chief economist for Asia-Pacific Alicia Garcia-Herrero told DW that Beijing has not changed the $50,000 annual foreign-exchange quota for households but is "squeezing the people and agents that money usually travels with."

On the same day the Manus and Ren stories were circulating, Beijing was busy exporting different things: satellites, cars and battery standards.

SpaceNews reported on 1 October that China completed its ninth and tenth launches of September, sending Guowang and Yaogan satellites into orbit, and now has 70 orbital launch attempts for 2026. The country is aiming to pass 100 launches in a calendar year for the first time and would need at least 31 launches in Q4, SpaceNews said.

The Guowang batch is the 26th group for a state satellite internet project run by China SatNet and planned to comprise around 13,000 satellites, according to SpaceNews. The Yaogan-40 (04) satellites entered near polar orbits of around 800 km and are described by Xinhua as being for electromagnetic environment detection, the report said.

Cars are moving too. CnEVPost reported on 1 October that Geely Auto sold 292,168 vehicles in September, up 6.97% year on year, its highest monthly total this year. Exports hit 106,685 units, up 162.35% year on year but down 3.10% from August, ending eight consecutive months of record exports, according to the report.

At home, the picture is weaker. CnEVPost reported on 30 September that China's NEV retail sales fell 20% year on year in the first 27 days of September, with overall passenger car retail sales down 29%, citing the China Passenger Car Association.

Battery policy is the clearest case of Beijing trying to steer technology outward on its own terms. CnEVPost reported on 28 September that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released a five-year battery plan, dated 14 September and issued with six other agencies, targeting initial large-scale use of all-solid-state batteries by 2030. The plan also calls for long-life lithium batteries to reach 15,000 charge-discharge cycles and for leading manufacturers to reach parts-per-billion defect rates.

Foreign carmakers are adapting to that supply base rather than avoiding it. CnEVPost reported on 29 September that Hyundai's China joint venture launched the Ioniq V electric sedan from a limited-time 99,900 yuan, using CATL batteries and Momenta driver assistance. On 28 September, CnEVPost reported that SAIC Volkswagen opened pre-sales for the ID. ERA 8X extended-range SUV ahead of an October 12 launch, also using Momenta's R7 system.

Even Toyota's China structure is being reshaped. CnEVPost reported on 28 September that GAC Group plans to issue shares to acquire China FAW's 50% stake in FAW Toyota, a deal that would give GAC stakes in Toyota's northern and southern joint ventures. FAW Toyota's net profit fell to 4.23 billion yuan in 2025 from 4.72 billion yuan in 2024, according to unaudited figures cited in the plan.

The export push meets a different kind of restriction abroad. Ars Technica reported on 28 September that China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology asked Alibaba and ByteDance to share plans to buy Nvidia's RTX Pro 5500 chips, citing sources familiar with the talks who spoke to The Information. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has blamed US export controls for cutting Nvidia's share of China's advanced AI chip market from about 95% to zero, Ars Technica reported.

For all the controls, The Diplomat argued on 30 September that the "China Plus One" strategy has not removed China from supply chains. It cited the McKinsey Global Institute's 2026 update saying China-US trade fell by around 30% in 2025, and noted China is the only country making goods in all 41 industrial categories and 666 sub-categories in the UN classification.