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My government (China) cancelled my passport. I'm in Malaysia. What can I do?
Reason of the cancellation: I posted a tweet saying EAT MY ASS while tagging a government institution. I mean I don't know for sure this was the reason but I can't think of anything else. I guess China wants me to be stuck in China my whole life. That is not something I want.
I realized my passport is cancelled at the airport.
I'm not a dual citizen.
I'm in Malaysia as a tourist.
It would be the best to contact Chinese authorities to inquire about the reason. Even if the cancellation is political, contacting them would not cause you a higher risk than your unclear legal situation at the moment, and such contact may be necessary to obtain evidences that can justify any claim of protection.
If you have frequently travelled to certain countries in South East Asia for unclear private purposes (documented studies and employments aside), and your place of origin is considered high risk (e.g. Fujian), you may have simply been victim of the rather dystopian automated high-risk individual detection system to combat (at least supposedly) the extremely widespread telecommunication fraud. Risk factors includes young age, previously unemployed or employed in low paid jobs, large or numerous financial transactions for unclear reasons, lack of education, record of unpaid debts, or from a village with a disproportionate number of foreign telecom fraud suspects.
If this is the reason and you return, you must be prepared to provide documentation and explanation for all your travels to be eligible for a passport again.
A non essential travel ban is in place at the moment so if you return you will not be able to exit for tourism for some period of time, even if you obtain a passport.
Based on the comments you made, I do not think the tweet being the reason for cancellation is probable. Twitter is unlikely to cooperate with the Chinese authorities and China is unlikely to investigate with that much resources into such a tweet which there are tens of thousands of such messages on Twitter.
But of course, no matter what other reason it may be, the situation sucks for you. There likely is unfortunately no good solutions for you.
Asylum may be an option like other answers and comments have suggested. But I must bring to your attention that:
Malaysia is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention and does not have a definite comprehensive domestic law dealing with refugees.
As such, you will not obtain an internationally recognized Convention refugee travel document. A travel permit may be issued on a case-by-case by Malaysian authorities, and it is not guaranteed to be accepted by all countries.
For the same reason, you have no legal status in Malaysia, even if Malaysia out of good will follows in general the principle of non-refoulment and allows the operation of the UN Refugee Agency. Working is not legally authorized, even if occasional "under-the-table" small jobs are tolerated.
Asylum seekers who return to China are likely to have consequences more serious than for a rude tweet, and it creates even more difficulty for obtaining a passport in the future.
The answer is tied to what you want to do
If you want to go back to China, you need to contact the PRC embassy in Malaysia, and sort the issue that got your passport canceled in the first place, of course, it may attract issues at your return in China.
If you don't want to go back, or if the previous option failed before you even left Malaysia, the only way is to seek asylum in Malaysia :
Your legal status is not infinite and may put you in another load of issues if caught as an illegal immigrant (Malay jails aren't the prettiest place you can serve time in).
Note that has its own issues and consequences too of course.
To do so, the steps are laid out in the UNHCR site for Malaysia
If your passport is cancelled, there is a reason for that. What I find strange is that your passport is cancelled while you were away and not at home. This may be an error by the Chinese authorities. I mean they cancelled your passport based on your behaviour not realizing you are not inside China. Possible, but unlikely. Bottom line is; passport is cancelled. Risk of retributions on return. Whatever the government says now is not relevant anymore because they can NOT be trusted.
It is possible you will get calls and/or messages from friends and family asking you to come back and tell you not to worry about a thing and that everything will be ok. When this happens you should NOT return to China again, since this is the standard ploy of the government to get you back.
You have a very difficult decision to make right now. Because not going back may means you will not see your family again. It is also possible that they will make the lives of your family in China more difficult in order to pressure you into coming back to China, while at the same time you may also never see your family again if you go back to China simply because they will lock you up.
If I were you, I would ask for asylum. However, the Chinese government has been known to go to extremes in order to get the people back to China. There are many recorded cases of kidnapping and people smuggling from foreign countries back to China. With this in mind and considering the relatively good relation that Malaysia has with China, I would not ask for asylum in Malaysia, but I would go to an embassy of an other country. I would likely try an embassy of one of the western European countries instead. Alternatively you could go to the embassy of Australia, New Zealand or Canada as well. I really think those are your best chances.
Furthermore, I would NOT enter the Chinese embassy! The risk is too great I think.
Good luck! You need it my friend.
UPDATE 01: I just spoke to the Dutch embassy and they informed me that you can not apply for political assylum inside the embassy. They have suggested to contact the UNHCR for this. I have tried to contact them here in Thailand, but nobody was available who could speak English. I will keep trying and update here if/when I know more. Since the Netherlands is an EU member and most countries are pretty much aligned on immigration policy I think that there is little chance you can apply for asylulm in the embassy of other countries.
Your legal options are:
The reality of many refugees is that their travel involves non-legal means, in particular, undocumented border crossings, to reach the country where they wish to seek asylum. Some may also use forged travel documents. Of course, non-legal means of transportation carry a high risk both from authorities (detention and deportation), from criminals (scammers posing as helpers), and from the environment (crossing seas in unseaworthy vessels, being stranded in the desert). Border crossings carry the highest risk. You might die. Even if you don't get hurt, if you get caught and deported to China, your situation there may be (even) worse than if you return voluntarily (I have no idea if China punishes citizens who are deported to China).
Many years ago, my mother had an Uyghur refugee in her class (my mother taught Dutch) who managed to get from China to The Netherlands without a passport. The refugee disclosed no details on how she succeeded, other than that it involved trains. This was well before the era of smartphones and the Chinese surveillance state was considerably less effective than compared to today.
Theoretically, you could try to get to Europe overland, either from Malaysia or from China, escaping authorities, in particular in border regions. People travel without papers from at least as far as Bangladesh to Europe, so it's possible. Reportedly, there are various groups on messaging networks such as Whatsapp where refugees and human smugglers interact to organise such journeys. If I'm counting correctly, you are three border crossings from Bangladesh and eight border crossings removed from the EU. If you try this, good luck on your travel and your application as an asylum seeker.
Being a Chinese citizen, you can certainly return to China. However, China will punish you after you return to China as you made a mistake (you must know this). If your family is powerful enough, you can return to China and face the Chinese law. As other people have said, you can also seek asylum in Malaysia. Also, it could be an option to consider. There are a lot of Chinese people living in Malaysia.
One theoretical option, if you can swing it, is to come to the United States and apply for asylum.
The qualification for asylum here in the US is that you have been persecuted on the basis of, or have a credible fear of being persecuted on the basis of:
(Source: https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-and-asylum/asylum)
China is getting more and more authoritarian and is revoking passports
In your situation, I would not be returning to China. The Human Rights record of their "justice" system is getting worse. It could cost you your freedom, or even your life.
I would attempt to seek asylum and change citizenship - although in which country, I'm not sure.
Actually I want to know if you have asked embassy of China ,seems other answers not mentioned that in China ,if you verbal attack the government,you likely not to be punished for this, but mostly banned by the social media,the worest situation is you may be detention less than 15 days.
The most likely reasons for passport cancellation is you are considered as a scammer,if you are not ,I still recommend you to the embassy of China to know the reason.
By the way, In some answers ,China seems the most evil that are
murdered their people, I'm shocked that the Western Media reports twisted too much
