I certainly didn't have proficient english after I graduated college 🥲...

Thank you, many of your point is very valid, I might not have made every point in my original comments sufficiently clear.

So I would imagine most folks considering this aren't starting from zero with English skills.

As most language learner might know, professional fluency is far from "not zero". I have near perfect mark in English for my high school entrance exam in China.

Yet, I spent almost all of my three years of high school to learn English, to be accepted by a U.S. college. And I only started writing decent professional English couple years after I graduated.

I am certainly not the most talented language learner, but I believe achieve fluent professional English not a goal that can be easily achieved in a year, especially with a 9-5 job.

Besides the money point, this is true of any emigration, yet millions do it from countries around the world.

You are right, this is also why a large majority of person do not immigrate. I am certainly not suggesting people do not immigrate. I just think that there are many realistic barrier to immigration, to Chinese and to people from other countries as well.

Many people vowed to immigrate if Trump is elected in 2016, yet many failed to do so. I imagine the real barrier to immigration might play a role in these decisions.

Are you saying the CCP has been revoking passports at this new scale and against the same targets for the same reasons for at least a decade?

No, I am saying public worker needing to submit passport is not new. Here are some Chinese source:

• https://www.zhihu.com/question/582316284
• https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_26669534
• https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/487193115

I am not saying that they are not expanding the scale of the program.

Because of the language barrier, people typically needs years of preparation to leave the country. Imagine finding a H1B job with zero connection in the U.S. and subpar English, that is literally impossible.

Even said person are willing to pay the high tuition fee in U.S. or Europe, it would take a Chinese at least a year of intense language learning to achieve reasonable fluency in a language, that is acceptable in universities.

Not to mention, leaving China also means leaving everything they know behind, friends, family, way of life, and especially money, like the other post suggests.

In fact, confiscating public workers' passport has been practiced for at least a decade; partly for control, partly for security. And that did not spark mass exodus, slightly expanding the program likely will not change much as well.

Finally, most people in China choose public work for job security, hence they are usually averse to change. These crowds are the least likely to react to policies like this.

I think a even better solution might be to not unnecessarily waste energies 😉