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Does that happen legally? Would the police do anything if you reported it? Or is all tacitly condoned by the government?
Legally for various civil servants and state-owned enterprises (which dominate the economy in general), generally tacit for the rest.
China approaches foreign travel of citizens as a necessary risk / national security issue to manage in general, and so isn't adverse to curtailment on any number of grounds. Like with many governments with tight business connections, if a business can frame an action in terms favorable to the state's interpretation, it can often get away with things that might have an ulterior motive. Businesses in turn can have their own interests in demanding someone turn over their passport, though I'm not aware of it being any sort of widespread business abuse in China.
Since part of Xi's model for China is that every business or organization of consequence needs strong ties to the party-state, this implicitly favors a two-party veto on foreign travel: the government can restrict passport-travel for its reasons, and/or businesses can restrict it for their own.
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I'm not aware of any law against it specifically, or what general legal principles would make it illegal. I'd even guess that it would be legal in the US, though largely not used because nobody wants to do it.
It's common for government workers especially, so I'm sure the government condones the practice to a certain degree.
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