Exit Banned: An American Executive Held Hostage for 69 Days in China

He checked in for a routine flight.

He never boarded.

And China would not let him leave.

In March 2010, American executive Morris Huntly arrived at Shanghai’s airport expecting a short flight home to Hong Kong. Instead, he vanished into a legal and political black hole. Huntly was caught in China’s opaque system of “exit bans,” where foreigners are held as human leverage in business disputes they don’t control.

Exit Banned is Huntly’s harrowing true account of sixty-nine days trapped inside a rising superpower that quietly weaponized his freedom. A seasoned dealmaker hardened by years in Asia—chased out of Bangkok, threatened by mobs in Jakarta—Huntly believed he understood risk. This time, he was wrong. His former employer abandoned him. A politically connected Chinese tycoon wanted a settlement. And until a deal was struck, Huntly would not be allowed to leave China.

What follows is a chilling descent into isolation and surveillance. As weeks stretch into months, Huntly taps every connection he has, from lawyers and diplomats to assorted fixers, only to discover that the US Embassy won’t intervene and corporate loyalty evaporates when the stakes rise. Desperate, he plots a covert escape with a private security firm.

The attempt fails, triggering police interrogations, threats of prison, and the unnerving realization that China’s security state is watching his every move. Part thriller, part history, part travelogue, and part policy exposé, Exit Banned pulls back the curtain on a ruthless but little-known practice, one that ensnares Western executives to this day.

As Congress finally takes notice and corporations warn against travel, Huntly’s story reads not just as a memoir, but as a stark warning.