Chinese again choose to seek asylum in record numbers 2025
Tentative data for the year 2025 from the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) shows the mass exodus of asylum seekers from China continues unabated and is set to either rival last year’s record-breaking number or possibly exceed it. The tentative data, to be adjusted and finalized later in 2026, estimates some 178,725 asylum seekers from China. This is a far cry from the numbers seen during Hu Jintao’s reign, when it would stay between 7,000 and 21,000 annually.
The new data also shows some major swings in where Chinese people seek asylum, with Canada, Italy, and the United States seeing a continued and major surge.
With the new data, China has seen some ~1,330,000 Chinese asylum seekers under Xi Jiping’s years in power, compared with just ~162,000 during his predecessor Hu Jintao’s two mandate periods in power. The table below illustrates the dramatic shift in this regard since Xi took power and shows a continued strong upward movement after the lifting of the last COVID restrictions.
While 2024 saw record numbers, at 180,960, there was a small upward revision from the tentative to final data, and should 2025’s numbers see a similar revision when the final data is made available, 2025 will not only rival 2024 but set yet a new record.
For Europe, France and Spain have seen a dramatic drop for 2025 compared with 2019, the last full pre-COVID year, from 1,260 to only 466 and 1,010 to 480, respectively. The UK and Germany remain fairly stable (1,689 to 1,533 and 943 to 1,353, respectively). The most dramatic change being Italy, which back in 2019 was at a low 499, which dropped to 0 during the first year of COVID, and which since the lifting of COVID restrictions has skyrocketed to 3,857 for 2025.
In fact, Italy now accounts for nearly ~2.2% of all Chinese asylum seekers worldwide, while the EU as a whole received 9,219 Chinese asylum seekers 2025, or ~5.2% of global total.
In other Europe-related developments, the number of people choosing Russia, 295 in 2019, has collapsed to only 5 people in 2025, and either at zero or in single-digits the entire COVID restriction period.
Other noteworthy figures show South Africa as the only South/East/West African country that received any Chinese asylum seekers, while in the MENA region, Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are the only countries to receive them, though, except for Israel, in very limited numbers.
In the greater Asia-Pacific, Australia remains the only major destination for Chinese asylum seekers, but having seen a significant drop from 17,668 to 10,426, while New Zealand, still rare, grew from 74 to 555. Many, such as Japan, records zero asylum seekers for all the years between 2019 and 2025, South Korea being a very rare exception (2,606 in 2019 and 2,181 in 2025). The few others that have received any at all are all either in single or double digits, such as Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Nauro, and Vanuatu. Asia continues to be a very rare destination for Chinese asylum seekers, with no change in sight.
In the Americas, both Canada and the US have seen major growth. In Canada, it grew from 2,873 to 6,425, while in the US it went from 68,794 to 147,909. Other noteworthy developments are a near collapse in asylum seekers choosing Brazil (from 4,616 to 798), while Costa Rica is the only Central American country to receive significant numbers, rising sharply from 152 to 619. Most other countries in the Americas received either no asylum seekers at all, or very small numbers.
The countries herein referenced account for 176,784 of the total of 178,725 asylum seekers, showing clearly that for most other countries, as well as some smaller European countries, it often remains in single, double digits. The US alone accounts for almost 83% of the total, with Australia a distant second at ~6% and Canada third at ~3.6%.
