“In recent months, tens of Chinese personnel travelling to the US, including overseas Chinese students, have been forced to return to China each month,” he said.
“This is typically selective and discriminatory and amounts to political law enforcement. China is strongly dissatisfied with this and firmly opposes it.”
02:19
Chinese-language classes surge in popularity in Russia as Moscow and Beijing deepen relations
Chinese-language classes surge in popularity in Russia as Moscow and Beijing deepen relations
The ministry also urged the US to cancel a “mistaken” executive order that prevents postgraduate students and researchers allegedly linked to the Chinese military from entering the US.
Wang said the order undermined an agreement in November between the presidents of China and the US to step up people-to-people exchanges.
“[The denials are] seriously poisoning the atmosphere for bilateral people-to-people exchanges and contradicting the consensus that the two leaders made about strengthening and facilitating people-to-people exchanges,” he said.
Can China-US people-to-people cooperation resume if academic swaps are curbed?
Can China-US people-to-people cooperation resume if academic swaps are curbed?
But academic exchanges have yet to recover.
Global Times, a nationalist paper affiliated with People’s Daily, reported on Thursday there had been a rise in cases of “unprovoked and rude interrogation or deportation” of Chinese students at the US border.
The report said that in one case a researcher with the US National Institutes of Health was “interrogated” at Dulles International Airport in Virginia in November and told that their F-1 student visa had been voided. A postgraduate student at Yale University reported a similar incident in December.
