WASHINGTON / BEIJING: The United States has revoked visas for more than 1,000 Chinese citizens under a May 29 presidential proclamation to suspend the entry from China of students and researchers considered security risks, a State Department spokeswoman said Wednesday.
The acting head of the US Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, previously said that Washington was blocking visas “for certain Chinese graduate students and researchers linked to China’s military merger strategy to prevent them from stealing and appropriating. sensitive investigations “.
In a speech, Wolf repeated the US charges of unfair business practices and industrial espionage by China, including attempts to steal research on the coronavirus, and accused him of abusing student visas to exploit American academia.
Wolf said the United States was also “preventing goods produced from slave labor from entering our markets, demanding that China respect the inherent dignity of every human being,” an apparent reference to alleged abuses of Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region. .
A spokeswoman for the State Department said the visa action was being taken under a proclamation President Donald Trump announced on May 29 as part of the United States’ response to China’s restrictions on democracy in Hong Kong.
“As of September 8, 2020, the Department has revoked more than 1,000 visas of citizens of the People’s Republic of China who were subject to Presidential Proclamation 10043 and therefore not eligible for a visa,” he said.
He said ineligible “high-risk graduate students and researchers” represent “a small subset” of the Chinese who come to the United States to study and research and that legitimate students and scholars will continue to be welcomed.
China said in June that it resolutely opposed any US move to restrict Chinese students from studying in the United States and urged Washington to do more to improve mutual exchanges and understanding.
Some 360,000 Chinese citizens study in the United States, generating significant revenue for American universities, although the Covid-19 pandemic has severely disrupted the return to campus this fall semester.
DETERIORATING RELATIONSHIPS
Relations between China and the US have sunk to record lows with the world’s two largest economies in conflict over issues ranging from trade and human rights to Hong Kong and the coronavirus.
Trump, who had touted friendly ties with Chinese President Xi Jinping as he sought to fulfill his promises to rebalance a massive trade deficit, has made being tough on China a key part of his campaign for reelection on November 3. accused his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, who leads national opinion polls, of being soft on Beijing.
Earlier, some Chinese students enrolled in American universities said they received email notices on Wednesday from the US Embassy in Beijing or the US consulates in China informing them that their visas had been canceled.
Nearly 50 students on F-1 academic visas, including graduate and undergraduate students, said in a WeChat chat room that the notices indicated they would have to apply for new visas if they wanted to travel to the United States.
Many in the chat room said they were majoring in subjects like science, technology, engineering, and math. Some said they were postgraduates who obtained bachelor’s degrees from Chinese universities linked to the People’s Liberation Army.
In May, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that Washington planned to cancel the visas of thousands of Chinese graduate students believed to have ties to the Chinese military.
In another move against China, US Customs and Border Protection officials have drawn up orders to block imports of cotton and tomato products from Xinjiang over forced labor allegations, though a formal announcement has been delayed. (Report by David Brunnstrom and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington and Ryan Woo in Beijing.
The acting head of the US Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, previously said that Washington was blocking visas “for certain Chinese graduate students and researchers linked to China’s military merger strategy to prevent them from stealing and appropriating. sensitive investigations “.
In a speech, Wolf repeated the US charges of unfair business practices and industrial espionage by China, including attempts to steal research on the coronavirus, and accused him of abusing student visas to exploit American academia.
Wolf said the United States was also “preventing goods produced from slave labor from entering our markets, demanding that China respect the inherent dignity of every human being,” an apparent reference to alleged abuses of Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region. .
A spokeswoman for the State Department said the visa action was being taken under a proclamation President Donald Trump announced on May 29 as part of the United States’ response to China’s restrictions on democracy in Hong Kong.
“As of September 8, 2020, the Department has revoked more than 1,000 visas of citizens of the People’s Republic of China who were subject to Presidential Proclamation 10043 and therefore not eligible for a visa,” he said.
He said ineligible “high-risk graduate students and researchers” represent “a small subset” of the Chinese who come to the United States to study and research and that legitimate students and scholars will continue to be welcomed.
China said in June that it resolutely opposed any US move to restrict Chinese students from studying in the United States and urged Washington to do more to improve mutual exchanges and understanding.
Some 360,000 Chinese citizens study in the United States, generating significant revenue for American universities, although the Covid-19 pandemic has severely disrupted the return to campus this fall semester.
DETERIORATING RELATIONSHIPS
Relations between China and the US have sunk to record lows with the world’s two largest economies in conflict over issues ranging from trade and human rights to Hong Kong and the coronavirus.
Trump, who had touted friendly ties with Chinese President Xi Jinping as he sought to fulfill his promises to rebalance a massive trade deficit, has made being tough on China a key part of his campaign for reelection on November 3. accused his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, who leads national opinion polls, of being soft on Beijing.
Earlier, some Chinese students enrolled in American universities said they received email notices on Wednesday from the US Embassy in Beijing or the US consulates in China informing them that their visas had been canceled.
Nearly 50 students on F-1 academic visas, including graduate and undergraduate students, said in a WeChat chat room that the notices indicated they would have to apply for new visas if they wanted to travel to the United States.
Many in the chat room said they were majoring in subjects like science, technology, engineering, and math. Some said they were postgraduates who obtained bachelor’s degrees from Chinese universities linked to the People’s Liberation Army.
In May, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that Washington planned to cancel the visas of thousands of Chinese graduate students believed to have ties to the Chinese military.
In another move against China, US Customs and Border Protection officials have drawn up orders to block imports of cotton and tomato products from Xinjiang over forced labor allegations, though a formal announcement has been delayed. (Report by David Brunnstrom and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington and Ryan Woo in Beijing.
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