Beijing slams US for refusing entry to students, fellows linked to military institutions

Beijing on Wednesday slammed Washington after US officials refused entry to many students and visiting fellows who had valid visas but were linked to military institutions.

Beijing on Wednesday slammed Washington after US officials refused entry to many students and visiting fellows who had valid visas but were linked to military institutions. The remarks came from Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin who said that nearly 30 students and visiting scholars were repatriated following interrogation in August 2021, despite holding visas to enter the US, Radio Free Asia reported.

"In August 2021 alone, nearly 30 Chinese students and visiting fellows to the US suffered similar unjust treatment, with many more reporting rough handling during harassment, interrogation, and searches," Wang told a regular news briefing in Beijing. "Many of them were asked questions like if they or their parents are members of the Communist Party of China, and if they had been assigned any task by the Chinese government prior to their departure," Wenbin added.

The spokesperson also said that some law enforcement departments and agents continue to recklessly stretch the concept of national security to wantonly harass Chinese students and scholars in an attempt to produce a chilling effect among Chinese personnel pursuing studies in the US. "Such practices deviate from the mutually beneficial and win-win nature of China-US people-to-people and cultural exchanges," he added.

Earlier in 2020, President Trump had issued an executive order, accusing Beijing of engaging in "a wide-ranging and heavily resourced campaign to acquire sensitive US technologies and intellectual property, in part to bolster the modernisation and capability of its military, the People's Liberation Army (PLA)." "The [Chinese] authorities use some Chinese students, mostly post-graduate students and post-doctorate researchers, to operate as non-traditional collectors of intellectual property," the order said.

In other recent developments, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has witnessed a 1,300 per cent jump in China-linked economic espionage cases over the past decade, the Pentagon said in a report released on Wednesday. The Pentagon's report titled Military and Security Development Involving the People's Republic of China, 2021, said that the FBI in 2020 opened a new China-related counterintelligence case about every 10 hours. (ANI)