Daily US Times: The Chinese government has warned the U.S. it may detain Americans in China in response to Washington’s prosecution of Chinese military-affiliated scholars, according to the report of Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, the newspaper said Chinese officials had issued repeated warnings through multiple channels to U.S. government officials.
According to the paper, Beijing’s message was the Washington should end prosecutions of Chinese scholars in U.S. courts, or Americans in China could find themselves in violation of Chinese law.
A US State Department advisory on September 14 warning Americans against travel to China said the Chinese government uses arbitrary detention and exit bans for U.S. citizens and others “to gain bargaining leverage over foreign governments.”
The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond on the matter as of Sunday.
The White House has increasingly accused China of suing cyber operations and espionage to steal U.S. military, technological and other know-how in a strategy to supplant the U.S. as the world’s leading financial and military power. China denies the allegations.
The Justice Department said in July that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had arrested three Chinese nationals for allegedly concealing memberships in the Chinese army when applying for visas to conduct research at academic institutions in the U.S.
The United States announced last month that it had revoked visas for more than 1,000 Chinese nationals under a presidential measure denying entry to researchers and students deemed security risks, a move China called a violation of human rights.
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