Beijing has impeded efforts to increase academic exchanges, US State Department officials say
- Ministry of State Security has tied such exchanges to ‘foreign espionage activities’, chilling Chinese academics’ interest, one official says
- In November, Xi Jinping and Joe Biden agreed on the need to resume people-to-people exchanges, which had been interrupted by pandemic-related travel restrictions
Beijing is hampering people-level exchange efforts by harassing Chinese citizens in US-led programmes, senior US State Department officials said on Thursday.
“The [Ministry of State Security] has called out academic exchanges as an example of foreign espionage activities, which led PRC academics to cancel their participation in US exchange programmes,” one said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
The official added that China’s foreign NGO law had “systematically” reduced the number of people willing to work with US partners on people-to-people exchanges. The law, in effect since 2017, subjects foreign NGOs to close government scrutiny with stringent registration and reporting requirements.
These comments come as both the US and China have stressed the importance of people-t0-people exchange and the need to resume dialogue after years of Covid-19-related border closures.
After their meeting during the Apec conference in November, Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden acknowledged the need to expand bilateral educational, student, youth, cultural, sports and business exchanges.