The US advised Americans to reconsider traveling to China due to arbitrary law enforcement and exit bans and the risk of unfair detention.
No specific cases were cited, but the notice came after a 78-year-old US citizen was sentenced to life in prison on espionage charges in May.
It also followed the passage last week of a sweeping Foreign Relations Law that threatens countermeasures against those who harm China’s interests.
China also recently passed a broadly worded counter-espionage law that has sent chills through the foreign business community, with office raids as well as a law to punish foreign critics.
“The government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) arbitrarily enforces local laws, including issuing exit bans to US citizens and citizens of other countries, without fair and transparent process under the law,” the US notice said. .us
“US citizens traveling to or residing in the PRC may be detained without access to US consular services or information about their alleged crime,” it warned.
The notice also said that Chinese authorities “appear to have broad discretion to treat a wide range of documents, data, statistics or materials as state secrets and to detain and prosecute foreign nationals for suspected espionage.”
He listed a wide range of potential crimes, from participating in demonstrations to sending emails critical of Chinese policies or even simply conducting investigations in areas deemed sensitive.
Exit bans could be used to force people to participate in Chinese government investigations, pressure family members to return from abroad, resolve civil disputes in favor of Chinese citizens, and “gain influence in negotiations with Chinese citizens.” foreign governments,” the notice said.
Similar notices were issued for the semi-autonomous Chinese regions of Hong Kong and Macao. They were dated Friday and emailed to reporters on Monday.
The United States had issued similar advisories to its citizens in the past, but those in recent years had mainly warned of the dangers of being locked into strict and prolonged lockdowns while China closed its borders for three years under its draconian “zero-COVID” policy. “.
China generally responds angrily to what it sees as efforts by the United States to challenge its authoritarian system led by the Communist Party. It has issued its own travel advisories regarding the US, warning of the dangers of crime, discrimination against Asians, and the high cost of emergency medical care.
China did not immediately respond to Monday’s travel advisory.
Details of the charges against accused spy John Shing-Wan Leung are not available, given China’s authoritarian political system and the ruling Communist Party’s absolute control over legal matters. Leung, who also has a permanent residence in Hong Kong, was detained in the southeastern city of Suzhou on April 15, 2021, a time when China closed its borders and strictly restricted the movement of people nationwide to control the spread of COVID. -19.
The warnings come as US-China relations are at their lowest point in years, on trade, technology, Taiwan and human rights, though the sides are taking some steps to improve the situation. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a long overdue visit to Beijing last week and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will make a highly anticipated trip to Beijing this week. China also recently appointed a new ambassador to Washington, who presented his credentials in a meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House.
Other incidents, however, have also pointed to the irritability of the relationship. China formally protested last month after Biden called Chinese leader Xi Jinping a “dictator” days after Blinken’s visit.
Biden played down the protest, saying his words would not have a negative impact on US-China relations and that he still hopes to meet Xi soon. Biden also drew criticism from Beijing for saying explicitly that the United States would defend Taiwan’s self-rule if China, which claims the island as its own territory, attacked it.
Biden said his blunt statements on China “just aren’t something that’s going to change a lot.”
The administration is also under bipartisan pressure to take a hard line on China, making it one of the few issues on which most Democrats and Republicans agree.
Along with several detained Americans, two Chinese-Australians, Cheng Lei, who previously worked for China’s state broadcaster, and writer Yang Jun, have been detained since 2020 and 2019 respectively with no word on their sentence.
Perhaps the most notorious case of arbitrary detention involved two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who were detained in China in 2018, shortly after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies and daughter of the founder of the tech powerhouse. , in a United States extradition request.
They were charged with national security offenses that were never explained and were released three years after the United States settled the fraud charges against Meng. Many countries labeled China’s action a “hostage policy.”
