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      Chinese students in US tell of ‘chilling’ interrogations and deportations

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      Stopped at the border, interrogated on national security grounds, laptops and mobile phones checked, held for several hours, plans for future research shattered.Many western scholars are nervous about travelling to China in the current political climate. But lately it is Chinese researchers working at US universities who are increasingly reporting interrogations – and in several cases deportations – at US airports, despite holding valid work or study visas for scientific research.Earlier this month the Chinese embassy in Washington said more than 70 students “with legal and valid materials” had been deported from the US since July 2021, with more than 10 cases since November 2023. The embassy said it had complained to the US authorities about each case.The exact number of incidents is difficult to verify, as the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency does not provide detailed statistics about refusals at airports. A spokesperson said that “all international travellers attempting to enter the United States, including all US citizens, are subject to examination”.But testimonies have circulated on Chinese social media, and academics are becoming increasingly outspoken about what they say is the unfair treatment of their colleagues and students.“The impact is huge,” says Qin Yan, a professor of pathology at Yale School of Medicine in Connecticut, who says that he is aware of more than a dozen Chinese students from Yale and other universities who have been rejected by the US in recent months, despite holding valid visas. Experiments have stalled, and there is a “chilling effect” for the next generation of Chinese scientists.The number of people affected is a tiny fraction of the total number of Chinese students in the US. The State Department issued nearly 300,000 visas to Chinese students in the year to September 2023. But the personal accounts speak to a broader concern that people-to-people exchanges between the world’s two biggest economies and scientific leaders are straining.The refusals appear to be linked to a 2020 US rule that barred Chinese postgraduate students with links to China’s “military-civil fusion strategy”, which aims to leverage civilian infrastructure to support military development. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute thinktank estimates that 95 civilian universities in China have links to the defence sector.Nearly 2,000 visas applications were rejected on that basis in 2021. But now people who pass the security checks necessary to be granted a visa by the State Department are being turned away at the border by CBP, a different branch of government.“It is very hard for a CBP officer to really evaluate the risk of espionage,” said Dan Berger, an immigration lawyer in Massachusetts, who represents a graduate student at Yale who, midway through her PhD, was sent back from Washington’s Dulles airport in December, and banned from re-entering the US for five years.“It is sudden,” Berger said. “She has an apartment in the US. Thankfully, she doesn’t have a cat. But there are experiments that were in progress.”Academics say that scrutiny has widened to different fields – particularly medical sciences – with the reasons for the refusals not made clear.X Edward Guo, a professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University, said that part of the problem is that, unlike in the US, military research does sometimes take place on university campuses. “It’s not black and white … there are medical universities that also do military. But 99% of those professors are doing biomedical research and have nothing to do with the military.”But “if you want to come to the US to study AI, forget it,” Guo said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOne scientist who studies the use of artificial intelligence to model the impact of vaccines said he was rejected at Boston Logan International airport. He was arriving to take up a place at Harvard Medical School as a postdoctoral researcher. “I never thought I would be humiliated like this,” he wrote on the Xiaohongshu app, where he recounted being quizzed about his masters’ studies in China and asked if he could guarantee that his teachers in China had not passed on any of his research to the military.He did not respond to an interview request from the Observer. Harvard Medical School declined to confirm or comment on the specifics of individual cases, but said that “decisions regarding entry into the United States are under the purview of the federal government and outside of the school’s and the university’s jurisdiction.”The increased scrutiny comes as Beijing and Washington are struggling to come to an agreement about the US-China Science and Technology Agreement, a landmark treaty signed in 1979 that governs scientific cooperation between the two countries. Normally renewed every five years, since August it has been sputtering through six-month extensions.But following years of scrutiny from the Department of Justice investigation into funding links to China, and a rise in anti-Asian sentiment during the pandemic, ethnically Chinese scientists say the atmosphere is becoming increasingly hostile.“Before 2016, I felt like I’m just an American,” said Guo, who became a naturalised US citizen in the late 1990s. “This is really the first time I’ve thought, OK, you’re an American but you’re not exactly an American.”Additional research by Chi Hui Lin More

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      China’s First Quarter Results Show Growth Propelled by Its Factories

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      China’s big bet on manufacturing helped to counteract its housing slowdown in the first three months of the year, but other countries are worried about a flood of Chinese goods.The Chinese economy grew more than expected in the first three months of the year, new data shows, as China built more factories and exported huge amounts of goods to counter a severe real estate crisis and sluggish spending at home.To stimulate growth, China, the world’s second-largest economy, turned to a familiar tactic: investing heavily in its manufacturing sector, including a binge of new factories that have helped to propel sales around the world of solar panels, electric cars and other products. But China’s bet on exports has worried many foreign countries and companies. They fear that a flood of Chinese shipments to distant markets may undermine their manufacturing industries and lead to layoffs.On Tuesday, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said the economy grew 1.6 percent in the first quarter over the previous three months. When projected out for the entire year, the first-quarter data indicates that China’s economy was growing at an annual rate of about 6.6 percent.“The national economy made a good start,” said Sheng Laiyun, deputy director of the statistics bureau, while cautioning that “the foundation for stable and sound economic growth is not solid yet.”Retail sales increased at a modest pace of 4.7 percent compared with the first three months of last year, and were particularly weak in March. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      State Dept. Is Sending Its Top Diplomat for East Asia to China

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      The announcement comes days after President Biden met jointly with the leaders of Japan and the Philippines to discuss Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific region.The top U.S. diplomat for East Asia will travel to China on Sunday, the State Department announced, just days after President Biden met with the leaders of Japan and the Philippines in Washington as part of a broad diplomatic outreach in the region to counter China’s aggression.Daniel J. Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, will travel with Sarah Beran, Mr. Biden’s top China adviser on the National Security Council. They will be in China until Tuesday, meeting with officials “as part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and to responsibly manage competition,” according to a statement from the State Department.China’s moves in the Indo-Pacific region were a focus at the White House this week during a three-day state visit by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan that ended with a first-ever three-way summit with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines. That nation has borne the brunt of China’s intimidation campaign in the South China Sea.Tensions between China and the United States have recently increased amid concern that China might begin a conflict over Taiwan, and because the United States is treaty-bound to defend the Philippines. In a meeting at the State Department on Friday, Enrique Manalo, the foreign secretary of the Philippines, said that “China’s escalation of its harassment” continued to take a toll on the country, recently injuring four Filipino seamen. Also present at the meeting were Antony J. Blinken, the secretary of state; Lloyd J. Austin III, the secretary of defense; Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser; and their three counterparts from the Philippines.In the past several years, Japan has moved closer to the United States on countering China by increasing military spending and siding with Washington in global diplomacy on the world stage. That has included standing with Ukraine in its war against Russia, while China reaffirms ties with Russia.The last high-level U.S. official to make a trip to China was Janet L. Yellen, the treasury secretary, who returned from Beijing this month with little to show for four days of top-level economic meetings.Mr. Biden concluded the Thursday meeting with his counterparts from Japan and the Philippines by saying that America’s commitment to their defense was not in question.“When we stand as one,” he said, “we are able to forge a better peace for all.” More

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      Japanese leader asks US to overcome ‘self-doubt’ about global leadership

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      Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, on Thursday called on Americans to overcome their “self-doubt” as he offered a paean to US global leadership before a bitterly divided Congress.Warning of risks from the rise of China, Kishida said that Japan – stripped of its right to a military after the second world war – was determined to do more to share responsibility with its ally the United States.“As we meet here today, I detect an undercurrent of self-doubt among some Americans about what your role in the world should be,” Kishida told a joint session of the House of Representatives and Senate during a state visit to Washington.“The international order that the US worked for generations to build is facing new challenges, challenges from those with values and principles very different from ours,” Kishida said.Kishida said he understood “the exhaustion of being the country that has upheld the international order almost single-handedly” but added: “The leadership of the United States is indispensable.“Without US support, how long before the hopes of Ukraine would collapse under the onslaught from Moscow?” he asked.“Without the presence of the United States, how long before the Indo-Pacific would face even harsher realities?”He sought to remind lawmakers of the leading role the US has played globally since the second world war. After dropping two nuclear weapons on Japan to end the war, the US helped rebuild Japan, and the nations transformed from bitter enemies to close allies. “When necessary, it made noble sacrifices to fulfill its commitment to a better world,” Kishida said of the US.While he was careful not to touch on US domestic politics, Kishida’s address comes amid a deadlock in Congress on approving billions of dollars in additional military aid to Ukraine, due to pressure from hard-right Republicans aligned with their presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump.Kishida met on Wednesday with Joe Biden where they pledged to step up cooperation, including with new three-way air defenses involving the United States, Japan and Australia.Sending a clear signal toward China, Kishida meets again with the president on Thursday for a three-way summit with President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, which has been on the receiving end of increasingly assertive Chinese moves in dispute-rife waters.Kishida said that China’s military actions “present an unprecedented, and the greatest, security challenge”.China’s actions pose challenges “not only to the peace and security of Japan but to the peace and stability of the international community at large”, he said.Kishida’s speech, from the dais where Biden delivered a raucous State of the Union address a month ago, marked a rare moment of bipartisan unity in Congress.Lawmakers across party lines offered repeated standing ovations as Kishida reaffirmed support for Ukraine, warned of Chinese influence and highlighted Japanese investment in the United States.The prime minister, who spent part of his childhood in New York City, read his address in fluent English, after speaking in Japanese at his news conference with Biden.He mentioned how he watched the classic cartoon The Flintstones as a child in New York.“I still miss that show, although I could never translate, ‘Yabba Dabba Doo’,” he said. More

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      Canadian Politicians Were Targeted by China in 2021, Report Says

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      Lawmakers testified at a public hearing on foreign interference that they had been caught in China’s cross hairs after criticizing it over human rights.A top-secret intelligence report drafted a week before Canada’s 2021 general election warned about ongoing attempts by the Chinese government to meddle in specific races, saying that Beijing had “identified Canadian politicians considered” to be opponents of China.Those politicians had become the targets of a shadowy media campaign, with suspected links to the Chinese government, that spread “false narratives” about them and encouraged Canadians to vote against them.The intelligence about possible interference in Canada’s last general election was included in documents released on Wednesday at a public hearing before a commission investigating foreign interference. Their release followed Canadian news reports over the past year outlining the Chinese government’s actions and raised concerns about the vulnerability of Canada’s democratic institutions.Canadian politicians believed to have been targeted by Beijing also testified at the hearing on Wednesday, saying that they had drawn the ire of the Chinese government by criticizing its record on human rights, among other issues.Kenny Chiu, a former member of Parliament from the Vancouver area whose 2021 loss has been at the heart of investigations into Chinese election interference, said he was dismayed to learn Wednesday that intelligence officials had been aware of China’s actions at the time of the election but had not told him.“It’s almost like I was drowning and they were watching,” said Mr. Chiu, a Conservative Party member who was a fierce critic of Beijing’s security crackdown in Hong Kong. He was also the chief proponent of a bill to create a registry of foreign agents in Canada to try to curb foreign interference.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden and Xi seek to manage tensions in phone call as US officials head to China

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      Joe Biden and Xi Jinping have clashed in a telephone call about Taiwan and US trade restrictions on technology, but sought to manage their tensions as two top US officials prepare to visit Beijing.The nearly two-hour telephone conversation on Tuesday was the two leaders’ first direct interaction since a summit in November in California that saw a marked thaw in tone, if not the long-term rivalry, between the world’s two largest economies.The treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, will leave Wednesday and visit both Guangzhou, the southern city emblematic of China’s manufacturing power, and Beijing, with secretary of state, Antony Blinken, due in China in the coming weeks, officials said.“We believe that there is no substitute for regular communication at the leader level to effectively manage this complex and often tense bilateral relationship,” national security council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters after the call.US officials said the talks were not aimed at managing but rather than resolving differences, and the two leaders were open about heated disagreements.Xi accused the United States of creating economic risks through Biden’s sweeping ban on high-tech exports to China.“If the United States insists on suppressing China’s high-tech development and depriving China of its legitimate right to development, we will not sit idly by,” Xi warned, according to Chinese state media.Biden rebuffed his appeal, with the White House saying he told him “the United States will continue to take necessary actions to prevent advanced US technologies from being used to undermine our national security, without unduly limiting trade and investment.”Biden also refused to back down on TikTok, the blockbuster Chinese-owned app that Congress is threatening to ban unless it changes hands, with Kirby saying Biden insisted he wanted to protect Americans’ data security.Xi, China’s most powerful leader in decades, has solidified power at home and taken a tough approach in Asia, with a crackdown on freedoms in Hong Kong and assertive confrontations in recent weeks with the Philippines on the South China Sea.But US observers see Xi as eager to temper the friction with the US as China weathers rough economic headwinds.At the California summit, he agreed to two key asks by the United States – curbs on precursor chemicals for making fentanyl, the synthetic painkiller behind a US overdose epidemic, and restoring dialogue between the two militaries to manage crises.Xi may also believe there is more opportunity to work with Biden, who faces a rematch in November’s presidential election with Donald Trump, who has cast China as an arch-enemy.Biden has preserved or even accelerated some of Trump’s tough measures, but has also identified areas of common interest, such as fighting climate change.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe White House said Biden pressed Xi to ensure “peace and stability” across the Taiwan Strait ahead of the inauguration on 20 May of president-elect Lai Ching-te.China has denounced Lai, a longtime supporter of a separate identity for the self-ruling democracy claimed by Beijing, but US officials have been cautiously optimistic that China’s military moves ahead of the inauguration will not go beyond past practice.In the phone call, Xi told Biden that Taiwan remains an “uncrossable red line” for China, according to state media.The United States has voiced growing alarm over rising Chinese moves against the Philippines in the dispute-rife South China Sea.The Biden administration, while maintaining dialogue with China, has put a strong focus on supporting allies.In the midst of the diplomatic flurry with China, the Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, will pay a state visit to Washington next week, with the Philippine president, Ferdinand Marcos, joining for three-way talks.Blinken and Yellen will both be paying their second visits to China in less than a year, marking a return to more routine interaction following the Covid-19 pandemic and soaring tensions under Trump. More

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      Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou to Visit China

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      A rare visit to mainland China by Ma Ying-jeou, who’s now in the opposition, is a chance for political messaging on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.As tensions fester between China and Taiwan, one elder politician from the island democracy is getting an effusive welcome on the mainland: Ma Ying-jeou, a former president.Mr. Ma’s 11-day trip across China, which was set to begin on Monday, comes at a fraught time. Beijing and Taipei have been in dispute over two Chinese fishermen who died while trying to flee a Taiwanese coast guard vessel in February, and China has sent its own coast guard ships close to a Taiwanese-controlled island near where the men died.Taiwanese officials expect China to intensify its military intimidation once the island’s next president, Lai Ching-te, takes office on May 20. His Democratic Progressive Party rejects Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is part of China, and Chinese officials particularly dislike Mr. Lai, often citing his 2017 description of himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan’s independence.”On the other hand, China’s warm treatment of Mr. Ma, 73, Taiwan’s president from 2008 to 2016, seems a way to emphasize that Beijing will keep an open door for politicians who favor closer ties and accept its conditions for talks.“Beijing’s policy toward Taiwan will definitely be using more of both a gentle touch but also a hard fist,” Chang Wu-yue, a professor at the Graduate Institute of China Studies of Tamkang University in Taiwan, said in an interview about Mr. Ma’s visit.Mr. Ma with China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, in Singapore in 2015.Fazry Ismail/EPA, via ShutterstockWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Yellen to Warn China Against Flood of Cheap Green Energy Exports

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      The Treasury secretary, who plans to make her second trip to China soon, will argue that the country’s excess industrial production warps supply chains.The Biden administration is growing increasingly concerned that a glut of heavily subsidized green technology exports from China is distorting global markets and plans to confront Chinese officials about the problem during an upcoming round of economic talks in Beijing.The tension over industrial policy is flaring as the United States invests heavily in production of solar technology and electric vehicle batteries with funding from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, while China pumps money into its factory sector to help stimulate its sluggish economy. President Biden and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, have sought to stabilize the relationship between the world’s two largest economies, but differences over trade policy, investment restrictions and cyberespionage continue to strain ties.In a speech on Wednesday afternoon, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen will lay out her plans to raise the issue of overcapacity with her Chinese counterparts. At the Suniva solar cell factory in Norcross, Ga., she will warn that China’s export strategy threatens to destabilize global supply chains that are developing around industries such as solar, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries, according to a copy of her prepared remarks reviewed by The New York Times.“China’s overcapacity distorts global prices and production patterns and hurts American firms and workers, as well as firms and workers around the world,” Ms. Yellen will say. “Challenges for individual firms can lead to concentrated supply chains, negatively impacting global economic resilience.”The Treasury secretary is expected to make her second trip to China in the coming weeks. The South China Morning Post reported that she will visit Guangzhou and Beijing in early April. The Treasury Department declined to comment on her travel plans.In her speech in Georgia, Ms. Yellen will compare China’s investments in green energy technology production to what she described as its previous overinvestment in steel and aluminum, saying it created “global spillovers.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More