China is protesting interrogations and deportations of its students at US entry points

BEIJING — The Chinese government has protested to the United States over the treatment of Chinese people who came to study in America. Some have been interrogated for hours, had their electronic devices checked and in some cases forcibly deported.

Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to Washington, said dozens of Chinese have been denied entry every month in recent months when returning to school after traveling abroad or visiting family in China, according to a notice on the Chinese embassy’s website.

“When they landed at the airport, they faced an eight-hour interrogation by officers who banned them from contacting their parents, leveled baseless accusations against them and even forcibly repatriated them and denied them entry,” he said at a press conference on Sunday. event at the embassy about student exchanges. “This is absolutely unacceptable.”

The protest comes as the US and China seek to boost student and other exchanges to strengthen their relations, which have become confrontational in recent years over trade, technology, human rights and, even more fundamentally, the future direction of the world.

Nearly 290,000 Chinese students reside in the U.S., making up about a third of the country’s foreign students, according to the embassy post. China has more than 1.3 million students studying abroad, more than any other country, the report said.

In a separate online statement, the Chinese embassy said it had made “solemn representations” to the US government regarding the treatment of students arriving at Dulles Airport in Washington, DC. The statement reminded Chinese students to be careful when entering through the airport.

It was not clear whether Xie’s comments referred only to cases at Dulles or also to other entry points.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Chinese embassy statement said the affected students had their electronic devices checked, were prohibited from communicating with anyone outside and in some cases were detained for more than 10 hours. It said the actions of border control officials “have had a serious impact on the studies of international students from China and caused great psychological damage.”

The statement also said the actions violated the agreement between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping at their meeting last November to promote people-to-people exchanges.