Beijing urges US to end harassment of Chinese students
The nation’s public security minister has urged the US homeland security secretary to stop "harassment" of Chinese students entering the United States in a meeting between the two in Vienna, state media reported on Monday. In a readout of talks held on Sunday between Wang Xiaohong and Alejandro Mayorkas, Beijing urged Washington "to stop harassing and checking Chinese students for no apparent reason", Xinhua news agency said. Beijing has repeatedly said that Chinese nationals with valid travel documents have been subject to aggressive interrogations and deportations at US airports, with its embassy in Washington last month urging Chinese travellers to avoid the US capital's Dulles airport. In his meeting with Mayorkas, Wang urged the United States to "ensure that Chinese citizens enjoy fair entry treatment and full dignity," according to Xinhua. Wang also pressed Mayorkas to "rectify" the US decision to place China on a list of major countries transiting or producing narcotics. US officials have alleged that China is involved in the trade of fentanyl – which is many times more powerful than heroin. The Foreign Ministry had previously said they were “ordinary chemicals sold through normal trade”. The Xinhua report added that one of the ways the two countries would contribute to the steady development of China-US relations was by “maintaining dialogue and cooperation on drug control and law enforcement”. Last month in Beijing, Chinese and US officials agreed to cooperate to curb the production of ingredients to make fentanyl known as precursor chemicals. A US readout of Sunday's talks said Wang and Mayorkas had held "candid and constructive discussion on the steps needed to combat the spread of precursor chemicals". "The two sides also made commitments with respect to continued law enforcement cooperation, technical bilateral exchanges between scientists and other experts, scheduling of precursor chemicals, and furthering multilateral cooperation," it said. Washington and Beijing also discussed expanding cooperation "in the fight to protect children from online child sexual exploitation and abuse", the readout added. (Agencies)