US govt revokes over 1,000 visas for Chinese nationals, cites security reasons

The administration of President Donald Trump of the United States of America has cancelled visas for more than 1,000 Chinese nationals under a May 29 presidential proclamation to suspend entry from China of students and researchers deemed as security risks.

This was confirmed in a statement issued on Wednesday by the US Department of State which said that the order covers ‘high-risk graduate students and research scholars’ with ties to Chinese military.

Acting head of the US Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, said earlier that Washington was blocking visas “for certain Chinese graduate students and researchers with ties to China’s military fusion strategy, to prevent them from stealing and otherwise appropriating sensitive research.”

READ ALSO: China kicks, as US further restricts its diplomats’ travels, meetings

Wolf repeated US charges of unjust business practices and industrial espionage by China, including attempts to steal coronavirus research, and accused it of abusing student visas to exploit US academia.

He said the US was also “preventing goods produced from slave labour from entering our markets, demanding that China respect the inherent dignity of each human being” – an apparent reference to alleged abuses of Muslims in China’s far-western Xinjiang region.

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