China protests interrogations and deportations of its students at US entry points

The Chinese government has protested to the United States over the treatment of Chinese arriving to study in America, saying some have been interrogated for hours, had their electronic devices checked and in some cases were forcibly deported from the country.

Xie Feng, the Chinese ambassador in Washington, said dozens of Chinese have been denied entry every month for the past few months when returning to school from overseas travel or visiting relatives in China, according to a post on the Chinese Embassy website.

“When they landed at the airport, what awaited them was an eight-hour-long interrogation by officers who prohibited them from contacting their parents, made groundless accusations against them and even forcibly repatriated them and banned their entry,” he said yesterday [Macau time] at an event at the embassy on student exchanges. “This is absolutely unacceptable.”

The protest comes as the U.S. and China try to boost student and other exchanges to shore up their relations, which have turned confrontational in recent years over trade, technology, human rights and, more fundamentally, the future direction of the world.

Nearly 290,000 Chinese students are in the U.S., about one-third of the foreign students in the country, according to the embassy post.