The US Department of State on Friday said that it would deny visas to Chinese citizens linked to overseas influence operations involving violence and other means of intimidation.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the restrictions would apply to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials or anyone else taking part in such propaganda or influence campaigns affiliated with the United Front Work Department.
The united front department has been involved in efforts to put pressure on people outside China’s borders who raise concerns about human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region, Tibet and elsewhere.
Its “coercive tactics” have included publicly releasing personal details about critics and their family members online as a means of intimidation, Pompeo said in announcing the new restrictions.
The measure is intended to show that “those responsible for actions that contravene the rules-based international order are not welcome in the United States,” he said.
Chinese citizens would be denied a visa to enter the US if they have taken part in “united front” efforts using violence, threats or other means of pressure against overseas Chinese communities, academics or civil society groups in the US or elsewhere to advance the “CCP’s authoritarian narratives and policy preferences,” the State Department said in a separate statement on the measure.
It was not immediately clear how many people would potentially be covered by the new restrictions.
The State Department said it has also ended five cultural exchange programs with China, calling them “soft power propaganda tools.”
The agency said on its Web site that it had “terminated” the Policymakers Educational China Trip Program, the US-China Friendship Program, the US-China Leadership Exchange Program, the US-China Transpacific Exchange Program, and the Hong Kong Educational and Cultural Program.
It said that the programs had been set up under the auspices of the US’ Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act — a 1961 law signed by then-US president John F. Kennedy and aimed at boosting academic and cultural exchanges with foreign countries.
“While other programs funded under the auspices of the MECEA are mutually beneficial, the five programs in question are fully funded and operated by the [Chinese] government as soft power propaganda tools,” the statement said.
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