The US is reportedly considering easing advisories against its citizens traveling to China.
“I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but I would just simply say that this is certainly an issue under active consideration,” Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said while replying to queries on whether the US would ease the advisories, at an event hosted by the non-profit National Committee on US-China Relations, Reuters reported.
Campbell said he accepted the premise that they had acted as an inhibition to academic and other exchanges.
The US State Department has periodically issued tiered warnings for Americans traveling to China, calling on them to reconsider visits or exercise increased caution due to risks of “arbitrary enforcement of local laws”, exit bans and wrongful detentions.
But the two countries’ presidents have sought to rebuild people-to-people exchanges as a pillar for managing increasing geopolitical competition between the superpowers.
China has issued its own travel warnings for the US, and criticized what it says is increasing harassment of Chinese nationals by US agents at ports of entry, accusations US officials have rejected.
Despite China’s warnings, hundreds of thousands of Chinese students study in the United States, compared with only a few hundred Americans in China.
Campbell also said communication channels between Washington and Beijing had largely normalized after months of heightened tensions.
He, however, also warned that Chinese support for Russia’s war in Ukraine put stabilizing ties at risk.
Campbell also said potentially “hundreds of thousands” of Chinese migrants fleeing weaker economic conditions in China have come to the US in recent months, and that Beijing was aware but did not seem to be taking steps to curtail the flow.
“The numbers that we’re seeing are large and, frankly, of gathering concern,” Campbell said.
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