The Chinese government has denied that it threatened to detain US academics in retaliation for the arrest of Chinese researchers in the US, claiming that whoever follows the law “has nothing to worry about.”
The spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Zhao Lijian, has spoken in this way in response to an article on the risk of detention of Americans published by the newspaper ‘The Wall Street Journal’, who has assured that the notices to academics have arrived by “multiple channels”.
The Chinese authorities would be reacting to the recent arrest of five academics accused of having links with the Chinese Armed Forces, specifically in relation to the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, decreed in July.
Zhao has claimed that it is the United States that is monitoring, harassing and detaining students from China, within the framework of a pattern that he has classified as “political persecution.” “It is immoral and destroys the image of the United States. It is McCarthyism,” he denounced.
The US State Department already warned in September against traveling to China, fearing that arbitrary arrests could take place.
