Beijing said Monday that it “firmly opposes” US President Donald Trump’s plan to include China on a blacklist of nations that Washington claims wrongfully hold Americans.
Trump announced in an executive order issued Friday that the US will now identify “state sponsors of wrongful detention,” akin to the effective practice of designating nations as state sponsors of terrorism.
China, Iran, and Afghanistan will be reviewed because they “persistently participate in hostage diplomacy,” according to a senior official, although the Trump administration did not immediately announce which nations would be on the new blacklist.
Officials involved in the incarceration would not be allowed to enter the countries the State Department had designated, and sanctions and US export controls would apply.
The State Department might prevent US citizens from traveling to nations on the blacklist, according to authorities, in an unusual move by the US.
The new blacklist was criticized by Beijing’s foreign ministry on Monday, which stated that it “firmly opposed” it.
At a routine briefing, spokesperson Lin Jian assured reporters that “China is a country governed by the rule of law, and there is absolutely no question of so-called wrongful detention.”
“Everyone is aware that the United States is the exclusive provider of coercive diplomacy, long-arm jurisdiction, unilateral sanctions, arbitrary detention, and wrongful detention,” Lin stated.
“As always, China welcomes citizens and businesses from all countries to visit and conduct business in China,” he continued.
China released all Americans who were deemed to have been illegally jailed under former President Joe Biden, in part because the United States loosened a warning against Americans traveling to the Asian power, which had a negative impact on the business climate.
As a result of the detention of American student Otto Warmbier in the totalitarian regime in 2016, his release in a vegetative state the following year, and his eventual death, the United States now solely forbids its nationals from visiting North Korea.
