China wants foreign diplomats who are not in the country to stay out until May 15, citing the risk that envoys traveling abroad might contract the new coronavirus and bring it back to the capital.
“Diplomats have immunity due to their posts, but the virus does not know that,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Friday. “Therefore, taking into account the need of the current prevention and control situation and the safety of foreign diplomatic and consular personnel in China, we suggest that all diplomatic missions suspend for the time being personnel returns or rotations.”
The guidance, which applies to diplomats who are currently abroad, is the latest example of Chinese officials restricting access to China as the coronavirus pandemic spreads around the world. Yet it caught Western officials by surprise, at a time when the Chinese communist power is intensifying diplomatic disputes with the United States over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
“To tell you the truth, I am not aware of this decision, I have to have an official confirmation,” the European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, told reporters Friday when asked about the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s announcement. “I cannot give you any information about it.”
The State Department warned China not to undercut the rights of diplomats to operate in China. “The U.S. Embassy expects our diplomats to abide by Chinese laws while they are living here,” a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said in response. “However, we also expect the People’s Republic of China to uphold the Vienna Convention that lays out protections and safeguards for our diplomats while on official assignment in this country.”
Chinese diplomats have feuded with the U.S. in recent weeks in an attempt to cast doubt on the fact that the outbreak first emerged in Wuhan and worsened as Chinese Communist Party officials punished the doctor who first sounded the alarm. Still, Hua said that the new policy was motivated only by reports that some diplomats currently in Beijing brought the virus back with them from their most recent travels.
“In the past week or so, of the 84 foreign diplomats who have returned to China through 12 entry points, 66% were traced as close contacts,” she said. “This is purely for epidemic prevention and control. No need to read too much into it.”
