Chinese officials must give advance notice of official meetings with Americans around the country, a new requirement imposed by State Department officials frustrated by Beijing’s restrictions on U.S. diplomats.
“The full onus will fall on the Chinese consulates and embassy to notify us in advance of meetings with these stakeholders,” a senior State Department official told reporters Wednesday.
The new policy is designed to pressure Chinese authorities to clear some of the obstacles that U.S. government employees face in trying to meet local officials in mainland China. U.S. officials long have fumed about having their meetings blocked, but the State Department’s announcement comes amid widespread concern about Chinese foreign influence operations against the United States .
“We are not requiring that any Chinese official get permission from the State Department to have any of these sorts of meetings,” the senior State Department official said. “Our goal is to get the Chinese authorities to allow our diplomats in China to engage with provincial and local leaders, Chinese universities, and other educational and research institutes freely, the same way that the Chinese diplomats are able to do here.”
The officials did not say how they will monitor compliance of the mandate and declined to say how they will punish any failures to report meetings. The new policy is likely to be welcomed on Capitol Hill, where China hawks have called for even more aggressive restrictions on Beijing’s diplomatic corps in part due to fears that Chinese Communist officials are wielding undue influence in the United States while hamstringing American outreach.
“It’s stunning to me that they have effectively closed down our cultural centers in China,” Sen. Mitt Romney said in February. “We continue to allow that without taking reciprocal action and saying, ‘you don’t have our centers, you’re not going to have your centers.’”
The State Department stopped short of that tactic, but the policy could have wider implications for the intensifying rivalry between Washington and Beijing. The Pentagon’s most recent report in China’s military power included a warning that China values “establishing and maintaining power brokers” within the U.S., a worry echoed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s team.
“We are concerned about tactics used by China to exploit its economic leverage; conduct influence efforts; exert political pressure, especially at state and local levels; spread propaganda; manipulate the media; and pressure individuals, including students and academics, critical of Chinese policies,” a State Department spokeswoman told the Washington Examiner in May. “Efforts by any foreign government, including China, to undermine our democratic institutions are unacceptable.”
Now, Chinese officials will be required to report "official meetings with state officials, official meetings with local and municipal officials, official visits to educational institutions, and official visits to research institutions" under the new policy. The notifications could be a road map for such influence operations that have sparked alarm among U.S. national security officials, but the State Department kept the focus on the push for fair treatment of American diplomats.
“We would like to have much greater access for our diplomats in China,” the senior State Department official said in response to a question about foreign influence issues. “I mean, in any number of areas we’re looking to level the playing field here with China. This is certainly related to many other things going on in the relationship, but separate.”
