A.G. Gancarski
U.S. Senator Rick Scott believes that pandemic-spurred travel restrictions to the People’s Republic of China should be permanent.
In a Friday letter to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Senator said that would be a way to “hold China accountable” and to “recognize the serious security threat that every American faces in Communist China.”
“The Chinese Communist Party and their puppets continue to silence and intimidate those standing up for democracy and human rights. We know foreigners and journalists working and traveling in China do so at their own risk,” Scott noted.
The Senator said Beiiing conducts “extensive surveillance on everyone traveling in the country, and will stop at nothing to silence dissidents.”
The State Department, in the current Level 4: Do Not Travel advisory, notes that the mainland Chinese government has “asserted broad authority to prohibit U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries from leaving the PRC by using ‘exit bans,’ sometimes keeping them in the PRC for years.”
Recourse is limited.
“U.S. citizens may be detained without access to U.S. consular services or information about their alleged crime. U.S. citizens may be subjected to prolonged interrogations and extended detention for reasons related to ‘state security.’ Security personnel may detain and/or deport U.S. citizens for sending private electronic messages critical of the PRC government.”
Senator Scott has been vocal about his perception of the existential threat posed by the Chinese regime, saying that the conflict between Washington and Beijing is part of a “new Cold War,” with China in the role of the Soviet Union.
“The reality is that China wants power, world power — and there is a sinister, Soviet-style plan to achieve it,” Scott wrote in the Washington Examiner. “Since gaining power in 2012, General Secretary Xi Jinping has mimicked Soviet Russia’s playbook: Create a bloc of global partners through strategic investment and political cajoling, steal American technology, and prop up authoritarian leaders.”
