Washington urged to stop harassing students from China

The United States has continued to wantonly harass and interrogate Chinese students in the country despite Beijing's repeated protests against such behavior, sources familiar with the matter told China Daily on Monday.

The sources, who asked not to be identified, said that a Chinese student taking a US flight to go back to China a few days ago was interrogated for almost an hour by US officials at the airport.

The student's laptop and mobile phone were impounded, the sources said, and the student was allowed to leave shortly before the plane's cabin door was closed.

The sources said that during the process, the US officials repeatedly asked whether the Chinese student had any relationship with the China Scholarship Council. The council is a nonprofit organization of the Ministry of Education that provides support for international academic exchanges with China. It also provides funding for Chinese citizens and residents to study abroad, and for foreign students and scholars to study in China.

According to the sources, the officials also arbitrarily examined the experimental data in the laptop of the Chinese student.

The US behavior has seriously violated Chinese students' lawful rights and interests and severely undermined people-to-people exchanges and educational cooperation between China and the US, the sources said.

Since the relationship between China and the US has worsened in recent years, there have been many news reports about the US monitoring, harassing, interrogating and arresting Chinese students in the country and seizing their electronic devices.

The Foreign Ministry has protested to the US many times, urging it to correct mistakes and stop discriminatory behavior against Chinese students.