China ridicules US over new FBI slots

-Says FBI should recruit 300,000 agents to surveil Chinese students
-Terms US suppression of Chinese journalists as hypocrisy, double standards
Beijing: FBI should open 300,000 posts to surveil Chinese students studying in the US, a spokesperson of Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday amid a report on a Republican House member’s proposal to create 56 new FBI agent slots to tackle so-called Chinese education espionage.
The bill claimed large amounts of Chinese students at US higher education institutions are doing espionage for the Communist Party of China. US senators and congressmen have all kinds of weird claims and proposals. The 56-person quota must be a severe underestimate as there are more than 300,000 Chinese students studying in the US, ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at Wednesday’s routine press conference.
“The House member should set 300,000 positions, or at least 150,000 to surveil them, which can at the same time solve the US’ unemployment problem,” Hua said. Many people are bewildered with US politicians’ strange remarks because the US is facing a lot of urgent tasks domestically. US leaders had complained about their backward infrastructure; the real death toll of COVID-19 may way exceed 600,000 in the country; hate crimes against Asians skyrocketed in the past year.
But the politicians elected by Americans do not spend their time to address US problems but keep talking about China and coming up with ridiculous ideas, Hua pointed out. What is the real threat the US faces? What they can do to improve Americans’ lives, protect their health, safeguard their human rights and equality? US congressmen should think about it, Hua said.
Moreover, Chinese observers slammed the US as being hypocritical and having double standards in its flaunting advocacy of press freedom, as Chinese journalists stationed in the US suffered from political oppression while Western media continued to hype China’s so-called media manipulation.
Hua Chunying, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, on Wednesday released more details of Chinese journalists being badly treated in the US and requested the US to correct the mistake as soon as possible and give Chinese journalists fair and just treatment. Hua revealed that a journalist of China’s Xinhua News Agency who was forced to return to China on May 1 was interrogated in an unusual way by US border agents, and his laptop and other electronic devices were also checked.
Visa extension applications submitted by journalists from Xinhua and the People’s Daily in early November 2020 haven’t been approved yet. Following US rules, the journalists stopped working in early February, according to Hua.
–The Daily Mail-Global Times news exchange item