China Urges Citizens to Avoid Seattle Airport

Chinese government officials are encouraging travelers to be wary and avoid entering the United States through Seattle, citing a pattern of continual harassment by US Customs and Border Protection personnel. About 20 Chinese scholars with visas flew through Seattle-Tacoma International Airport recently to attend an academic conference, but China Consular Affairs said in a post on X that the academics were "unreasonably inspected" by CBP personnel and refused entry, the AP reports.

The alert issued by the foreign ministry and Chinese diplomatic missions in the US said scholars had faced "malicious questioning and harassment," reports Reuters. The alert urged citizens with plans to visit the US to do so with a mindset of safety and security and to avoid the Seattle airport. The foreign ministry also urged travelers from China to become versed with US entry regulations and be prepared. "If you encounter questioning from US enforcement personnel, you should deal with it calmly and rationally," the alert said.

The notice is the latest in a series of protests from China over what Beijing calls "politically motivated" interrogations of Chinese citizens with valid visas for the US, the South China Morning Post reports. Seattle ranked as the sixth largest metro area in the nation for Chinese population in 2019 with about 166,000 residents, according to the Pew Research Center.