Washington extends China brawl to the final frontier

Beijing has accused the US of ‘weaponising’ visas after Chinese space experts were prevented from attending a conference.

US Vice-President Mike Pence in Washington. Picture: AFP

Beijing has accused the US of “weaponising” visas after a dele­gation of Chinese space experts was prevented from attending a global conference in Washington.

Several members of the China National Space Administration, including Wu Yanhua, its vice-chairman, were conspicuously absent this week from the International Astronautical Congress, an annual global space conference now in its 70th year.

US Vice-President Mike Pence opened the meeting by ­declaring that America would only seek space co-operation with “freedom-loving nations”.

A spokeswoman from the Chin­ese foreign ministry said that the US was “weaponising visas in ­defiance of its international ­responsibilities and obligations”.

She added that the denial of visas to Mr Wu and others undermined Beijing’s “legitimate and lawful rights”.

The US has been exerting increasingly tight control over visas to Chinese officials and revoking long-term permits for scholars amid fears of espionage by the Chinese state and corporations.

The Trump administration frequently accuses Chinese researchers of stealing US innovations and the Department of Justice is invest­igating alleged Chinese espionage against US companies and government entities.

Intellectual property theft is a key sticking point at the centre of the trade war between Beijing and Washington. The White House has signalled that it anticipates space will become a frontier for tensions in the future.

President Donald Trump has vowed to return Americans to the moon by 2024, while creating a military branch in space.

Meanwhile, Beijing’s space program is advancing rapidly. In January, China became the first nation to land a rover on the far side of the moon.

The State Department rejected Beijing’s accusation that it withheld visas as “unfounded and baseless”. “We cannot discuss ­individual visa cases since visa records are confidential under US law, but we can confirm that the Chinese delegation is in attendance at the conference,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said on Friday.

The US issued 1.3 million visas to Chinese travellers last year, she added.

European Space Agency ­director-general Jan Worner told the Xinhua news agency that he disagreed with Mr Pence that space co-operation should be limit­ed to certain nations.

“I’m not stopping co-operation with others because they don’t think like me,” Mr Worner said. “On the contrary, because they don’t think like me, I’m going into co-operation.”

The Times