A U.S. citizen visiting Harbin City in northern China was recently questioned by local Chinese police and warned not to use her U.S.-registered mobile phone in public.
Teresa Chen (a pseudonym), who requested anonymity, is an American citizen employed by a U.S. law firm in Northern California. Ms. Chen, who has frequently traveled to China for business, made her latest trip in May for a personal reason: selling her apartment in Harbin, the capital city of Heilongjiang Province in China.
On the morning of May 17, Ms. Chen was visited by two young Chinese police officers who knocked on her door. The officers checked her passport and inquired about her foreign cell phone. After identifying the device, they instructed her to refrain from using it in public, allowing its use only within her residence.
Notably, May 17 coincided with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the city. Mr. Putin, on his way back to Russia, stopped by Harbin after he met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing. Heilongjiang Province borders Russia.
During her stay, Ms. Chen regularly visited the Qiulin Store building, an establishment constructed by Russians in the early 1900s. The police questioned her motives for visiting the building, to which Ms. Chen responded that she went there for shopping and massages.
Ms. Chen told The Epoch Times that she had attempted to use her cell phone for payments but was unsuccessful, leading her to believe she had been under surveillance by the police prior to their visit.
The officers also questioned Ms. Chen about her reasons for visiting China and her departure plans. After she informed them of her scheduled flight back to the United States the following day, the officers left.
Ms. Chen observed a noticeable decrease in the number of foreigners in China compared to her previous visits. She mentioned that while, as an American citizen, she was warmly received by friends and relatives in the past, her recent visits were marked by hesitance among her relatives to meet her. One relative, a school principal, did not respond to her invitation and instead sent his wife to meet Ms. Chen.
“They’re trying to avoid troubles for themselves,” she stated.
Ms. Chen recounted another unusual incident from a previous visit: She was traveling with two other coworkers, one Caucasian and one Indian, when a taxi driver discreetly showed her a message on his phone in Chinese that read, “Don’t talk about politics, the authorities can listen to what we say.”
Additionally, Ms. Chen shared an encounter at a restaurant near Shanghai Airport where a U.S.-educated computer science graduate who was unable to find a job in his field was working as a waiter. She noted that there were two other servers at the restaurant in similar circumstances.
