US State Department Downgrades Travel Advisory for China

Travelers crowd at the gates and wait for trains at the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station during the peak travel rush for the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday in Shanghai, China, on Jan. 15, 2023. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

The U.S. Department of State has downgraded a travel advisory for China following the release of three American citizens.

The White House announced on Nov. 27 that it had secured the release of three Americans whom the United States said China had detained on wrongful charges.

In the travel advisory update posted on the same day, the department downgraded China from Level 3, which advises reconsidering travel, to Level 2, which recommends exercising increased caution when visiting.

The Department of State continues to warn that the Chinese Communist Party arbitrarily enforces local laws, including exit bans on U.S. citizens “without fair and transparent process under the law.”

“Foreigners in the PRC, including but not limited to businesspeople, former foreign-government personnel, academics, relatives of PRC citizens involved in legal disputes,” the State Department wrote in its warning. “Journalists have been interrogated and detained by PRC officials for alleged violations of PRC national security laws. The PRC has also interrogated, detained, and expelled U.S. citizens living and working in the PRC.”

PRC is the acronym for communist China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.

According to the State Department, U.S. citizens traveling or residing in China may be detained without access to consular services or information about their alleged crime. They could also be subjected to “interrogations and detention without fair and transparent treatment under the law.”

The department advises reconsidering travel to Macau, referred to as a special administrative region (SAR) in China.

The warning is in place due to the “limited ability to provide emergency consular services” and the “arbitrary enforcement of local laws,” the advisory states.

“The U.S. government has a limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in the Macau SAR due to People’s Republic of China (PRC) Ministry of Foreign Affairs travel restrictions on U.S. diplomatic personnel,” the State Department wrote.

On Wednesday, Mark Swidan, Kai Li, and John Leung, American businessmen who were allegedly detained in China on false charges, were released following a diplomatic agreement between Washington and Beijing.

“Soon they will return and be reunited with their families for the first time in many years,” a National Security Council spokesperson told The Epoch Times. With their release, the spokesperson said that “all of the wrongfully detained Americans in the PRC are home.”

David Lin, a missionary arrested in China while on a trip in 2006, was also released in September.

A Chinese national serving a nine-month sentence in a Pennsylvania prison for cyberstalking and threatening a pro-democracy student was released in September and returned to China.

Eva Fu contributed to this report.