Foreign students OK in China during Games

BEIJING, April 19 (UPI) -- Global media claims that foreign students would be forced to leave China at the start of the Olympic Games in August are untrue, a spokesman said.

"Recently, some foreign media say China requires foreign students to leave during the Games. It completely goes against the facts," Education Ministry spokesman Wang Xuming said.

Educational institutions "have never asked foreign students to leave China during the Olympics and Paralympics. During that time, foreign students could stay and some of them would join volunteer services," he said.

Xuming also said global cooperation among educators and students would go on normally, continuing the allowance of foreign students into China, Xinhua reported Saturday.

More than 162,000 students from 185 regions and nations went to China in 2006, three times more students than in 2000.