500,000 non-immigrant visas to Chinese

BEIJING, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. Embassy in Beijing reported about 500,000 non-immigrant visas were issued to Chinese last year, 20 percent of them to students and exchange visitors.

The number was up 5 percent from the previous year, China Daily reported, adding the figures were provided by Mandarin-speaking U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman.

The 100,000 visas given to students and exchange visitors were for those planning to study or to do research in the United States, the report said.

The report did not say the purpose for the remainder of the visas, but presumably included those to tourists and business leaders.

Huntsman was quoted as saying in 1979, when the two countries established diplomatic ties, only 4,700 non-immigrant U.S. visas were issued.

China Daily reported the ambassador's remarks came at a time when Washington's "arbitrary arms sales" to Taiwan "fumed Beijing to the hilt and threatened to chill their cross-Pacific ties into a nadir."