Rep. Young Kim urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio Thursday to raise China’s travel advisory from Level 2 to Level 3, recommending that Americans reconsider visiting the communist country.
In a letter to Mr. Rubio, the congresswoman said last week’s updated advisory of arbitrary detentions and exit bans in China was a good first step, but U.S. travelers need a stronger alert.
“While I applaud this update, I respectfully urge you to elevate China’s Travel Advisory to ‘Level 3: Reconsider Travel,’” wrote Ms. Kim, a California Republican who chairs the Foreign Affairs East Asia and Pacific Subcommittee.
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The Washington Times got an early look at the letter.
In the letter, Ms. Kim said the current advisory warns that Americans face a serious risk of wrongful detention by the People’s Republic of China, which contrasts with other Level 2 countries such as Italy, Germany and the U.K., where risks come from non-state actors.
“The risk of traveling to China is the state apparatus itself, making the risks constant and country-wide,” she said, adding that a Level 3 designation would trigger a formal semiannual review of China’s travel status.
The higher designation would reflect, she said, the heightened vigilance which the State Department advises American citizens to exercise.
“Americans must be aware that traveling to a key adversarial nation comes with serious risks and potential consequences,” Ms. Kim said in the letter. “Adopting these recommendations would immensely benefit how Americans approach travel to the PRC, and I hope you will take them into serious consideration.”
Ms. Kim’s subcommittee held a hearing last month examining human rights abuses and repression of foreign nationals in China and North Korea, as well as the U.S. approach to unlawful detentions.
At the hearing, Peter Mattis, president of the global security think tank Jamestown Foundation, backed a higher caution level for China.
“Not only did Mr. Mattis agree, but he also argued that it would be useful for those travel advisories to explicitly give examples of detention,” Ms. Kim said in the letter.
She also asked Mr. Rubio to list Min Zin and Youlin Chen as cases of unlawfully detained Americans on the State Department website. The department has already designated them as wrongfully detained by China.
Chinese authorities detained Mr. Zin, an executive director of the think tank ISP-Myanmar and a scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, on June 3 after he arrived in China for an academic conference.
China has held Mr. Chen, an American seismologist, since November 2024.
The State Department on Oct. 19 updated the Level 2 “Exercise Increased Caution” advisory for mainland China, citing wrongful detention and restrictions on leaving the country.
The advisory kept China at Level 2, which recommends travelers “exercise increased caution,” but adds a “D” to indicate the risk of wrongful detention.
The administration is pressing for the release of wrongfully detained Americans in China before President Trump travels next month to the APEC summit in Shenzhen.
Beijing denies wrongful detention of Americans and says its courts have acted lawfully.
Rep. Chris Smith, New Jersey Republican, who co-chairs the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, told The Washington Times last month that as many as 300 Americans are detained in China, where some are tortured and sexually abused.
“The Chinese government must release Dr. Chen and Mr. Min Zin and end its practice of arbitrarily detaining American citizens,” Mr. Smith said. “Protecting Americans abroad must remain a top priority of the U.S. government.”
High-profile prisoners in China include Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai; Uyghur economics professor Ilham Tohti; American businessman Kai Li; Americans Dawn Michelle Hunt and Nelson Wells Jr.; Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu; and the Zion 8 — eight pastors and co-workers of Beijing Zion Church.
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