The principal restraint on increased emigration continues to be the capacity and willingness of other nations to absorb Chinese immigrants, not Chinese policy. After considering all the relevant information, I have concluded that continuing the MFN waiver will preserve the gains already achieved on freedom of emigration and encourage further progress. Foreign travel by Chinese-government sponsored businessmen alone increased by 48 percent in FY 1992, reflecting Deng Xiaoping's policies of accelerating China's opening to the outside world. The decline was probably the result in part of a recent new directive requiring Chinese college graduates educated at state expense to work for five years before applying for privately-funded overseas study. A drop in funding from recession-strapped U.S. schools and relatives may also have played a role.
Chinese students continue to return from overseas for visits without any apparent problem.
With the exception of student activist Shen Tong, we are not aware of any case in which Chinese living in the U. S. who returned to China for visits after June 1989 were prevented from leaving again. Shen was detained in September 1991 and then expelled from China two months later for trying to establish a Beijing Chapter of his Fund for Chinese Democracy. As detailed in the Department's annual human rights report, China's human rights practices remain repressive and fall far short of internationally accepted norms. Freedoms of speech, assembly, association, and religion are sharply restricted. China understands that the Clinton Administration has made human rights a cornerstone of our foreign policy.