The US government may make it more difficult for China’s ruling elite and their families to receive American visas following a series of diplomatic snubs by the Chinese government, according to US officials.
Beijing cancelled several bilateral academic and cultural programmes hosted by the US after Jon Huntsman, the ambassador, was photographed in February in the capital near where anonymous internet users had called for a demonstration to support a “jasmine revolution” in China.
While the calls for an uprising along the lines of the Arab spring largely went unheeded, Beijing launched what human rights groups have called the most severe crackdown on dissidents in more than a decade.