“I MISS an important space agency in this panel. Where is China?” Attendees at a plenary of the ongoing weeklong International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Washington brought up the question atop the panel voting system and demanded an answer. The crowd-sourced question popped up after the audience found that Wu Yanhua, vice administrator of China National Space Administration scheduled to speak at the IAC kickoff event on Monday with officials from five other national space agencies, was conspicuously absent. Pascale Ehrenfreund, the incoming president of International Astronautical Federation, which is IAC’s organizer, attributed Wu’s no-show to “time conflict,” but some attendees at the meeting hinted at a “visa problem.” The difficulty for Chinese scientists in obtaining a U.S. visa has been an issue of concern for a while. At a press conference Sunday, the IAC organizing committee co-chair Vincent Boles said they started working with the U.S. State Department 18 months ago to ensure the timely grant of visas for attendees. But such efforts seemed to be of little avail. QHYCCD, a telescope maker, is among a small number of Chinese companies that made it to this year’s IAC exhibit hall. Bi Tingting, the startup’s sales manager, told Xinhua all technicians with her company had failed to get a U.S. visa. The United States has for some time been denying visas to, delaying processing visa applications of, revoking long-term visas for, and searching and harassing Chinese scholars, students, entrepreneurs and scientists, Geng Shuang, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, told media Oct. 9. (Xinhua) |