Last Thursday, two officials from the US embassy's visa section answered questions from the media, including our newspaper.

　　Q: Last month the newspaper Youth Reference News published an article saying that according to a new State Department rules, starting on 1 August visa applicants aged below 16 and above 60 would no longer need to be inter-viewed. Is the article correct?

　　A: Not quite. The rule is that after August 1, in general, all applicants worldwide must have personal interviews. If a particular embassy or consulate wants to make an exception, they have to request permission from the State Department. Two of the categories for which they may in theory re-quest such exceptions are applicants below age 16 and above 60. Our policy here in China has been to require personal interviews even for those under 16 and above 60. We're not planning to ask permission for any general ex-emptions from the interview. Of course, in individual cases we may waive the interview for humanitarian reasons.

　　Q: What about the impact of the new visa rules in China? Will the clearance process take more time?

　　A: Any Chinese applicant who qualified prior to the restrictions will also tend to qualify under the new rules. There will not be a longer clearance process after August 1; the longer clearance process has already been in effect for about a year as the result of worldwide procedures announced by the State Department in the summer of 2002. In fact, the clearance process is gradually improving and becoming shorter (and will continue to do so after Au-gust 1, we hope) as Washington becomes more efficient.

　　Otherwise the new rules taking effect in August will have little impact in China. The new policy includes stricter rules on personal interviews, but we already have very strict rules here. In other countries there may be problems. For example, in South Korea a very high percentage of visa applicants were formerly issued visas without a personal appearance at the embassy, whereas under the new rules al-most all applicants will need to present themselves for an interview. Thus in some countries US consular officers will have to figure out how to handle so many more people coming in.

　　Q: Some fields of study have been classified "sensitive" and require a check by Washington. Could you explain the basis for this classification?

　　A: We really can't say anything beyond the fact that a given field has applications①involving science and technology. Obviously, if visa applicants mean to study poetry, they won't have this sort of problem. But anything that falls in the realm of science and technology will be examined more carefully than other sorts of fields. Of course, applicants are required to tell us exactly what they propose to study.

　　Q: Why do American student visas seem so much more difficult to obtain than those for other countries?

　　A: Last fall we conducted a little comparative study of visa laws for students going to various countries. We contacted officials from the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to find out what their requirements are. After comparing the rules, I can understand why Chinese students who want to go abroad to study may be a little con-fused. These other countries' rules and procedures are in-deed different from ours. Under US law a student applicant must persuade the visa officer of his or her intention to leave America at the end of the intended program of study -- otherwise, no visa.

　　Q: Where can one get authoritative information on US visa procedures?

　　A: We have an excellent website (www.usembassy-china.org.cn) that provides all sorts of information on visa categories, rules, requirements and procedures, and on the CITIC program. We believe the website provides answers to almost any question an applicant could ask.

　　Two weeks ago we were on Sohu.com for two nights to answer questions from students. The first evening we received over 3,000 questions and we answered as many as we could. More than 15,000 people logged onto the website that night, and 17,000 the second night. We think this is a good way to get accurate information out to potential visa applicants. We'll do it again in the future not just to answer questions about student visas but about other visa types, and with other web service providers too.

　　Q: Are the US visa laws for Chinese the same as for people from other countries?

　　A: The laws and procedures we're talking about to-day apply to visa seekers from every country in the world. By the way, We also encourage visa applicants with questions to look at the State Department's consular website (travel.state.gov); it provides equally authoritative information on travel to the US and visa application procedures.