After the COVID-19 epidemic, Chinese citizens have become a new group of people smuggling north from South and Central America to the United States or seeking asylum. They call this dangerous smuggling route "walking the line", and there are occasional reports of accidents.
Mexican officials said that last week, the bodies of eight Chinese citizens were found on a beach in the southwestern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Prosecutors in the country said the boat they were on capsized and sank. The remains were discovered last Friday (March 29) on a popular smuggling route. Mexican officials said the Chinese citizens were trying to head to the United States.
The seven women and one man who died were aboard a Mexican-operated ship that set sail from the Mexican state of Chiapas on the border with Guatemala last Thursday. Mexican officials said one man on board survived and the Mexican driver's whereabouts were unknown.
The Oaxaca state prosecutor's office said the remains were found on a beach near the town of Playa Vicente. The office added that it was investigating the cause of the accident and was working with the Chinese Embassy in Mexico to confirm the identities of the victims.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill requiring Beijing-based ByteDance to spin off its short-video sharing platform TikTok within six months, otherwise the U.S. will ban TikTok.
The bill received support from both parties and was quickly passed with an overwhelming vote of 352 to 65. The next step will be sent to the Senate for discussion and voting. Biden has indicated he would sign the bill into law if it lands on his desk.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the day before the bill was reviewed that the United States has not found evidence that TikTok threatens U.S. national security but continues to suppress it. This is an "act of bullying" that undermines the normal business activities of enterprises, international investor confidence, and international economic and trade. order, "will eventually come back to bite the United States itself."
Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who co-authored the bill, said the United States cannot "risk having a major news platform controlled or owned by a company that does the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party."