File Photo: US National Security Advisor Susan Rice (Agence France-Presse)
White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice on Tuesday hosted US non-governmental groups likely to be hit by tough new Chinese security laws, a high-profile statement of concern ahead of Xi Jinping's state visit.
Rice met several representatives from among the universities, businesses and rights groups who would be forced to register and report to the security services if the draft law enters into force.
Sources familiar with Rice's talks said the meeting took place at the White House and included some organizations that receive US government grants.
The controversial draft law looks set to be another major area of contention when Xi Jinping meets President Barack Obama at the White House on Friday, for a summit designed to strengthen ties.
Describing the draft law as "deeply troubling" and its impact as "very unfortunate," a senior administration official told AFP that Obama would raise the issue.
"I think the president will make that clear," the official said.
"We are going find some opportunities to speak out on that issue and also find an opportunity to meet some of the stakeholders involved."
The Obama-Xi summit has already been beset by arguments over cyber hacking and China's increasingly assertive land grabs in the South China Sea.
"Our concern with the law is profound," said the official.
"First of all it is very broad, it gives a huge role to the ministry of public security, not the ministry of civil affairs that used to manage these groups."
"I have heard a number of these groups saying that they are having to question whether they will remain in China, whether they will curtail their activities in China or whether they will cancel plans to establish a presence in China."
"What I am talking about here are groups that have for decades made a tremendous contribution to China's own development and to the development of US-China bilateral relations -- I'm talking about foundations, business associations, universities."
Pressure to push backChristopher Johnson, a former CIA analyst, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said "there's a lot of pressure on the administration to push back on this, to get the Chinese to change it."
"Take Yale University, for example. They have a presence in China. If in New Haven they choose to host a dissident or the Dalai Lama or something like that, technically under this law the people in China would be subject to arrest."
Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio on Tuesday urged Obama to take a tougher line with Xi.
"The past year alone has been marked by further erosion of rule of law, tightening restrictions on civil society and outright attacks on human rights defenders and political dissidents," he wrote in an opinion article that appeared in the Washington Examiner.
He urged Obama to invite Chinese human rights activists to Xi's state dinner.
"Too often the Obama administration wants credit for 'raising human rights' -- but passing mentions and diminished significance in the broader bilateral agenda provides little solace to the brave men and women who face unimaginable obstacles and hardship for daring to claim their most basic human rights," Rubio wrote.
Xi arrived in Seattle on Tuesday aiming to woo American businesses and take the edge off the White House's wariness of the Asian giant.