US to probe reports of swabs on its citizens arriving in China

Bloomberg News on May 10, 2025

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The U.S. embassy in China said it received reports that American citizens are being subjected to “invasive medical testing” upon arrival in the country.

“We are looking into these reports,” the embassy in Beijing said in a response to a query by Bloomberg. “The U.S. Mission to China has no greater priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens in China.”

A U.S. citizen on a plane that arrived at Pudong International in Shanghai on May 2 told Bloomberg all foreign passport holders on the flight were corralled into an area after landing. A Chinese inspector scraped their tongues with a swab repeatedly, the person who was a former genetics researcher said, asking not to be identified for privacy reasons.

The passengers on the plane that were from the U.K. weren’t told why they were swabbed or what the samples would be used for, the person said.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry didn’t respond for a request for comment sent outside of office hours Saturday.

Arrivals, including Chinese citizens, were asked to do tests in airports in Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Shanghai for flu, COVID-19 and mpox since last year, and some were provided consent forms, according to some social media posts.

“In order to protect the health of you and others, quarantine officials need to take samples for the related laboratory tests,” according to a digital image of the form posted by some netizens on the Instagram-styled social media platform Xiaohongshu.

(Pearl Liu contributed to this report.)