A U.S. Commerce official has been barred from leaving China since April after having his passport seized, part of a growing trend affecting American citizens and executives.

For the third time in as many months, US and Chinese officials will meet in Europe for trade talks — and this time, Beijing is arriving at the negotiating table more emboldened than ever.

The State Department said that officials are actively engaged with their Chinese counterparts to resolve the situation swiftly.

Late last month, a car struck children near an elementary school in an outlying district of Beijing, according to a Chinese news report. A four-sentence police statement said a 35-year-old male driver hit pedestrians due to “improper operation” of the car.

China is refusing to let a U.S. Department of Commerce employee and a Wells Fargo banker leave the country, officials say.

The man, a U.S. citizen, is barred from leaving China by the Ministry of State Security, the country’s main intelligence and counterintelligence agency.

While Microsoft has said it will stop using China-based tech support for the Defense Department, it declined to answer questions about what would replace it, including whether cloud support would come from engineers based outside the US. The company also declined to say whether it would continue to use digital escorts.

BEIJING: The Chinese government on Saturday proposed the creation of a global artificial intelligence (AI) cooperation organization, tentatively considering its headquarters in Shanghai.