U.S. Denies Charges By China on Defector
AP
Published: April 12, 1983

The State Department denied Chinese allegations Monday that President Reagan ''seized away'' the Chinese tennis player Hu Na, who was granted political asylum last week over Peking's protests.

The department's spokesman, John Hughes, said that Miss Hu's decision to remain in the United States was ''hers alone to make and the decision on granting her political asylum was ours alone to make.''

Miss Hu defected last summer during an exhibition tennis tour in California.

People's Daily, the Chinese Communist Party newspaper, said Sunday that Mr. Reagan ''has seized away alive a Chinese girl from her own parents and has offered himself as her foreign father.'' The commentary quoted a Republican fund-raiser, Richard Viguerie, as having said Mr. Reagan told him last week, ''I will personally adopt her before I send her back.''