US says it will start ‘aggressively’ revoking visas of Chinese students
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Mr Marco Rubio said Chinese students with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or who are studying in critical fields will also have their visas revoked.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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WASHINGTON – US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on May 28 that America will start “aggressively” revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.
If applied to a broad segment of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese university students in the US, the move could disrupt a major source of income for American schools and a crucial pipeline of talent for US tech companies.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to ramp up deportations and revoke student visas as part of wide-ranging efforts to fulfil its hardline immigration agenda. It has also expanded social media vetting of foreign students.
In a statement, Mr Rubio said the State Department will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from China and Hong Kong.
“The US State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students,” he said.
Beijing said it firmly opposes the US plan to revoke visas for Chinese students and urged its Western rival to be more constructive towards stable bilateral relations, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on May 29.
China has lodged a protest over Mr Rubio’s announcement of the move.
The US used ideology and national security as “pretexts” for its decision, which harms the legitimate rights and interests of the students, ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a regular news briefing.
The ministry has previously vowed to “firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests” of its students overseas, following the Trump administration’s move to revoke Harvard University’s ability to enrol foreign students, many of whom are Chinese.
China is also at the epicentre of Mr Trump’s global trade war that has roiled financial markets
International students – India and China together accounting for 54 per cent of them – contributed more than US$50 billion (S$64.7 billion) to the US economy in 2023, according to the Department of Commerce.
The Trump administration last week cited Harvard University’s ties to China
Mr Rubio’s statement did not offer details on how extensively the visa revocations would be applied.
But even a relatively small number could disrupt the flow of Chinese students seeking higher education in the US, which began in the late 1970s.
Recent decades have seen the US become the destination of choice for many Chinese students seeking an alternative to China’s intensely competitive university system, drawn to the strong reputation of US schools.
Those students typically came from wealthier families that could afford the high cost of American universities. Many of them stayed on after graduating and have been credited with contributing to the US’ research capacity and workforce.
The number of Chinese international students in the US has dropped to about 277,000 in 2024 from a high of around 370,000 in 2019, pulled lower by growing tension between the world’s two largest economies, heightened US government scrutiny and the Covid-19 pandemic.
As the US-China geopolitical rivalry has escalated into what many analysts consider a new form of Cold War, US agencies and Congress have stepped up scrutiny of China’s state-sponsored influence and technology transfers at American colleges and universities.
Washington has become increasingly concerned that Beijing uses open and federally funded research environments in the US to circumvent export controls and other national security laws.
Greater scrutiny and uncertainty over visas have led more Chinese students to opt for schools in Europe, and more graduates are now returning to China to pursue their careers.
Ms Yaqiu Wang, a US-based human rights researcher who came to the US from China as a student, said Beijing had indeed taken advantage of American academic openness to engage in espionage and intellectual property theft, but she called Mr Rubio’s announcement “deeply concerning”.
“Broad revocations and blanket bans would not only jeopardise the rights and livelihoods of Chinese students studying and working in the US, but also risk undermining America’s longstanding position as the global leader in scientific innovation,” she said.
During Mr Trump’s first administration, then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo led a drive to rid US university campuses of China-funded Confucius Institute cultural centres, saying they worked to advance Beijing’s “global propaganda and malign influence” and to recruit “spies and collaborators”.
As a result, many US institutions cut ties with the centres.
On May 27, it was reported that the State Department had halted new appointments for student and exchange visitor visa applicants, an internal cable showed. REUTERS
