Few academic records are as impressive as that of Duo Yi, age 24. After graduating with honors in international relations from Peking University – China's most prestigious university – she went on to earn a master's degree at Oxford in the United Kingdom, thanks to a scholarship for the most talented students. She wanted to go even further and applied for a doctorate at Harvard Kennedy School in the United States, regarded as the world's top institution for political science. "It was the program of my dreams. I was extremely happy when I found out I had been accepted," she told Le Monde.

Duo Yi received her visa a few weeks ago, but she is no longer sure if it is still valid, and now wonders, given the open hostility of the American administration toward Chinese students, whether she would be able to study in the US in peace. Two recent developments complicated her plans. First, Donald Trump's campaign against admitting foreign students to Harvard, which, even though the American president was overruled by judges, left her fearing a highly uncertain environment. Then came the statements by Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio, who, on Wednesday, May 28, declared that he wanted to "revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields."

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