Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Trump administration will move aggressively to revoke visas held by certain Chinese students in the U.S. as part of an effort to crack down on research theft and bring more balance to Washington’s relationship with Beijing.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” Rubio said in a statement.
He also said that the U.S. will “revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.”
Figures from a report commissioned by the State Department last year said that there are more than 277,000 Chinese students in the U.S. That’s down from the more than 400,000 Chinese students who were in the U.S. before the Covid-19 pandemic.
There’s no publicly available tally of CCP members residing in the U.S. on student visas, though the children of Chinese political elites, including the daughter of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, have studied at top U.S. universities.
Beijing, which views virtually all U.S. policies designed to respond to its malign actions as a threat to the CCP’s legitimacy, is likely to object to Rubio’s announcement.
“The Trump administration is taking action to protect Americans and rebalance our relationship with China,” a senior State Department official told National Review.
“China exploited our visa system for decades to advance the priorities of the Communist Party. They sent students to our best colleges and research universities. Many of these so-called guests in our great country arrived with one purpose — to steal our intellectual property on Beijing’s behalf,” the official continued.
Rubio’s announcement comes as congressional Republicans have moved for a crackdown targeting Chinese students, who are implicated in espionage targeting sensitive research fields.
Lawmakers have accused university administrations of turning a blind eye to activities that they say will assist China’s defense-industrial base.
In a recent letter to Harvard University, several senior GOP lawmakers warned about specific joint research arrangements in which affiliates of the school partnered with Chinese institutions linked to Beijing’s military.
The House select committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House education committee have also targeted joint academic and centers that U.S. universities have operated in tandem with Chinese schools.
The University of California, Berkeley, shuttered one such joint arrangement with Tsinghua University after congressional investigators warned that it could facilitate Beijing’s efforts to obtain cutting-edge technologies with military applications.
University presidents have long resisted U.S. actions designed to crack down on research theft by Chinese nationals.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleged in his memoir that MIT’s then-President Rafael Reif cancelled a speech he was slated to deliver at the university on tech-transfer threats, saying that it would offend Chinese students. MIT denied his account, asserting that the speech was cancelled because of Covid-related restrictions.
Human rights advocates and lawmakers have also expressed worries that Beijing directs repression campaigns against students who don’t back the CCP’s line via China’s diplomatic outposts in the U.S. and Chinese Students and Scholars Associations. Those student groups are ostensibly intended to help Chinese students build community on campus but are known to collaborate closely with the Chinese authorities.
Chinese students on U.S. campuses have faced harassment and physical harm when they have expressed views that run contrary to Chinese government policies.
This morning, Rubio announced new visa restrictions targeting foreign government officials who censor Americans or threaten them for their speech.
Yesterday, the State Department paused all student-visa interviews at its foreign outposts as it overhauls the social media screening process for applicants.
“The president’s goal is clear: We will put America first, and that means our policies on everything from trade to immigration should benefit Americans, not other nations at the expense of our people,” the senior State Department official said.
Since arriving at Foggy Bottom, Rubio has taken actions to counter CCP human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Tibet. He also reversed Biden-era guidance that downplayed Beijing’s political influence activities, National Review reported.