WASHINGTON, D.C. — For Anson, hearing the news that China’s student visas are the latest target for US President Donald Trump’s administration was “courtly.”
A Chinese graduate student studying foreign services at Georgetown University told Al Jazeera that he felt uncertain about the future of students like him after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the US would “actively cancel Chinese students, including Chinese Communist ties and students studying in important fields.”
“We have definitely observed some uncertainty and anxiety between us,” Anson said, asking us to use only his name.
The Trump administration has not made it even more clear that students will be affected. Some observers saw the announcement of two sentences that they also pledged to be deliberately ambiguous to “amend visa standards to enhance surveillance” of future visa applicants in China and Hong Kong.
Anson, 23, said he understands that the US government has concerns about foreign influence and national security when it comes to China, but was confused as to why the Trump administration’s new policies are potentially widespread.
Most students in his hometown, like more than a million other students studying in the United States each year, have said it is a country known for both its educational opportunities and its “inclusiveness and broad demographics.”
“It’s disastrous for many of us to see a country built by immigrants become more xenophobic and hostile than the rest of the world,” he and other Chinese students in the US are still trying to decipher policy changes.
“Big doubt”
This is not the first time the Trump administration has aimed to become a student in China. In 2018, the US Department of Justice launched the so-called “China Initiative” during Trump’s first term with the stated purpose of fighting “professional secret theft, hacking and economic spies.”
Instead, the MIT analysis showed a program that focused primarily on Chinese researchers and scholars, saying that critics would correspond to “racial profiling and horror mongeling.” It was abolished in February 2022 by the administration of former US President Joe Biden.
Since then, according to Plinshton University researcher Kyle Chang, “there’s been all that since then, “there’s been various aspects of almost bipartisan Chinese technology, Beijing’s actions all over the world, and now these concerns about surveillance and spying.”
This includes a Republican-led Congressional report from September 2024, in which hundreds of millions of US dollars of taxes (who were caught up in a US-China partnership at the university) helped develop key technologies, including those related to semiconductors, artificial intelligence, high-solic weapons and nuclear capabilities.
But while acknowledging “real security concerns,” Chan said the broad announcement from the Trump administration doesn’t seem to actually address those concerns.
Instead, he said he sent a “shock wave of fear across university campuses across the nation.”
That uncertainty has been exacerbated by Trump’s recent pressure campaign against US universities, and recently accompanied by a blocked cancellation of his ability to register international students at Harvard University.
“I think ambiguity is part of it [Trump administration’s] The strategy is because it’s not about concrete policies,” Chan told Al Jazeera.
Instead, he saw the move as aiming to be Trump’s political audience, those who sit in “the overlap between people who are very anxious about immigration in general and people who are very anxious about China.”
“Absolutely confused”
The administration has little clarified about the scope of visa revocation, or how students can be defined by “connection with the Chinese Communist Party and studying in important fields.”
Speaking to reporters Thursday, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce gave little further details, saying, “We will continue to use all of our tools in our tool chest to ensure that we know who those who want to come to this country are and whether they should come in.”
“We can say that the US will not tolerate the exploitation of CCPs at US universities, theft of US research, intellectual property or technology.
Despite the lack of clarity, the ultimate shape of the policy will determine how “disruptive” it is, according to Cole McFaull, a research analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
He pointed out real concerns about the security of the research and illegal IP. [intellectual property] “Movement” has noted that in recent years there have been a handful of documented cases of such activities.
“My hope is that this is a target action based on an accurate assessment of risk that takes into account evidence and costs and benefits,” McFall said.
“My concern is that this will lead to a widespread, large withdrawal of visas for Chinese students operating in STEM subjects,” he says, referring to abbreviations for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
McFaul pointed out that about 80% of the estimated 277,000 Chinese students studying in the US each year are STEM subjects, what he described as “a very important talent pipeline from China to the US for the past 40 years.”
The majority (and about 80%) of STEM subjects in China’s PhDs tend to stay in the US after the study, as McFaul described them as another major benefit for the US.
“The question is, what is important as someone who works in critical technology? Is life science important? I say yes. Is physical science important? I say “Yes.” Is computer science important? Is engineering important? ” McFaul said.
“So there’s a world where the majority of Chinese students are not allowed to study in the US. This will be a huge loss and a tremendous disruption for the US science and technology ecosystem,” he said.
“Creates unnecessary fear”
As policies remain fog, US Chinese students said they are monitoring the whimsical winds of the Trump administration.
Su, a 23-year-old applied analysis graduate student at Columbia University, said she quickly changed plans to return to China this summer amid uncertainty.
“I was scared that once I returned to China, I wouldn’t be able to return to the US when class began,” said SU, who asked me to use only my last name, taking into account the “sensitivity” situation.
“When Trump announces something, I don’t know if it will work,” she told Al Jazeera. “It’s always changing.”
Den, a graduate student at Georgetown, said he also asked not to use his full name and widely agreed that reforms were needed to address issues related to China’s influence in US academia.
They included intimidation of political opposition, spread of nationalist propaganda and “olihead corruption,” he said.
However, in an email to Al Jazeera, he said the administration’s approach was misguided.
“The current measures do not only do not achieve such goals,” he said. [are] It also creates unnecessary fear, even among the Chinese student community, which has long been completely committed to the development and enrichment of American society. ”
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