US to start revoking visas for Chinese students

WASHINGTON: United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Wednesday (May 28) the US 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 technology companies.

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.

In a statement, 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.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China's foreign ministry 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 Trump's global trade war that has roiled financial markets, upended supply chains and fueled risks of a sharp worldwide economic downturn. The decision to cancel Chinese student visas comes despite a recent pause in the US-China trade dispute.

International students - India and China together accounting for 54 per cent of them - contributed more than US$50 billion to the US economy in 2023, according to the US Department of Commerce.

UNIVERSITY TIES TO CHINA UNDER SCRUTINY

The State Department has broad authority to issue and revoke visas. The administration last week cited Harvard University's ties to China as among several reasons for revoking its ability to enrol foreign students, a move temporarily blocked by a US judge.

Rubio's statement did not offer details on how extensively the visa revocations would be applied. Even a relatively small number could disrupt the flow of Chinese students seeking out higher education in the US that began in the late 1970s from Communist-governed China.

Recent decades saw the US become the destination of choice for many Chinese students looking for an alternative to China's intensely competitive university system and drawn to the strong reputation of US schools. Those students typically come from wealthier families able to afford the high cost of US universities.

Many of those have stayed after graduating and have been credited with contributing to American research capacity and the US workforce.

The number of Chinese students in the US dropped to about 277,000 in 2024, however, from a high of around 370,000 in 2019, pulled lower by growing tension between the world's two biggest economies, heightened US government scrutiny of Chinese students, 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 has led more Chinese students to opt for schools in Europe, and more graduates now return to China to ply their trades.

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 US academic openness to engage in espionage and intellectual property theft, but called 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 long-standing position as the global leader in scientific innovation," she said.

During Trump's first administration, then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo led a drive to rid US university campuses of Chinese government-funded Confucius Institute cultural centers, saying they worked to advance China's "global propaganda and malign influence" and to recruit "spies and collaborators".

As a result, many US institutions cut ties with the centers.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported the US Department of State had halted new appointments for all foreign student and exchange visitor visa applicants, according to an internal cable.

The Trump administration has expanded social media vetting of foreign students and is seeking to ramp up deportations and revoke student visas as part of wide-ranging efforts to fulfill its hardline immigration agenda.