U.S. Targets Chinese Students In Visa Crackdown Over Security Concerns
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday the U.S. will “aggressively revoke” Chinese students’ visas, focusing on those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or studying in “critical fields.”
While the move would be a major escalation — it is not entirely surprising. Intelligence officials across administrations have warned that campuses are increasingly vulnerable to espionage, especially from China, which has laws requiring citizens to aid state intelligence efforts.” The Trump administration has targeted foreign students’ visas, over perceived risks to American universities and culture.
A LOOK AT THE NUMBERS
Roughly 275,000 Chinese students in total studied in the U.S. last year, down from a 2019 peak of 370,000. Chinese students are the second largest foreign student population in the U.S., behind students from India.
Rubio didn’t clarify what those “critical fields” would be, but more than 110,000 Chinese students at U.S. universities are studying math, engineering or science and technology-related fields.
He also didn’t make clear how students’ connections to the Chinese Communist Party would be established.
About 100 million people in total belong to the Chinese Communist Party. Some Chinese citizens join the party to gain social and economic advantages, rather than out of political loyalty.
Critics of the move to crackdown on Chinese students say it could hurt U.S. universities that depend on foreign students for revenue and say it could lead to racial profiling. During the last school year, international students contributed $43.8 billion to the U.S. economy and supported nearly 400,000 jobs.
CHINA’S TIES
Intelligence officials across administrations have warned that campuses are increasingly vulnerable to espionage, especially from China, which has laws requiring citizens to aid state intelligence efforts. China’s Ministry of State Security is the world’s largest and most active spy agency. Its main target is Chinese citizens, including those living abroad, followed by the U.S.
Many top CCP officials have sent their children to U.S. universities in recent decades. President Xi Jinping’s daughter, Xi Mingze, attended Harvard under a pseudonym in 2010. In 1985, Xi himself took a research trip to Iowa as a young student.
China disproportionately sends students to the U.S. when compared to American students studying in China.
In the U.S., intelligence officials have been warning for years about the risk campuses pose to national security.
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray in 2020 said, China is “exploiting our open academic environment for research and development.”
Bill Evanina, a former Counterintelligence Director, testified in 2023 that China “continues to utilize ‘non-traditional’ collectors... [who] oftentimes become unwitting tools for the CCP and its intelligence apparatus.”
Curious about how espionage operations manifest on campus? Earlier this month, the Stanford Review published a piece alleging that CCP operatives are actively recruiting students on campus.
