Washington, DC – To Anson, listening to the news that Chinese students visas were the last objective of the administration of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, was “heartbreaking.”
The Chinese graduate student, who studies the external service of the University of Georgetown, told Al Jazeera that he feels uncertain about the future of students like him after the Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, announced the connections of the United States and undoubtedly with the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields. ”
“There is definitely a degree of uncertainty and anxiety between us,” said Anson, asking that only his first name be used.
The Trump administration has sacrificed little more clarity on which the students would be affected, and some observers see the announcement of two sentences, which also promised to “review the visa criteria to improve the scrutiny” for the visual future.
While Anson, 23, said he understood that the United States government had concerns about foreign influence and national security when it came from China, was confused why the new Trump administration policy was such wide power.
Most of the students of their homeland, said, were like the other more than one million students who study every year in the United States, a country that is known both for their educational opportunities and for their “inclined and broad demographic data.”
“It is a heartbreaking for many of us to see a country to build by immigrants becoming more xenophobic and hostile for the rest of the world,” Hey said, adding that he and other Chinese students in the United States were still trying to decipher policy change.
‘Suspicion Major and Major’
It is not the first time that the Trump administration points to Chinese students, with the United States Department of Justice in 2018, the duration of Trump’s first term, launching the so -called “Chinese initiative” with the declared objective of combating commercial secret robbery “, Yyy and.
An analysis of MIT Insead showed that the program was predominantly focused on researchers and academics of Chinese ancestry, in what critics said that it was equivalent to “racial profiles and fear of communication.” He was discontinued in February 2022 by the administration of former president of the United States, Joe Biden.
Since then, there has only been “increasing suspicion in the United States, almost in a bipartisan way, of several aspects of Chinese technology, Beijing actions worldwide, and now these concerns about surveillance and spouse in the United States,” according to Kyle Chan, a Chinese researcher at the Universidad de Princeton.
That included a congress report led by Republicans in September 2024 who claimed hundreds of millions of US taxes, channeled through associations between the United States and China in universities, helped Beijing develop critical technologies, including those related to semiconductors, artificial intelligence, hypersonic weapons and nuclear abilities.
But Chan, although he acknowledged that there are “Genuine Safety Conerns,” said the broad announcement of the Trump administration did not seem to address those concerns.
Instead, he has sent “fear shock waves through university campuses throughout the country,” he said.
This uncertainty has been aggravated by the recent Trump pressure campaigns in the universities of the United States, which recently involved a revocation since then blocked from the capacity of Harvard University to register international students.
“I think that vagueness is part of the [Trump administration’s] Strategy, because it is not a specific policy, “Chan to Al Jazeera told.” I don’t think it’s really, at the end of the day, about national security and Trype to find the few people who can represent a genuine risk. “
Instead, he saw the movement as aimed at Trump’s political audience, those who are in a “overlap between people who are very anxious for immigrants in general and people who are very anxious for China.”
‘Tremendous interruption’
The administration has offered little clarity about the scope of the visa revocations, or how it will define students with “connections with the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”
Speaking to journalists on Thursday, the spokeswoman for the State Department, Tammy Bruce, gave few additional details, saying that only the department “will continue to use all the tools in our chest of tools to ensure that we know who is who wants to enter this country and if they should be allowed to enter.”
“The United States, in addition, I can say here, will have the exploitation of the PCCH of American universities or the theft of American research, intellectual property or technologies to increase its military power, carry out an intelligence collection or repress opposition voices.”
Despite the scarcity of clarity, the possible form of politics will determine how “harmful” could be, according to Cole McFaul, research analyst at the Emerging Security and Technology Center of the University of Georgetown.
He pointed out “Royal Conerns on the safety of research and on illegal IP [intellectual property] Transfer “When it comes to Beijing, noting that a handful of documented cases of said activity in recent years has one leg.
“I hope this is a specific evidence -based action and a precise evaluation of the risk that takes into account costs and benefits,” McFaul said.
“My concern is that this will lead to broad -scale wide -scale visas for Chinese students operating in voice matters,” he said, referring to the abbreviation for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
McFaul pointed out that about 80 percent of the 277,000 estimated Chinese students studying in the United States annually are in voice issues, in what he described as “a great talent pipe from China to the United States during the last 40 years.”
A fixed majority of Chinese doctors in voice subjects, also around 80 percent, tend to remain in the US. After their studies, in what McFaul described as another important benefit for the United States.
“The question is, what tells someone who is working on a critical technology? McFaul said.
“Therefore, there is a world in which the permanent majority of Chinese students do not allow them to study in the United States, which would be a huge loss and a tremendous interruption for the United States science and technology ecosystem,” he said.
‘Generate unnecessary fear’
As politics is still mist, Chinese students in the United States said they are monitoring the often vobles of the Trump administration.
His, a 23 -year -old postgraduate student at Columbia University, said he quickly changed his plans to travel home to China this summer amid uncertainty.
“I was afraid that I would return to China, I won the US.
“When Trump announces something, we never know if it will be effective or not,” he told Al Jazeera. “It’s always changing.”
Deng, a graduate student from Georgetown who also requested that the full name was not used, said he agreed that reforms were needed to address the emitters related to Chinese influence on the United States Academy.
They were included in the intimidation of political dissidents, the spread of nationalist propaganda and the “corruption of the oligarchy,” he said.
But, in an email to Al Jazeera, he said that the administration approach was wrong.
“The current measures not only do not achieve such objectives,” he said, “but [are] Also generating unnecessary fear even among Chinese student communities that have long been the development and enrichment of American society. “
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