How Trump Denying Visas to Chinese Students Could Backfire on the US

One night in 1978, President Jimmy Carter got a phone call at 3 a.m. from a top adviser who was visiting China.

“Deng Xiaoping insisted I call you now, to see if you would permit 5,000 Chinese students to come to American universities,” said the official, Frank Press.

“Tell him to send 100,000,” Mr. Carter replied.

By Christmastime that year, the first group of 52 Chinese students had arrived in the United States, just ahead of the formal establishment of U.S.-Chinese diplomatic relations on New Year’s Day. A month later, Mr. Deng, China’s top leader, made a historic visit to America during which he watched John Denver sing “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and was photographed wearing a cowboy hat.

It’s almost hard to believe how little contact there had been between the United States and modern China before that. The Sinologist John K. Fairbank wrote in 1971: “Since 1950 Washington has officially sent more men to the moon than it has to China.” The visits by Mr. Deng and, more important, by those first Chinese students began a new chapter that would fundamentally change China — and the world. The United States gained access to a vast market and talent pool, while China found a model and a partner for transforming its economy.

Now that chapter has closed, after the Trump administration announced on Wednesday that it would begin “aggressively” revoking the visas of Chinese students.

For the millions of Chinese who have studied in the United States, myself included, it is a sobering and disheartening development. It marks a turning point that America, long a beacon of openness and opportunity, would start shutting its doors to Chinese who aspire to a good education and a future in a society that values freedom and human dignity.

By curbing people-to-people exchanges, President Trump is taking a decisive step toward decoupling from China. To treat Chinese students and professionals in science and technology broadly not as contributors, but as potential security risks, reflects a foreign policy driven more by insecurity and retreat than by the self-assurance of a global leader.

The reaction to the new policy inside China, reflected in the U.S. Embassy’s social media accounts, was mixed. Some commenters thanked the United States for “sending China’s brightest minds back.” Others drew historical parallels, comparing the Trump administration’s isolationist turn to China’s Ming and Qing dynasties — once global powers that declined after turning inward and were ultimately defeated in foreign invasions. One commenter remarked that the policy’s narrow-mindedness would “make America small again.”

The shift also comes when many young Chinese, disillusioned by political repression and economic stagnation under Xi Jinping’s leadership, are trying to flee the country to seek freedom and opportunities.

“Xi is pushing many of the best and the brightest to leave China,” said Thomas E. Kellogg, executive director of Georgetown’s Center for Asian Law and a leading scholar of legal reform in China. “The U.S. should be taking advantage of this historic brain drain, not shutting the door to many talented Chinese young people.”

The number of Chinese students in the United States dropped to about 277,000 in the 2023-24 academic year, a 25 percent decline from its peak four years earlier, according to government data. Students from China remained the second-largest group of international students, after those from India. In fact, applications for postgraduation temporary employment permits rose 12 percent in 2023-24 from the prior year, signaling more interest in working in the United States despite the challenges.

The new visa policy will leave many of these students with little choice but to leave, or at the least reconsider their future in the United States.

I interviewed a doctoral candidate in computer science at a top American university, a young man from China who first dreamed of studying in America at 17, when he began to question Chinese government propaganda. He arrived eight years ago and never seriously considered returning. But now, facing the threat of visa revocation, he said he was no longer sure if he could — or even wanted to — stay.

“America doesn’t feel worth it anymore,” he said, asking me not to identify him for fear of retribution from Washington. The immigration process is fraught with anxiety, he said, and the returns no longer seem to justify the stress. He said he was exploring work visa options in Canada, Australia and Western Europe, even though he has a job offer from a big tech company on the West Coast.

“The pay might be lower,” he said, “but those countries offer more personal freedom.”

His experience is in stark contrast to that of Dong Jielin, who was among the first Chinese students to come to the United States after the Cultural Revolution. When she arrived at Carnegie Mellon in 1982 on a U.S. scholarship, she knew little about the country beyond what the Chinese state media had portrayed: a capitalist society in perpetual crisis and a people living in misery.

It didn’t take long for her perception to shift. “The moment I walked into a supermarket, I could see that life here was far from miserable,” she told me in an interview. Encounters with Americans quickly dispelled other myths as well. “They were not vicious or hostile,” she said. “They were warm and kind.”

Ms. Dong went on to earn a doctoral degree in physics, build a career in finance and technology, become a U.S. citizen and raise a family.

The U.S. government has good reasons to worry about national security risks from China, including espionage and intellectual property theft. The Federal Bureau of Investigation calls the Chinese government the most prolific sponsor of talent recruitment programs that aim to transfer scientific and technological breakthroughs to China.

It also makes sense to block people with ties to China’s military industrial complex.

But it’s something else entirely to deny visas to 18-year-old students simply because they are Chinese and hope to pursue a STEM degree in the United States.

American officials often say they aim to distinguish between the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people. That distinction was emphasized during Mr. Trump’s first term. It’s largely absent now.

U.S. policy now targets anyone with ties to the Chinese Communist Party. But the party has nearly 100 million members, about one in 14 Chinese. And most children in China grow up as members of the Young Pioneers and Communist Youth League, school-based party organizations. It’s just the way of life in a country ruled by a Leninist party.

As one commenter put it on the U.S. Embassy’s WeChat account, “How could any Chinese not be associated with the Party?”

The policy is also very likely to backfire.

Researchers found that Chinese undergraduates in American universities were more predisposed to favor liberal democracy than their peers in China. However, they said, exposure to xenophobic, anti-Chinese comments by Americans significantly decreased their belief that political reforms are desirable for China. Those who experienced discrimination were more likely to reject democratic values in favor of autocratic ones.

Chinese who have studied abroad also face growing suspicion at home. The government and some employers believe that exposure to Western values makes their fellow Chinese politically unreliable.

Dong Mingzhu, chairwoman of the appliance giant Gree Electric, said recently that her company would never hire a graduate from a foreign university. “There are spies among them,” she said.

On the Chinese internet, some people compared her to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who announced the visa policy.

Dong Jielin, the former student who was among the first to come to the United States, said the experience had a profound impact on her life, giving her the opportunity to explore the frontiers of science and technology.

It is understandable, she said, that the government is raising screening standards for student visas. “But I believe the vast majority of those who stay in the U.S. will, over time, become loyal American citizens,” she said, just like herself.