By Kelly Liao
Student research assistant, China Studies Program
On July 23, 2020, the Trump administration ordered the closure of China’s Houston consulate over concerns for “espionage and influence activities.” As the first Chinese consulate to open in the U.S. after the two countries formally established diplomatic relations in 1979, the consulate had served Chinese expats and American travelers in eight southern states and Puerto Rico for 40 years. Its abrupt closure has had – and is likely to continue to have – a negative impact not only on Texas-China trade relations but also on the lives of thousands of Chinese students and scholars in Texas who relied on the consulate for passport renewals, cultural events and such emergency aid as the distribution of “medical kits” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was not the first time the Trump administration cited national security concerns to justify policies that directly affected Chinese students and scholars in the U.S. Since the administration’s tariff plan targeting Chinese trade in 2018, the Department of State has been determined to protect against the theft of U.S. intellectual property and begun applying tougher restrictions on student visas for Chinese nationals in graduate programs deemed sensitive to natural security interests. The validity of student visas was shortened from the common period of five years to one year, making it more difficult for the affected Chinese students to participate in international academic exchanges, according to U.S. higher education officials. As U.S.-China relations further deteriorate amid the COVID-19 mutual blame game, the Trump administration canceled thousands of visas for Chinese students and researchers deemed to be security risks since Trump’s executive order to tackle intellectual property theft. Students with ties to Chinese institutions that are known for their extensive defense and aerospace technology programs are most affected. Inexplicably, even young students recently graduated from high schools merely affiliated with these universities have been caught in the visa clampdown.
The visa restrictions also take a heavy toll on Chinese international students who are already in America. Fearing that they may not be allowed to enter the U.S. if they were to return home to visit loved ones, hundreds of thousands Chinese students have been compelled to stay in the U.S. over the past summer and winter breaks. Many students have found it emotionally draining to transition to online classes and keep a social distance from classmates here, and meanwhile not being able to see loved ones back home for more than a year.
In addition to tougher visa restrictions, the Trump administration also intensified efforts to arrest and charge scholars with ties to China in the U.S on the same ground of scientific and industrial espionage, raising concerns about potential racial profiling by U.S. authorities. Since the U.S. Department of Justice’s China Initiative began in 2018, scholars of Chinese descent have been investigated, arrested and charged, including many from prestigious American universities such as Harvard and MIT. According to the National Institutes of Health, of the 189 researchers who have been investigated for violating funding rules, 93% had ties to China and 82% were of Asian descent.
It would be naive to think that the U.S. accusation of Chinese espionage has only impacted a limited number of students and scholars. Former President Trump’s reported claim at a 2018 dinner party that “almost every student that comes over” to the U.S. from China “is a spy,” and the subsequent visa restrictions and arrests of Chinese students and scholars have provoked hostility toward the general Chinese academic community in the U.S. According to the Pew Research Center, while the U.S. public generally welcomes international students, more than half of Americans are in favor of restricting the number of Chinese international students, including about one in five Americans who strongly support this idea. The hostility accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic when the Trump administration and influential alt-right media popularized the “Chinese virus” rhetoric, exacerbating the anti-Chinese racism in American society. Last September, two Chinese international students from Rice University found “SPY” written on the door of their off-campus department. In other parts of Texas, Chinese students ran into racist remarks claiming they are “spreading the virus.” With a 150% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in 2020, Chinese students have expressed growing concerns over their safety living and studying in America.
University campuses are not free from racism and xenophobia against Chinese international students. A professor at the University of Missouri made inappropriate comments about face masks to students from Wuhan during an online class in August. A professor at Syracuse University used derogatory racist language in a course syllabus referring to the coronavirus “Wuhan Flu” and “Chinese Community Party Flu.” Another professor at the University of Cincinnati called the coronavirus “Chinese virus” in an email to a student who had to miss a lab session due to possible exposure to the virus.
Besides the unfriendly approach to Chinese international students and scholars, the Trump administration announced its termination of Peace Corps and Fulbright programs in China, further restricting the academic and cultural exchange between the two countries. In retaliation for the closure of China’s Houston consulate in July, China made a matching order to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu within three days, making it equally difficult for the many thousands of U.S. expats, exchange students and Chinese visitors in southwestern China to get consulate services.
The costs of severing ties are significant. With tighter visa restrictions and a growingly hostile environment to ethnic Chinese in the United States, there has been a dramatic slowdown in Chinese student enrollment since 2018, which is expected to cause severe financial trouble for U.S. colleges and universities. Chinese students, who made up more than one-third of the country’s international students, contributed $15 billion in tuition payments in 2018 alone. The sharp curtail of Chinese students is thus likely to increase the financial burden of U.S. students. Moreover, discrimination and racism in the U.S. can increase Chinese overseas students’ support for authoritarianism, thus further undermining the U.S.’s strength in openness and promoting democracy. Most importantly, restricting people-to-people exchange, which is the foundation of higher-level foreign policy, is thwarting future possibilities for bilateral cooperation between two nations. The United States and China, the two most important economic powers in the world have lots of overlapping areas of interests, including combating global warming and the COVID-19 pandemic, that require close cooperation of the scientists and politicians from two countries. A tit-for-tat strategy and “race-to-the-bottom” mentality would only divide researchers and scholars that work on the common problem and heighten misunderstanding and ethnic hatred.
With that being said, the Biden administration should reconsider the U.S. foreign policy on China and rebuild a win-win academic exchange. Instead of maintaining Trump’s restrictions on student F-1 visas and H-1B visas for skilled workers, the Biden administration should design and implement policies that are more friendly to international students and reassert that Chinese students are as welcome to study in the U.S. as other foreign students. Xenophobic and racist rhetoric against people of Chinese origins should also be avoided by the new administration and mainstream politicians; criminal investigations should no longer be “politicized” or used as leverage in the power play between the U.S. and China. The administration should also put the reopening of the Chinese consulate in Houston on the agenda and actively engage with China on reopening the U.S. consulate in Chengdu. Last but not least, given the rising antagonism between the two countries as a result of the COVID blame game, it’s also crucial to resume the Peace Corps and Fulbright programs in China to facilitate more cultural understanding and scholarly exchange.