Chinese students anxious, angry after Rubio vows to revoke visas

AP :

Chinese students studying in the U.S. are scrambling to figure out their futures after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday that some students would have their visas revoked.

The U.S. will begin revoking the visas of some Chinese students, including those studying in “critical fields”, and “those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party,” according to the announcement.

China is the second-largest country of origin for international students in the United States, behind only India. In the 2023-2024 school year, more than 270,000 international students were from China, making up roughly a quarter of all foreign students in the U.S.

Rubio’s announcement was a “new version of the Chinese Exclusion Act,” said Linqin, a Chinese student at Johns Hopkins University, who asked to be identified only by his first name out of fear of retaliation.

He was referring to a 19th-century law that prohibited Chinese from immigrating to the U.S. and banned Chinese people already in the U.S. from getting citizenship. He said Wednesday was the first time he thought about leaving the U.S. after spending a third of his life here.

Chinese international students are point of tension between U.S. and China
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, called the U.S. decision unreasonable.

“Such a politicized and discriminatory action lays bare the U.S. lie that it upholds so-called freedom and openness,” she said Thursday, adding that China has lodged a protest with the U.S.

The issue of Chinese students studying overseas has long been a point of tension in the bilateral relationship. In 2019, during Trump’s first term, China’s Ministry of Education warned students about visa issues in the U.S., with rising rejection rates and shortening of visas.