US to Revoke Chinese Student Visas in Escalating Crackdown

(Bloomberg) -- The US plans to start “aggressively” revoking visas for Chinese students, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, escalating the Trump administration’s push for greater scrutiny of foreigners attending American universities.

Rubio said in a statement that students affected would include “those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.” The US will also enhance scrutiny “of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong,” he added.

China had the second most students in the US of any country in 2024, behind India.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning accused the US of taking its decision “under the pretext of ideology and national security” at a regular briefing in Beijing on Thursday, adding that it would harm people-to-people relations.

“Such a politicized and discriminatory move lays bare the US lie behind the so-called freedom and openness that the US touts,” she added. “It will only further undermine its image in the world and national reputation.”

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The decision comes just weeks after the US and China negotiated a truce in their tariff war. The issue of revoking visas could now emerge as another flashpoint between the world’s two biggest economies, potentially upending progress made on trade.

It will also add to heightened tensions over sales to China of sophisticated chips and Beijing’s determination to limit US access to rare earths, which have been simmering even after the breakthrough agreement in Geneva to sharply lower tariffs for 90 days as officials try to strike a broader deal.

“This action intends to build a wall between two countries,” said Wu Xinbo, director at Fudan University’s Center for American Studies in Shanghai. “I don’t think it will help facilitate the forthcoming trade talks between two sides.”

The move followed Rubio’s order a day earlier instructing US embassies worldwide to stop scheduling interviews for student visas as the administration weighs stricter vetting of applicants’ social-media profiles. It marks yet another effort by President Donald Trump’s push to restrict foreign students’ entry to American schools over claims that they might threaten US national security.

The White House has waged a high-stakes battle with universities that initially focused on elite universities such as Harvard and Columbia over antisemitism. That has turned into a bigger attack over the role of US higher education and the foreign students whose tuition is a crucial source of income for schools around the country.

“For the ones that really can make a contribution, want to make a difference, we want to make it possible for them to come here and bring their great ideas, bring their great intellect and help us build a great America,” Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “I think the administration is all in on that and I don’t think anything they have said changes that.”

The scrutiny of Chinese students and researchers in the US in recent years dates back to Trump’s first term, as part of a broader attack on China’s ties in the US.

The Trump administration announced in 2020 that the Confucius Institute US Center, a program funded by the Chinese government that’s dedicated to teaching Chinese language and culture in the US, had to register as a “foreign mission,” making it subject to administrative requirements similar to those for embassies and consulates. Later the same year, the US revoked the visas of more than 1,000 Chinese students and researchers for national security reasons.

In 2018, the Justice Department created a project to investigate and prosecute Chinese and Chinese-American researchers it said were stealing American secrets while hiding their links to the government in Beijing and to the People’s Liberation Army. Known as the “China Initiative,” the program was shut down four years later after coming under intense criticism for fanning discrimination against Asian-Americans.

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The visa restrictions announced on Wednesday extend a broader crackdown underway since Trump reclaimed the White House this year. Hours earlier, the US president said Harvard should cap foreign student enrollment at 15%, escalating his campaign to force policy changes at the elite institution.

The State Department extended its scrutiny of those at Harvard beyond student visas to all visa holders, including those with business and tourist documents, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

Rubio told senators last week that the number of revoked student visas is “probably in the thousands at this point,” adding that “a visa’s not a right — it’s a privilege.”

International students accounted for 5.9% of the total US higher education population of almost 19 million. In the 2023-2024 school year, more than 1.1 million foreign students came to the US, with India and China accounting for about half, according to the Institute of International Education.

The number of Chinese students has declined in the US — it fell 4% to about 277,000 students in 2024 — amid increased tension between the two adversaries. The FBI has warned that China has sought to exploit “America’s deeply held and vital culture of collaboration and openness on university campuses.”

The State Department is also clamping down more on foreigners seeking to come to the US more broadly as part of Trump’s crackdown on immigration. Earlier Wednesday, Rubio announced visa restrictions on foreign officials and other individuals who “censor Americans,” including those who target American technology companies.

Taking action against people with links to the Chinese Communist Party is a sweeping measure, given the role it plays in the lives of Chinese people and institutions, including universities and enterprises. While just under 100 million people count as members of the party, its reach is so pervasive that the number of those who can be said to have ties with it runs into multiples of that figure.

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What happens next is less clear.

During his visit to the US to meet with then President Joe Biden, Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged to bring 50,000 young Americans to China to stabilize ties over a period of five years. That he’s lent his name to such an effort could suggest China will be less inclined to engage in tit-for-tat by targeting American students in China.

Even if it did, that number is minuscule, with the US State Department saying in April last year the figure was fewer than 900 students.

In the past, the two sides vented their fury at one another by closing consulates. China shuttered the US consulate in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu. That came just days after the US government forced their Chinese counterparts out of their mission in Houston in 2020.

But this time, China has other options. Neil Thomas, a fellow for Chinese politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, said a possible response may be indirect, such as new export controls on critical minerals.

“Beijing is increasingly realizing the power of its export control regime to apply pressure on global supply chains and Western political leaders,” he said. “Beijing will be angry and ask more questions about how successful the Geneva talks really were at laying the groundwork for a US-China deal.”

--With assistance from James Mayger, Derek Wallbank, Yasufumi Saito and Philip Glamann.

(Adds scope of US visa crackdown in 16th paragraph.)