Why the US opened its doors to Chinese students, and why Trump is closing them

Straits Times

3 days ago

President Trump's policies promise to reduce the number of students from China coming to the United States PHOTO: REUTERS
Why the US opened its doors to Chinese students, and why Trump is closing them
WASHINGTON - In 1987, when Haipei Shue arrived in the United States as a student, he recalls receiving the warmest of welcomes. He was a graduate student in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
'People were curious about us, inviting us to their homes, wanting to be friends,' Mr Shue said on May 29, describing an openness that defined his early years in a country then seen by many in China as a beacon of opportunity.
'It was an extraordinary time,' he said.
That era of academic exchange between China and the United States, beginning in the 1970s under President Jimmy Carter as a form of soft power diplomacy, now stands in sharp contrast to the Trump administration's recent stance toward the country.
The administration announced this week that it would aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students with ties to the Chinese Communist Party or for those studying in broadly defined 'critical fields'. The administration also plans to enhance vetting of future applicants for student visas, including looking at social media posts.
Those policies promise to reduce the number of students from China coming to the United States, who have been a fixture on American university campuses for decades. In 2024, there were roughly 277,000 students.
The Trump administration says China exploits US universities to bolster its military and technological capabilities. And Trump officials argue that some Chinese students may pose risks of espionage and technology theft.
'We are using every tool at our disposal to know who wants to enter this country and whether they should be allowed in,' Ms Tammy Bruce, a State Department spokesperson, said. 'Every visa adjudication is a national security decision.'
Mr To Shue, 64, now president of United Chinese Americans, a Washington DC-based civic group, the policy change stirs profound disappointment. His journey to the United States in the late 1980s was emblematic of a period of increasing friendliness between the two superpowers.
Mr Shue recalled the generosity of Americans. Mr David Scott, a wealthy businessperson with ties to the Reagan administration, funded his education through a foundation. That period, Mr Shue remembered, was characterised by the bipartisan embrace of Chinese students, culminating in the Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992, which granted legal residency to thousands of Chinese students in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
'It was overwhelming support and care and concern,' said Mr Shue, who helped push for the legislation and has long advocated easing China's authoritarian rule and increased freedom within the country.
Mr Shue expressed dismay at the Trump administration's actions, viewing them as a betrayal of the US's image as a 'beacon for humanity'.
The history of Chinese students in America is long and complex, dating back to the 1850s, when Yung Wing of Yale College became the first Chinese student to graduate from an American university. As Mr Robert Kapp, a retired historian of China and former president of the US-China Business Council, explained, early students sought Western knowledge to modernise China.
The normalisation of US-China relations in the 1970s under President Richard Nixon and China's premier Zhou Enlai, ushered in a new era of academic exchange. Later, China agreed to send thousands of students to the US, a number that later swelled to hundreds of thousands annually.
Mr Carter, Mr Kapp recalled, 'said, 'Why don't you send some students to the United States?''
And, he said, Mr Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader, responded, ''Well, how about 10,000?' – it went from there.'
For China, it was a crucial step in the country's modernisation. For the US, welcoming China's students was a form of soft power.
The 1980s and 1990s witnessed a surge of talented Chinese students, many of whom have made significant contributions to American academia, business, science and technology. And the makeup of the Chinese student population at American universities shifted as well, from primarily graduate students in the 1980s to a growing number of undergraduates today.
'Opening up education was important for establishing ties, for building bridges,' said professor David Bachman, an international relations expert at the University of Washington.
But now, he said, 'I can imagine that there'll be very few Chinese students here in 10 years,' he said.
And vice versa. As geopolitical tension between the US and China ramped up during the Covid pandemic, the number of American scholars studying in China fell to fewer than 1,000 in 2024 from about 11,000 in 2019, said Ms Rosie Levine, executive director of the US-China Education Trust.
President Donald Trump's latest move, Ms Levine said, may lead Beijing to retaliate, too, further limiting the number of American students in China – and with it, she said, the United States' overall understanding of a critical global power.
While acknowledging the need to address security threats, she said that US policies need nuance.
'These policies are so broad,' she said, 'that they don't give US officers the ability to effectively distinguish between individuals who pose security risks and those who are just genuinely seeking educational opportunities.'
Ms Levine said she believed that the administration's focus on ties to the Chinese Communist Party also raised questions about the new vetting procedures.
'There's 99 million CCP members in China,' she said. 'Working for the Communist Party or being a member of the Communist Party is a really poor determinant of someone's intentions.'
For Mr Shue, the moment is personal. After the Trump administration's announcement, he found himself unable to sleep, mulling the contrast between the United States of four decades ago and the nation he lives in today.
'It's something I can barely wrap my head around,' he continued. 'How did we deteriorate to this point where foreign students, especially those from China, are viewed as a potential liability rather than assets?' NYTIMES
Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.