How U.S.-China student exchanges have changed amid escalating tensions between 2 superpowers

Yahoo

23-05-2025

Mounting tensions between the U.S. and China have affected trade, military relations and scientific cooperation. The disagreements have also been reverberating on American university campuses.
U.S. colleges and universities have been scaling back or restructuring their academic and cultural exchange programs with China, or cutting ties altogether, citing national security concerns and fears over intellectual property risks and academic freedom.
In 2024, Georgia Tech announced it would end its degree programs at the Georgia Tech Shenzhen Institute in China, citing national security concerns. In February, University of California, Berkeley, broke ties with the joint program at China's Tsinghua University, following a House Committee investigation into foreign funding from China, which heightened concerns about national security and foreign influence in U.S. academia.
Other universities recently severing ties with their Chinese counterparts include Oakland University and the University of Michigan. Duke University is under pressure from Republican lawmakers, who are urging the school to end its partnership with Wuhan University in China over concerns about close ties to China's military and intelligence services, according to the North Carolina news organization The Assembly.
These developments mark a high point in tensions on U.S. campuses that have been building for years. While China used to be the top sender of international students to the U.S., the number of Chinese students in the U.S. dropped by 4% during the 2023–2024 academic year, according to the Institute of International Education. That year, 277,398 Chinese students studied in the U.S., making up just under a quarter of the total international student population.
India has now surpassed China as the leading source of international students, with 331,602 students studying in the U.S., according to the report.
The number of American students studying in China has also dropped sharply, falling from about 11,000 in 2019 to around 800 in 2024, according to the State Department and other reports.
The latest efforts by the administration to restrict visas for Chinese students has shifted the mood on university campuses, too.
'I know the current Chinese students are concerned,' said Zhiqun Zhu, a political science professor and China expert at Bucknell University, a private university of about 3,900 students in Pennsylvania. Even last year, after final exams, students would go home to China for the summer. This summer will be different. 'They're actually going to stay here this summer, because they're afraid of not being allowed to come back,' Zhu said.
Students in STEM fields are especially worried about being unfairly targeted as potential spies, he said, leading some to avoid traveling back to China.
'The political atmosphere has changed and has become very hostile and not conducive to normal, cultural exchanges,' Zhu said. 'And it's going to take a long time to recover.'
Eric Hyer, a China expert and retired political science professor at Brigham Young University who oversaw study abroad programs in China, traces the shifting landscape of academic exchange back to 2013, when China's President Xi Jinping came to power and began ushering in a more nationalistic agenda. Hyer recalled several instances over the years when academic collaborations were disrupted: For example, a Chinese delegation withdrew from a conference because of a planned discussion about Taiwan. 'We began to see this chilling in academic exchanges,' he said.
Confucius Institutes — the Chinese government-funded language and cultural centers established on U.S. campuses — also came under fire in the U.S. in recent years. Many began closing in 2018 after Congress restricted funding to universities hosting them, citing concerns about transparency, academic freedom and foreign influence. Since 2019, the number of Confucius Institutes has dropped from around 100 to fewer than five, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
In response to the growing tensions, some American universities began relocating their programs from mainland China to Taiwan. In 2021, Harvard University moved its longstanding program from Beijing to Taipei, citing a 'perceived lack of friendliness' from its Chinese partner, Beijing Language and Culture University, according to The New York Times.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many U.S.-China academic exchange programs were halted, and disagreements over the virus origins amplified the tense relations between the two countries. In 2020, President Donald Trump ended Fulbright exchanges with China and Hong Kong amid rising U.S.-China tensions.
While other programs resumed in the years following the pandemic, many have again been curtailed amid the Trump administration's negotiations over tariffs.
While both faculty and students still show interest in studying in China, Zhu said the U.S. has become less conducive to travel and exchanges. 'A lot of students, and even parents are concerned — is it safe to study and travel to China?' said Zhu. Amid calls to reinstate the Fulbright program, it has not been restored.
The State Department currently lists its travel advisory for mainland China at Level 2 on a scale of 1-4, urging travelers to exercise increased caution 'due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws, including in relation to exit bans.'
The U.S. government and Congress have introduced a wave of administrative and legislative actions that have strained academic exchanges and dialogue between American universities and their Chinese counterparts, some analysts say.
In March, House Republicans introduced a sweeping bill that would block Chinese nationals from obtaining U.S. student visas. The bill isn't likely to pass, but it has drawn sharp criticism from Asian American groups and some Democrats. The 'Stop Chinese Communist Prying by Vindicating Intellectual Safeguards in Academia Act,' sponsored by Rep. Riley Moore, a Republican from West Virginia, aims to ban all Chinese students from the U.S., citing national security concerns. The bill, citing national security concerns, claims that some Chinese students have attempted to spy for the Chinese Communist Party.
'Every year we allow nearly 300,000 Chinese nationals to come to the U.S. on student visas. We've literally invited the CCP to spy on our military, steal our intellectual property, and threaten national security. This cannot continue,' Moore said in a March press release.'
Chinese students have called the legislation discriminatory, comparing it to the Chinese Exclusion Act, and expressed concerns about being unfairly targeted, according to NBC.
Some U.S. universities, meanwhile, have curtailed their partnerships with Chinese universities. In addition to Georgia Tech and UC-Berkeley, the University of Michigan ended its long-standing partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University in January 2025. ' … We will continue to pursue partnerships around the world as part of our academic mission,' said Santa J. Ono, president of the University of Michigan, in an announcement earlier this year. 'As we do so, we must also prioritize our commitment to national security.'
Earlier this week, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party began an investigation into Harvard University, accusing the school of activities 'that create risks to U.S. national security and further the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) genocide in Xinjiang.'
A 14-page letter sent to Harvard this week by the committee raises questions about Harvard's involvement with organizations linked to China's military, and also China's widely condemned treatment of Uyghur Muslims, among other things. The letter was signed by a group of top House Republicans — including leaders from the House Select Committee on China, the Education and Workforce Committee, and House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik.
A Harvard University spokesperson confirmed to the Deseret News that the letter was received and said the university plans to respond.
These events follow last year's report by the House Select Committee on the CCP, which said that it 'uncovered that hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. federal research funding over the last decade has contributed to China's technological advancements and military modernization.' In March, the committee, chaired by Republican Rep. John Moolenaar, sent letters to several universities, asking for information about policies regarding Chinese national students in STEM programs and inquiring about their involvement in federally funded research.
Bucknell University's Zhu doesn't deny that national security should be of concern to American universities. 'I think we should be concerned about it, but I don't think we should overreact,' he said. 'It's a gross exaggeration of spying from China.'
Zhu noted that the Department of Justice's now-defunct 'China Initiative' sparked controversy for allegedly targeting scholars of Chinese descent with unfounded investigations, leading to accusations of racial profiling and academic censorship. 'The simple question is, where are the spies?' Zhu said.
There's also growing scrutiny of Chinese nationals already studying or working in the U.S. 'Chinese scholars feel like they're under a microscope, just because they're Chinese,' Hyer said.
'We need Americans who speak Chinese, who understand the culture, who've lived there. These are the people who go on to work in the CIA, the State Department, the FBI. We need that expertise now more than ever.'
Eric Hyer
Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told the Deseret News in an email that at the heart of the decline in the relationship is the United States' misperception of China, 'viewing it as an adversary and enemy.'
'Some American politicians, misguided by the Cold War mentality, disregard the aspirations of the two peoples and use national security as a pretext to smear normal educational exchanges and cooperation,' Pengyu wrote.
He added: 'A large number of Chinese students studying at universities and secondary schools in the U.S. have enriched the multicultural environment of American campuses and local communities, enhanced the understanding of Chinese people and Chinese culture among the American people, and at the same time played an extremely important role in promoting mutual trust and avoiding misunderstandings and misjudgments between the two countries.'
But some in America remain concerned.
'People have been underestimating China for decades,' Dahn Shaulis, a former educator and writer at The Higher Education Inquirer, said. 'We downplay this at our own peril.'
The problems with the exchanges began long before Trump's tightening of restrictions, Shaulis said, adding, 'The question now is how much will this escalate as tensions increase with China.'
A decline in Chinese students coming to the U.S. means less revenue for universities that depend on the students' tuition and fees, particularly large state schools. Chinese students significantly boost the American economy: In 2023, Chinese students contributed about $14 billion annually through tuition and living expenses, according to IIE's 2024 Open Doors report. 'It's a big hit for those schools in terms of revenues,' according to Zhu.
But the impacts go beyond the schools and also affect communities. 'Students contribute to local economies — they rent apartments, buy cars and eat at local restaurants,' Zhu said.
China, for its part, has stepped up efforts to attract American students to China. In November 2023, President Xi Jinping announced that China would invite 50,000 American exchange students to participate in study abroad programs within the following five years.
To accomplish the goal, China created a 'Young Envoy Scholarship' (YES) Program, which offers a variety of programs in China for American youth. By 2024, more than 16,000 American youth had participated, according to Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the U.S.
'Through their own eyes, ears, and experiences, the students gained a deeper understanding of a real China that is completely different from the one portrayed in American media, thereby enhancing their first-hand knowledge of China,' Pengyu wrote to the Deseret News in an email.
China will continue 'high-level opening up in education,' Pengyu continued, saying this would involve a range of exchanges between schools and research cooperation between Chinese and American institutions.
The U.S. expresses both openness and caution. A U.S. State Department spokesperson told the Deseret News in an email that the U.S. welcomes international students, researchers and scholars 'to contribute to our world-leading academic environment.'
The statement also said: 'We must also ensure that students and scholars who come to the United States to study and conduct research can do so in an environment free of coercion, surveillance, and cooptation by the Chinese party-state.'
Amid these tensions, the number of students in Mandarin classes has been declining, too. Once seen as a valuable professional asset, some students worry that there will be fewer opportunities available to them.
At Bucknell University, while introductory Mandarin courses typically attract 8 to 15 students, enrollment drops sharply at the advanced levels, Zhu said. 'It's partly because the language gets more challenging,' he explained. 'But also because students start to question what they can actually do with the language in today's geopolitical climate.'
Academic and cultural exchanges not only help keep diplomatic ties warm, but they are important for U.S. national security, Hyer said.
'We are in just critical need of Chinese expertise,' he said, noting that the U.S. needs a pipeline of China experts in government and intelligence. 'We need Americans who speak Chinese, who understand the culture, who've lived there. These are the people who go on to work in the CIA, the State Department, the FBI. We need that expertise now more than ever.'
While major trade and security issues are unlikely to be resolved soon, maintaining cultural and academic exchanges, Hyer said, is essential to preserving the foundation of bilateral relations. 'I don't think our relations are going to get really great — there's a ceiling because of just the larger trade and security concerns — but the floor is kind of fragile," he said. He continued: 'We may never rebuild the ceiling, but we need to keep that foundation intact.'