China still top source of international students in US despite tensions, with 155,000 visas granted since May 2021
- US says it ‘remains welcoming’ to Chinese citizens, but Beijing has accused Washington of harassing and deporting STEM students
- Strained bilateral ties unlikely to change positive perception of American universities, education expert says
The US has issued over 155,000 visas to Chinese students and scholars since May of last year, making China the top source of international students in the country for the 12th consecutive year.
Over 155,000 US visas have been issued to Chinese students and scholarssince May of last year, making China the top source of international students in the United States for the 12th consecutive year despite rising tensions. The US embassy in Beijing said in a conference on Monday that the US “remains welcoming” to Chinese students, despite visa restrictions and suspensions initiated by and continued from the Trump administration.
“People-to-people engagements enrich our countries … The diverse perspectives of students from countries around the world, including China, enrich US school and university campuses,” said Grayson Walker, director of EducationUSA, Washington’s overseas network of international student advising centres. More than 370,000 Chinese nationals studied in the US annually before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the embassy. That figure dropped to less than 320,000 during the 2020-21 academic year, when Chinese students accounted for 34.7 per cent of all international students in the US.
During the Trump era, the US imposed visa restrictions on Chinese students affiliated with the military or universities it deemed to be part of China’s military modernisation efforts.
China’s education ministry last year accused the US of harassing, interrogating and deporting Chinese students without a valid reason, especially those studying STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The ministry said some of the deported students’ electronic devices had been checked and confiscated by US law enforcement officers before they left the country. It urged students to “pay attention to potential risks in the country … and abide by the rules of relevant institutions and reply to communications on time to prevent any disruption to classes”.
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“Political tension between China and the US is unlikely to change the perception of US universities in the eyes of Chinese students, who are heavily influenced by university league tables, in which US universities rank highly,” said Aaron Koh Soon-lee, education professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who co-authored the award-winning Class Choreographies: Elite Schools and Globalisation.
The US embassy will host the 2022 China Annual Conference and Expo for International Education, themed “The United States Welcomes Chinese Students”, in Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shanghai and Beijing over the next two weeks. “For undergraduate degrees, the US will welcome Chinese students with open arms, whereas for doctoral students, who may be applying for scholarships, acceptance may be more cautious and stringent,” Koh said.
“It was common knowledge that one international student subsidises three local students in terms of fees and income, which is a way of sustaining university education in the US, the UK and Australia alike,” Koh said, adding that Western institutions are “heavily reliant” on the inflow of middle- or upper-middle-class students from China, India and Southeast Asia.
Chinese parents’ perception of the US as having the “best possible education” to prepare their children for intense domestic competition has benefited American and other Western campuses, according to S. Mahmud Ali, international security analyst at the University of Malaya’s Institute of China Studies.
“To treat virtually all Chinese students, especially those attending STEM courses, as potential threats to national security suggests that all Chinese students are viewed as instruments of the Communist Party and state council security organs,” Ali said. “This betrays considerable ignorance of Chinese society, as well as the profound elite-insecurity among US executive branch organs.”
“Imagining a more ‘normal’, co-existential or cooperative future is increasingly challenging,” Ali said, adding that there are “significant practical and subliminal obstacles” to the flow of students and researchers from China to the US and vice versa.
Cyril Ip