Beijing: China has expressed resentment over efforts by US politicians to restrict its students and nationals from working in top American research institutions resulting in their exodus while Chinese universities lured them with high-paying positions.
Chinese students in the US account for about one-fourth of the total number of international students there, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a media briefing here Thursday, reacting to reports of US politicians seeking to reinforce curbs on nationals from China working in various American research institutes.
“We urge the United States to stop generalising national security, effectively protect the legitimate rights of Chinese students there and not to take discriminatory and restrictive measures against the Chinese students,” she said.
The latest move against the students came from US House ‘Select Committee on the CCP’ chairman John Moolenaar who Wednesday sent letters to six top American universities, seeking information about Chinese students over national security concerns.
Moolenaar’s letter highlights the increasing risks posed by China’s strategic efforts to exploit American universities for technological and military advancements, according to a note posted on the ‘Select Committee on the CCP’ website.
Intelligence officials have warned that American campuses are soft targets for espionage and intellectual property theft, yet elite universities continue to admit large numbers of Chinese nationals into critical research programmes prioritising financial incentives over long-term national security and the education of American students in essential fields, it said.
Earlier US Congressman Riley M Moore introduced a bill to halt the issuance of student visas to Chinese nationals.
The Stop Chinese Communist Prying by Vindicating Intellectual Safeguards in Academia Act (Stop CCP VISAs Act) comes on the heels of several cases where Chinese students have been caught spying on the US military or stealing advanced technology from American companies, a readout on Moore’s website said.
“Every year we allow nearly 300,000 Chinese nationals to come to the US on student visas. We’ve literally invited the CCP to spy on our military, steal our intellectual property, and threaten national security,” he said in a statement.
Just last year, the FBI charged five Chinese nationals here on student visas after they were caught photographing joint US-Taiwan live fire military exercises, he said.
“This cannot continue. Congress needs to end China’s exploitation of our student visa programme. It’s time we turn off the spigot and immediately ban all student visas going to Chinese nationals,” he said.
Chinese students previously topped the foreign group in the US, but their numbers have declined since 2019-20.
The Indian students’ numbers meanwhile overtook China’s last year as the top source of international students.
Trump’s first term saw a number of restrictions on travel and immigration – including a presidential proclamation that led to the cancellation of more than 1,000 visas for Chinese nationals deemed “high-risk graduate students and research scholars”.
The Joe Biden administration declined to rescind the policy. Following the allegation, the US National Institute of Health, (NIH) investigated 214 scientists with Chinese affiliations.
As of June last year, 112 lost their jobs as a result of the investigations, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
As a result of increasing curbs, Chinese scientists have been leaving the US to return to China or to Canada in a wave.
The trend, which has seen departures nearly triple between 2010 and 2021, has been accelerating since 2018, coinciding with the US Department of Justice’s China Initiative, the Post report said.
While intended to combat economic espionage, the initiative led to funding cuts, disrupted research and damaged careers.
Meanwhile, China with increased funding to new productive forces like AI has become an attractive proposition to US-based Chinese students and nationals involved in STEM based programmes.
For their part, Chinese universities and government-funded institutes are luring them with various incentive schemes and funding programmes.
To name a few, Chinese-American mathematician Huaxin Lin, who worked at the University of Oregon for 30 years specialising in operator algebras and played a key role in solving long-standing problems in C-algebra theory, returned to China for a full-time research position as a professor in the newly-established Shanghai Institute for Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Sciences (SIMIS).
Optical expert Zhan Hanyu, who worked for top US institutes, has joined one of China’s top aerospace universities after studying and working in the United States for more than 15 years.
He became a full-time professor in December at the college of automation engineering at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA) which was placed on the US Entity List and subjected to export restrictions because of its ties to China’s military sector, according to the Post report.
PTI
