The United States will “aggressively” revoke visas from Chinese students. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement titled “New visa policy puts America first, not China”.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, the US State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas from Chinese students – including those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party and those studying in critical industries,” he said.
The department also intends to revise its visa criteria to, it noted, “strengthen the vetting of all future visa applications from the PRC and Hong Kong.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning, commenting on Rubio’s statement, called the US decision to cancel visas for Chinese students unfair. She said the measures imposed by the US authorities “under the pretext of ideology and national security” undermine the legitimate rights and interests of students.
According to official data, the number of Chinese students in the 2023-2024 academic year was 277,000 – 4.2 per cent less than in 2022-2023 (289,000). The BBC Russian Service pointed out that the number of Chinese students in the US has been consistently above 200 thousand since 2012-2013. In the 2023-2024 academic year, India surpassed China in the number of students (330 thousand).