The\nU.S. is sending mixed signals on Chinese student visas, and Beijing appears to\nbe taking advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For months, U.S. intelligence agencies have been urging top American universities<\/a> to closely monitor students and scholars from research institutions that are affiliated with a Chinese government whose interests are often adversarial to those of the United States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n More than 340,000 Chinese students — the largest international student population in\nthe United States \u2013 studied here last year. According to one State Department\nofficial, many live in a \u201cbubble\u201d of Chinese\nCommunist Party propaganda and misinformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Chinese intelligence services strategically use every tool at their disposal \u2014 including state-owned businesses, students, researchers and ostensibly private companies \u2014 to systematically steal information and intellectual property,” FBI Director Christopher Wray<\/a> said in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CNN: China is using student spies to steal secrets<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet even as U.S. officials talk up the twin threats of academic espionage and intellectual property theft, an infinitesimal 0.0001 percent of Chinese students’ visa applications were denied over these concerns, according to Marie Royce<\/a>, assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs. The number of Chinese student visa application refusals has declined each of the last four years, and admissions have swelled four-fold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While\ndueling with Beijing on trade and currency issues, President Donald Trump has\ndeclared, somewhat incongruously: \u201cWe want to have Chinese students come and\nuse our great schools, our great universities. They have been great students\nand tremendous assets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lawmakers\nfrom both parties say it\u2019s time to get serious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “We\nhave to wake this country up to what China is doing,” Sen. Mark Warner,\nD-Va., told the Brookings Institution last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., agrees, saying the proliferation of Chinese student visas is a better deal for Beijing than for the U.S. \u201cWe should not be na\u00efve about the threat. Too many universities have become too reliant on Chinese students and Chinese money,\u201d Cotton said at a Center for Immigration Studies<\/a> forum last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Republicans have introduced legislation<\/a> that would deny visas to Chinese researchers affiliated with Chinese military institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn\nwelcoming such large numbers of Chinese nationals as students, the United\nStates imperils its own technological edge over China,\u201d writes Daniel Samet,a foreign-affairs\nresearcher in Washington. \u201cChinese nationals receive world-class\ninstruction here, in the hard sciences and other fields, and then return home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As federal prosecutors charge Chinese Communist Party operatives and Chinese researchers with stealing proprietary information, intelligence agencies report that Chinese students are doing the same<\/a>. Thus, it\u2019s appropriate to weigh the relative benefits of the $15 billion that Chinese students reportedly bring into the U.S. economy with the hundreds of billions of dollars<\/a> that U.S. companies lose to Chinese intellectual property theft each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn\nlight of these revelations, is it a good idea to allow Chinese students\nunfettered access to American university laboratories?\u201d Samet asks. His\nquestion isn\u2019t merely academic, and the answer is glaringly obvious. The best\nminds in American immigration policy and higher education need to get on the\nsame page to safeguard the prosperity and security of this country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The U.S. is sending mixed signals on Chinese student visas, and Beijing appears to be taking advantage. For months, U.S. intelligence agencies have been urging top American universities to closely monitor students and scholars from research institutions that are affiliated with a Chinese government whose interests are often adversarial to those of the United States.<\/p>\n