Caught Between Washington and Beijing, Chinese Students Face a Hard Choice
Udumbara
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The newest front in the U.S.–China rivalry is unfolding on American campuses. Chinese students—once viewed as bridges between the two nations—are now urged, and sometimes forced, to pick a side.
Analysts say Chinese communist party leader Xi Jinping’s push for a stronger, more assertive China has set Beijing on a collision course with Washington. As both governments harden their positions, hundreds of thousands of Chinese students in the United States feel the squeeze.
American consular officers now routinely deny or cancel visas linked to the regime’s military-industrial network.
America’s Doors Start to Close
In March, Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), ordered six universities—Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Purdue, the University of Illinois, the University of Maryland, and the University of Southern California—to hand over enrollment lists for every Chinese national on campus.The data revealed that all six schools were training graduate students from China’s “Seven Sons of National Defense,” elite institutions that feed talent directly into the People’s Liberation Army.
One university reported that 515 of its 1,139 Chinese graduate students, faculty, and staff were funded through federal grants or contracts; another said 1,115 of its 2,580 Chinese graduate students were funded through teaching or research assistantships.
The committee urged the State Department to deny visas to applicants from the Seven Sons, the related “Seven Sons of the Arms Industry,” and 58 universities overseen by the Chinese State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.
The U.S. State Department was already moving in that direction. Since May, it has revoked visas for Chinese nationals in sensitive fields or with open CCP ties.
President Donald Trump briefly suggested allowing 600,000 Chinese students into the country, but analysts called it a bargaining chip, not policy.
Beijing protested, but similar denials continue.
“There isn’t much daylight between the Biden and Trump administrations on this issue,” said Mr. Han, a Chinese national who completed graduate studies in the United States this year.
Vanishing Acts on Campuses
Purdue University shows how quickly the landscape is changing.Once the nation’s second-largest public university for international students, Purdue used to draw thousands from mainland China into its engineering programs.
“I noticed it in spring 2022,” said recent Purdue graduate Chen Langri. “In general-education courses, you used to see five or six Chinese students per class. By the next spring, there were barely any.”
“Some newcomers left after just one semester,” he told The Epoch Times. “Usually, people transfer into Purdue, not out.”
Beijing Tightens Its Grip
While Washington blocks the front door, Beijing watches the back.Official statements from Beijing accuse the United States of putting up an “iron curtain” for science and tech, but unofficially, the CCP has stepped up its own monitoring of Chinese students abroad.
In 2016, China’s Education Ministry ordered stronger “patriotic education” for citizens studying overseas. Government-sponsored students had to sign contracts pledging loyalty and avoiding activities that could harm the regime’s interests.
During the Hong Kong protests in 2019, CCP members abroad were told to check in with their local Party cells at home at least twice a year; Party members who studied abroad for over five years without returning to China, or lost contact with Party organization for over six months, could have their membership suspended.
Pressure climbed after the 2021 “White Paper” demonstrations against COVID lockdowns, when students inside and outside China coordinated online.
Since then, Chinese customs officials have questioned returnees about their studies and social media posts.
“It’s not that Chinese students are the problem,” said Lan Shu, a U.S.-based China affairs analyst and a former host at Sound of Hope TV, an international Chinese-language broadcast network.
“The CCP has reverted to Mao-era suspicion, where anyone with foreign ties is a suspect,” Lan told The Epoch Times.
Family pressure compounds the fear.
Wang, a film student in Los Angeles, said his parents warned him not to criticize Beijing during overseas calls.
Choosing Sides—or Seeking Asylum
The squeeze has cut Chinese enrollment in U.S. colleges from 373,000 in the 2019-20 academic year to 277,000 in 2023-24, according to the Migration Information Institute.At the same time, refugee claims are soaring.
The United States received 88,722 of these asylum claims. Australia also saw record filings.
“The relationship has deteriorated to where you have to choose,” said Han, now an asylum applicant. “Under Obama, you could be neutral. Now, if you want to stay [in the U.S.], you have to break with the CCP completely.”
With China’s economy slowing and youth unemployment at record highs, many see brighter prospects abroad despite risks of lost scholarships, family harassment, or permanent exile, according to Han.
“Unless your family is powerful in China, the U.S. offers more opportunities,” Han added.
“For some, family ties will pull them back,” Lan said. “Others, especially those whose parents lived through the Cultural Revolution, will stay [out of China] for good. For many born after the 1990s, the choice will shape the rest of their lives.”
Neither Washington nor Beijing is backing down. Congress is poised to make visa denials routine for anyone linked to China’s defense network, and universities are shifting recruitment toward Taiwan and India.
Beijing, committed to “military-civil fusion,” shows no sign of easing its scrutiny of returnees.
For Chinese students caught in the middle, every application, border crossing, or campus event can feel like a test. Yet they keep applying, studying, and weighing futures on two continents.
