China was the top source of international students in the US for 15 straight years since 2009, before it was surpassed by India just last year, according to figures from Open Doors, a US Department of State-backed database tracking international student enrollment.
Along the way, US-China educational ties have cultivated close relationships between Chinese and American academics and institutions, while US universities and industry are widely seen to have benefited from their ability to attract top talent from China, and elsewhere, to their halls.
Harvard has educated Chinese figures like former Vice Premier Liu He, who played a key role negotiating Trump’s phase one trade deal during the American president’s first term.
But those ties have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years as the US began to see an increasingly assertive and powerful China as a technological rival and a threat to its own superpower status.
More than 277,000 Chinese students studied in the US during the 2023 to 2024 academic year, down from over 372,000 in the peak 2019-2020 year – a decline that coincides with the Covid-19 pandemic but also increasing friction between the two governments.
Meanwhile, rising nationalist sentiment and government emphasis on national security in China have led to a shift in perception about the value of American versus Chinese universities.
Reverse brain-drain
The Department of Homeland Security’s claims regarding Harvard’s institutional ties to entities and individuals with ties to military-related research are the latest move reflecting deep-seated concern in Washington about Chinese access to sensitive and military-applicable American technology via academia.
To crack down on the perceived threat of Chinese students conducting espionage on US soil, Trump introduced a ban during his first term that effectively prevented graduates in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields from Chinese universities believed to be linked to the military from gaining visas to the US.
His first administration also launched the now defunct China Initiative, a national security program intended to thwart China’s intelligence activities in the US, including those aimed at stealing emerging technology from research universities.
The program, which drew comparisons to the McCarthy-era anti-Communism “red scare” of the 1950s, was cancelled by the Biden administration after facing widespread blowback for what was seen as over-reach and complaints that it fueled suspicion and bias against innocent Chinese Americans.
Trump’s broader tightening of US immigration policy during his second term has now unleashed a new wave of insecurity and uncertainty for many students and schools.
While those concerns are shared by international students from many countries, the heightened tensions between the two countries have elevated pressure on Chinese students and scholars – and the impact has already been seen.
Over the past year, at least a dozen high-profile academics with roots in China who were working in the US have returned to China and taken up posts at prominent universities in the country, CNN has found.
And for some students at the start of their academic and professional careers, the latest development leaves them unsure about what to do next.
Among them is Sophie Wu, a 22-year-old from China’s southern tech hub of Shenzhen, who was accepted at a graduate program at Harvard this fall, after finishing her undergraduate degree in the US. Wu said she felt “numb” after hearing the news.
“I did not expect that the administration would make such an irrational decision, and I also feel that it is more of a retaliation than a policy decision,” she told CNN. “International students are being held hostage for some political purpose.”