We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher, leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!
– Pink Floyd
And so it appears the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (see here) was never properly rescinded. The US State Department released the following statement on May 28th:
Under President Trump’s leadership, the US State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.
We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.
Chinese international students are caught up in two Trump presidency fixations – to topple elite universities as leftist bastions and to wage economic war on China. The Department of Homeland Security has revoked Harvard’s ability to enroll international students partially because the university was “coordinating with the CCP on its campus.” The assault on Chinese international students is occurring concurrently with intensified sanctions on semiconductors and export restrictions on commercial aircraft components.
It is difficult to decipher whether headline-grabbing Trump policies are expressions of America’s long-term political direction or just this peculiar president chasing headlines and/or venting momentary frustrations. In recent weeks, Trump has suffered a series of setbacks.
DOGE did not amount to much. The courts blocked Homeland Security from barring international students from Harvard as well as the president’s emergency powers to implement tariffs. China is slow-walking restoration of rare-earth exports, likely in response to new semiconductor-related sanctions.
While it all could be just Trumpian rage, the special focus on Chinese international students does have almost two centuries of historical precedent. Cases of Chinese American scientists accused of espionage, hounded for years by the FBI, bankrupted by legal expenses and ultimately exonerated by the courts are legion.
Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare originated as a panic in response to “losing China.” Countless Americans were persecuted and blacklisted. Caltech physicist Qian Xuesen was deported to China, where he subsequently founded China National Space Administration (CNSA) and helped develop China’s fission and fusion nuclear bombs.
Revoking Chinese international student visas is just the latest expression of the “yellow peril” which grips the Western world in times of anxiety and stress. Like a witch hunt, a case of yellow peril is only recognizable after the fever has passed – and after many “witches” have been drowned in the river or burned at the stake.
This current witch hunt is occurring at a moment of spectacular historical revelation and is, all things considered, very silly. Debating whether or not Chinese international students pose a security risk is a bit like General Motors debating how to protect its technology from BYD. The US is now behind the curve but refuses to accept it.
In a stroke of infinite woke wisdom, Harvard chose a Chinese international student to speak at one of its graduation ceremonies. She delivered a generic “let us all hold hands and sing Kumbaya” speech, which sounded a lot like President Xi Jinping’s “community with a shared future” to hypervigilant MAGA ears and insufferable Westernized elitism to status-sensitive Chinese ears. It was so Harvard, it hurt.
MAGA haters accused her of being a CCP mole. Weibo (Chinese Twitter) haters accused her of mediocrity by dodging the gaokao (China’s notorious college entrance exam) and getting into Harvard with internships and recommendations secured through family connections. Like most social media hate campaigns, none of these allegations have been substantiated.
What this kerfuffle does reveal is that Harvard, once spoken of with reverence in China, is now mocked, fairly or not, as an institution for China’s mediocre nepo babies. This comes on the heels of a delicious admissions/corruption/sex scandal involving Barnard College (which may or may not be Columbia University) and Beijing Union Medical College, perhaps China’s most prestigious medical school.
Beijing Union Medical College apparently admitted an undistinguished economics major from Barnard College because of her family connections. She committed the additional high crimes of claiming to be a Columbia University graduate, having an affair with her married physician boss and botching a procedure which resulted in her boss/paramour arguing with the head nurse for 40 minutes while a patient remained drugged-out on the operating table.
While applicants to American universities will surely collapse as Trump makes getting a US degree a high-risk proposal, Chinese international students studying in the US last year were already 25% below their 2019 peak. The reputation of American universities has been on a downward trend as China quickly figured out that the students who went overseas often did so to avoid the rigors of preparing for the gaokao.
Many employers have found overseas graduates entitled and not as rigorous as local grads. This ire is not just directed toward graduates of middling institutions but all the way up to the likes of Harvard and Barnard College (which, for the record, is technically part of Columbia University but has its own admissions office and all Barnard grads should know not to claim the technicality – c’mon lady).
There is a growing understanding that China’s universities, especially elite ones, produce (or at least admit) higher-caliber graduates given admissions through objective examination, which has no room for nonsense like feeding orphans in Tanzania or excellence in ridiculous sports like squash.
Like many things, China is getting in front of the curve. Consider the following two tables of university rankings. In the Nature Index, which tracks the number of publications in 146 top scientific journals, 16 of the top 20 universities are Chinese while three are American. In the Times Higher Education rankings, which weighs multiple factors with faculty and research “reputation” the most important, only two of the top 20 are Chinese while 13 are American.
“Reputation” is subjective by definition and a lagging indicator. Over time, the Times High Education rankings should converge with Nature Index rankings as students and faculty realize that Chinese universities are running away from the pack in research output – in both quantity and quality – especially after Trump threw wrenches into research funding and the pipeline of graduate students.
For naysayers (and there are legion), Nature Index conclusions have been confirmed by similar studies conducted by Japan’s National Institute of Economic Policy (NISTEP), the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), Ohio State University, numerous multinational investment banks, Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) if not the global economy where China has taken over and dominated industry after industry.
China’s labor market, students and online trolls have cottoned onto the corruption, posturing and mediocrity at the heart of American elite education (see here). Trump is merely putting the final nail in the coffin.
While the Chinese have been getting with the program, what have Americans been doing? The MAGA mob are high-fiving and back-slapping each other – take that Harvard and SeeSeePee Chinese students – as they indulge in momentary delight that foreigners and egghead elites have been taken down a peg. Elite parents stroke their chin and smile imperceptibly, mentally calculating that little Timmy’s Ivy League chances just increased by 9.3537%.
Both reactions are defeatist, nihilistic and an exercise in self-harm. Chinese international students pay full tuition, making up a sizable portion of many university budgets, subsidizing grant and work-study programs.
As mediocre as they may be domestically, elite American universities still hold Chinese international students to a high academic standard, setting a benchmark of excellence. American universities could go the way of American car companies, consigned to eternal mediocrity for lack of international competition.
If America or Americans dispense with their denial and grow a pair, they would get in front of the curve. An American STEM PhD-inclined high school junior (yes, they do exist) should ask themselves what the state of science will be like in 10 years, about the time they will be finishing their PhD programs.
The trend lines are merciless. By 2035, China should have at least lapped the US in research output, perhaps multiple times if international graduate students abandon the US en masse.
China will likely be the center of all important scientific inquiry. To not have access is to be permanently on the outside. Any forward-thinking policymaker in Washington should recognize this eventuality and devise programs to send tens if not hundreds of thousands of American students to China.
But of course, forward-thinking policymakers do not exist in Washington. That, however, does not prevent individual Americans from recognizing the obvious.
During the Medieval times, Islamic countries were the best and practically the only ones in math, astronomy, and science. . But religion became more important and now they will never catch up unless China gets Pakistan up to speed. Now adays, US is anti science but Maga religion is far more important, and Virgil Bierschwale, GOP, is leading the way to get rid of H 1b engineers and only use American labor. It will be extremely difficult.
Xenophobia is a reflection of deteriorating societal dynamics in US. When a country declines, generosity and magnanimity are some of the first things to go. The Trump Musk fued is further confirmation that it is largely a society where it is every man for himself.
Americans will never learn-they seem to act like they are superior beings. Maybe it is the language that baffles them. Oh, well, their days are numbered anyway.
You know, when peanut farmer Carter complained to Deng about China’s human rights violations, old Deng told him, “There are millions of Chinese who disagree with us, and if the United States can absorb those millions, then I will let them go.” Today, Rambo Trump has to crack down on Chinese tourism coming to the U.S. to give birth or study… because Xi is letting millions go.
Very hilarious to see your self-delusion. Cope more MAGAt.
Its too late to put China back in the bottle
Undoubtedly, there are good Chinese people who are of Chinese descent or who despise the Xi regime and want to emigrate to the United States. Trump’s man, for example, is Steven Cheung, a “real American.” I, too, have a “real American” buddy. The problem with the United States is that it’s almost impossible to segregate good Chinese people from Xi’s evil ants who come to the US as sleeper agents or terrorists. Today’s CNN report, “What is Fusarium graminearum, the fungus two Chinese researchers allegedly smuggled into the US?”, shows just how evil such “students” are and how difficult it is for the US to deal with student tourism from China.
Reverse opium wars. Anglo Americans getting a good taste of their own “medicine”
Now you’re inadvertently revealing China’s true intentions and indirectly claiming Trump is right about China. LOL
I’m just highlighting the karmic aspect of it. US is the most doped up country on Earth, I wonder why they never do anything about demand side. Maybe because their society is failiing.
Once again, you demonstrate your ignorance. Your narrow-mindedness leaves me speechless. You loudly question why “the US never does anything about demand.” And yet you scream loudly when Trump tries to curb demand by stopping illegal immigration—the main source of the drug supply. I think you should use your brain before screaming like a thief who screams the loudest.
– Joe, Rules Based Disorder is asking a legitimate question. If there was no demand for that poison, no one would take bother to smuggle it into the country.
So I respectful;ly ask you, why is the administration slashing funding for drug treatment programs which might actually help reduce demand for the stuff?
China’s Intention is to be number one. Trumps intention is to prevent that because he can see the writing on the wall. He’s the only one to see that, and he should be commended. But his policies are helping china become number one faster and it’s delighting the Chinese.
It’s not reverse in the context of the Americans like it is for the British. It’s all new. There was a weakness that the Mexicans took advantage of, aided readily and happily by the Chinese. It’s deleting a lot of westerners. However, it’s not China’s fault. It’s the Mexicans and their poverty.
This ban must rudely awoken those Chinese who are still promoting bridge with the US.
Why study STEM when you can graduate in a liberal arts degree and work for the Mockingbird media? You only need half a working brain.
Rubio is an American Latino. Steven Cheung is Rambo’s Trump communications manager. One is descended from immigrants from Cuba, the other from immigrants from China. Yet both are against illegal immigrants. Why? Not because of Trump, but for economic and legal reasons: Illegal immigrants exploit the generosity of the Western system (welfare, child benefits, etc.) and the individual freedom denied to them in their “motherland.” The same applies to the EU. The crucial question is: Why do more Chinese want to study or live in the US or the EU than Americans or Europeans in China? Or the same applies to Latinos, Asians, and Africans. It’s about individual freedom. The US and the EU are no paradise, but somehow much better than China with the Yellow Emperor Xi.
Long ago, china was very poor and backward. Today, top brightest Chinese students are not coming to US. US education is a high cost and low reward.
200k is a trickle in China. 200k in the ivy league is robbing 200k native students the opportunity. That’s very strategic. For the Chinese you can take them out of China but you can’t take china out of then. I suspect many of them will be there to do what they do best. Borrow ip and Make china great again