White House takes aim at Chinese studentsーNHK WORLD-JAPAN NEWS
President Trump is continuing his attack on Harvard University. He says the number of foreign students there should be capped at about 15%. You know, these countries aren’t helping us. They’re not investing in Harvard and all of our we are we have people want to go to Harvard and other schools. They can’t get in because we have foreign students there. But I want to make sure that the foreign students are people that can love our country. The university currently has around 6,800 international students, about 30% of its student body. This comes as a US media report the administration is telling federal agencies to cancel their contracts with the university reportedly worth around $100 million. Chinese students in particular are being targeted. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday the government will aggressively revoke their visas. He said that includes those studying in critical fields or with connections to the Chinese Communist Party. And the measure will apply to all Chinese students, not just those at Harvard. For more on this, let’s go to our Beijing correspondent Nakamura Genta. So Genta, how are Chinese students reacting to this news? Well, students and their families are confused because so far there has been no official announcement from the US embassy here. As the four enrollment season approaches, it’s not easy for students to change their place of study. And we are talking about a lot of people here. China currently accounts for about a quarter of the total number of foreign students in the US. Only India sends more people to study there. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson had some harsh words for Washington. She said the US is violating the rights and interests of Chinese international students. We went to the US embassy here to speak with the relatives or people applying for student visits. I’m sure there’ll be an impact. I suspect there’ll be discrimination among students from now on. We can’t do anything ourselves. So, we just have to wait and see. If the US gets too strict or stops issuing visas, we are likely to choose countries such as Britain, Australia, or Canada instead. So, Genta, how do you think the Chinese government will respond? Well, I don’t think they’re going to take the kind of counter measures we saw in response to Trump’s tariffs, but we can expect Beijing once again to position itself as a champion of multilateralism. And when it comes to education, that means fully supporting academic exchanges. In theory, at least as the US becomes increasingly inwardlooking, Beijing won’t miss another opportunity to boost its own image. The US Secretary of State’s announcement that he will revoke with us for Chinese students with ties to the Chinese Communist Party is also getting attention. But it’s better to understand this major in the context of national security. It’s part of a wider move in the US to eliminate the risk of information leakage in important fields including the military with an eye on its long-term rivalry with China. And that rivalry is already casting a long shadow over the world of academia.
The US government’s move to “aggressively” revoke visas for Chinese students is causing confusion, but may create an opportunity for Beijing. #usa #trump #china #students
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