The English-language China Daily, owned by the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda department, on July 7 reported that more than 500 Chinese students who had received offers to pursue postgraduate studies in subjects related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) had been refused study visas for the US.
Beijing had made “solemn representations” to Washington regarding the matter, it said.
The majority of the students were aspiring majors in electrical engineering, computing, mechanics, chemistry, materials science, biomedical science and other STEM subjects. The schools they were intending to study at included elite institutions such as Harvard University, Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The US rejected their visa applicants on the grounds of the US’ Proclamation 10043: Suspension of Entry as Nonimmigrants of Certain Students and Researchers From the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which was signed by former US president Donald Trump on May 29 last year and came into effect the following month. The proclamation bars Chinese from studying or conducting research “at or on behalf of ... an entity in the PRC that implements or supports the PRC’s ‘military-civil fusion strategy.’”
The ban mostly applies to Chinese who have graduated from specific universities or colleges, such as academic institutions affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, known colloquially as the “national defense seven” grouping of colleges.
US officials have repeatedly criticized China for stealing sensitive US technology and conducting economic intelligence through its “military-civil fusion strategy.”
Officials have also said that Chinese spies posing as students and researchers present a security threat to the US.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) wrote on the ministry’s official Twitter account: “Over 500 Chinese #students’ visa applications were denied by the US. Is this what the #US called freedom and openness?”
Judging by Hua’s Twitter activity, she has clearly been tasked with attacking the US, its society and model of governance, and the tweet on the visa issue was comical.
It is reminiscent of an incident several years ago involving a then-student in Peking University’s Chinese language and literature departement called Ma Nan (馬楠).
Ma, who had been selected as a student representative, angrily upbraided then-US president Bill Clinton over the “abominable US human rights situation” during his visit to the university in 1998.
Ma’s fiery denunciation put Clinton on the spot and created an embarrassing situation.
Two years later, Ma chose to further her education in the US, despite the supposedly abominable human rights situation, and then went on to marry an American.
In all fairness, while a minority of the more than 500 students whose visas were rejected might indeed be Chinese spies, the majority would behave like Ma and simply aspire to further their studies in the US: They must criticize the US to protect themselves, or to mask that at the bottom of their hearts, they aspire to a life in the US.
This is the sad truth of living under a totalitarian regime.
Yu Kung is a Taiwanese businessman working in China.
Translated by Edward Jones
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