China says that Trump Harvard Ban will “cloud” the US image as the students in the crosshairs

Hong Kong
Cnn
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The move of the Trump government to Bar Harvard University from the enrollment of international students Has bounced throughout China, and civil servants and commentators see it through a lens: the growing rivalry between Washington and Beijing.

“China consistently rejected the politicization of pedagogical cooperation,” said a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday and added that the US parade “will only cloud its own image and its own reputation in the world”.

Some commentators on Chinese social media platforms took a similar attack: “It is fun to watch them destroy their own strength”, read a comment on the X-like platform Weibo, which brought hundreds of likes.

“Trump comes back to rescue,” wrote another and commented on a hashtag about the news that has tens of millions of views. “The recruitment of international students is … the main method to attract top talents! After this road is cut off, will Harvard still be the same Harvard?”

The announcement of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a clear escalation of a dispute between the oldest and the richest Ivy League institution and the White House and part of a broader effort to tighten control over international students in the United States while an immigration drop. The administration of US President Donald Trump has revoked hundreds of student visa in almost every corner of the country as part of a huge approach to immigration.

The administration of Harvard and Trump has been locked up in conflicts for months because the administration called for the university to make changes to the campus operation. The government has in foreign students and employees, of whom they believe that they have participated in controversial protests from the campus towards the Israel-Hamas War.

The revocation is not just a feud between a university and the US president. It is also the latest in a growing break between two super powers.

For years, China sent more international students to America than in any other country. These deep educational relationships are redesigned by a growing geopolitical rivalry, which has heated up a continuing trade and tech war.

“This administration responsible for the promotion of violence, anti -Semitism and coordination with the Communist Party of the Chinese party on their campus,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in a statement on Thursday.

The DHS declaration included claims of connections between Harvard and Chinese institutions or individuals associated with military research, as well as with a unit on the black list by the Trump government on the black list of human rights violations. It contains information about a letter that the cross -party US legislators sent to Harvard at the beginning of this week to request information about the alleged “partnerships with foreign opponents” at the university.

Harvard did not answer a CNN request for comments on the alleged partnerships. In an explanation on its website, the university said that it was “obliged to keep our ability to align our international students and scientists who come from more than 140 countries and enrich the university and this nation.”

The ability of the American elite universities to recruit top students from all over the world, many of which often remain in the United States, has long been seen as a critical factor for American science and technical skills as well as an important source of income for its universities.

The decision of the DH prohibits Harvard to register international students for the upcoming academic year and requires current foreign students to switch to another university in order to maintain their status.

International students make up more than a quarter of Harvard's students, with those from China the largest international group, a record of Harvard's international office.

Among these students is Fangzhou Jiang, 30, a student at Harvard's Kennedy School, who said he couldn't believe when he heard that his university status was in danger and immediately began to worry whether his visa was still valid.

“I was absolutely shocked for a few minutes. I just never expected the administration to go so far,” said Jianang, who is also the founder of an educational consultant to help foreign students take up the American elite universities. “Since I was young, I learned that it was Harvard when it comes to the best universities in the world, even at a young age that it was Harvard,” he said.

The Ivy League schools such as Harvard, Princeton and Yale are well-known names in the middle class of China, where American universities have been seen as a path to prestigious training and a leg-up-up in China's violent competitive career loaders.

China has been the largest source for international students in the USA for 159, before it was only exceeded by India last year, according to the figures by Open Doors, a state -supported database ministry for the international student.

On the way, US China education relationships have cultivated close relationships between Chinese and American academics and institutions, while US universities and industry have generally benefited from their ability to attract top talents from China and elsewhere in their halls.

Harvard has trained Chinese personalities, like the former deputy Premier Liu He, who played a key role during the first term of office of the American president.

But these ties have increasingly checked in recent years when the United States saw an increasingly assertive and powerful China as a technological rival and a threat to its own supermache status.

More than 277,000 Chinese students studied in the United States in the academic year 2023 to 2024, from over 372,000 in the highlight 2019-2020 a decline, which coincides with the Covid 19 pandemic, but also increases the friction between the two governments.

In the meantime, the increasing nationalist mood and the emphasis on the government on national security in China have led to a change in perception over the value of American and Chinese universities.

The claims of the Ministry of Homeland Protection in relation to Harvard's institutional connections to companies and individuals with connections to military research are the latest step that reflects the access of Chinese access to sensitive and military American technologies in Washington.

In order to survive the perceived threat of Chinese students, carry out the espionage on US floor, Trump introduced a ban during his first term that graduates of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) of Chinese universities, which were assumed to be connected to the military, effectively prevented visas in the United States.

His first government also started the China initiative, which is no longer in existence, a national security program with which China's secret service activities are to be thwarted in the United States, including those who are supposed to steal new technology from research universities.

The program, which compared to the anti-communism “Red Scare” of the McCarthy era of the 1950s, was canceled by the bid administration after it was regarded before a widespread setback for what was regarded as an overhaul, and complaints that suspicion and bias were regarded against innocent Chinese Americans.

Trump's broader tightening of the US immigration policy during his second term has now triggered a new wave of uncertainty and uncertainty for many students and schools.

While international students from many countries are shared, the increased tensions between the two countries have increased the pressure on Chinese students and scientists – and the effects have already been seen.

Last year, at least a dozen top -class academics with roots in China who worked in the USA returned to China and recorded posts at prominent universities in the country.

And for some students at the beginning of their academic and professional career, the latest development is not sure what to do next.

Among them is Sophie Wu, a 22-year-old from the Chinese Southern Tech Hub von Shenzhen, who was accepted this autumn at a graduate program in Harvard after completing her bachelor's degree in the USA. Wu said she felt “deaf” after hearing the news.

“I hadn't expected the administration to make such an irrational decision, and I also believe that this is more of a retaliation than a political decision,” she told CNN. “International students are kept hostage for a political purpose.”