Tracking paranoid rhetoric, visa restrictions, and the targeted policing of China-connected research, which combine to create a hostile atmosphere for Chinese people in the U.S.
“Faculty members, post-docs, research staff and students tell me that, in their dealings with government agencies, they now feel unfairly scrutinized, stigmatized and on edge – because of their Chinese ethnicity alone.”
—MIT President L. Rafael Reif, June 25, 2019.
Since early 2018, the American immigration and justice system has appeared to target Chinese students, and ethnically Chinese researchers, with paranoid rhetoric, visa restrictions, and targeted policing and politicization of China-connected research. Together, these three trends comprise the primary — but not only — components of the current atmosphere of suspicion and distrust in America of not just Beijing, but Chinese people as a whole.
This tool tracks rising Sinophobia in the U.S. Click on the filters to view different categories of Sinophobia-related developments, including Responses to Sinophobia, like the letter by the MIT President cited above.
Read about why The China Project launched this Sinophobia Tracker, in the words of our Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Goldkorn.
Two Chinese students who were arrested in January for taking unauthorized photographs of a navy air base in Florida are in a federal penitentiary awaiting deportation, despite no evidence being publicly presented that indicates they were anything but lost tourists. They will be unable to finish their studies at the University of Michigan as a result.
The Trump administration said that it had cancelled over 1,000 student visas for "certain Chinese graduate students and researchers with ties to China’s military fusion strategy." However, the visa cancellations do not appear to have been limited to graduate students.
"As the Trump administration continues to scrutinize all aspects of America’s relations with China, the University of North Texas has expelled 15 Chinese researchers who were funded by the Chinese Scholarship Council, a government organization."
"Many are hurt by Trump’s overtures — however symbolic — about Chinese talent having no place in his vision of America. Together with the mass cancellation of Chinese work visas last month, the Trump administration has effectively pushed many future talents back into the arms of the CCP."
"A new rule from ICE that prohibits international students from remaining in the U.S. if their universities offer classes only online is just the latest setback for Chinese students in the time of COVID-19."
"Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sued the Trump administration in federal court on Wednesday, seeking to block a directive that would strip foreign college students of their visas if the courses they take this fall are entirely online," reported the New York Times. The lawsuit was successful, and the ICE policy was revoked.
"This is the latest of many setbacks to the more than 300,000 Chinese nationals studying in the U.S. in recent months. The COVID-19 pandemic had already become a nightmare for many of this cohort. Unsure of their legal status, their safety, and the future of face-to-face classes in the U.S., many Chinese students opted to return home," wrote Lily Qi.
The Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency warned that if schools move to online-only education, students holding F-1 and M-1 visas “may face immigration consequences including, but not limited to, the initiation of removal proceedings.” The move was part of an effort by the Trump administration to pressure schools to open for in-person classes in the fall.
On May 29, 2020, the White House issued a “Proclamation on the suspension of entry as nonimmigrants of certain students and researchers from the People’s Republic of China.” The new policy will make graduate study in the U.S. impossible for any Chinese national with even a vague connection to “military-civil fusion” in China. It could affect several thousand students, but universities are still waiting for details from the U.S. State Department.
