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.
The South China Morning Post reports on the new “Red Scare” targeting Chinese-American scientists and scholars, and the organizations, such as Asian Americans Advancing Justice, that are fighting back.
The FBI is “intimidating or harassing” at least three Chinese faculty members at the University of Cincinnati, according to Eric Palmer, the executive director of the local American Association of University Professors chapter.
Chinese designer Xiaojuan Yang, founder of independent label I Love Pretty, and her team have been denied visas, the South China Morning Post reported. The news comes as the number of Chinese tourists traveling to the U.S. has declined recently amid tensions between the White House and Beijing.
"We, the undersigned, are leaders in U.S. academic and industrial biomedical research and drug development. We are concerned that recent actions by government agencies and universities with respect to Chinese scientists in the U.S. could threaten U.S. leadership in biomedical science."
Franklin Tao (陶丰 Táo Fēng), a University of Kansas researcher was indicted for allegedly hiding that he was working full-time for a Chinese university. But as Bloomberg points out, “a web search shows that…his dual Kansas and China ties are disclosed in at least two U.S.-funded research papers published last year, as well as in several Chinese-language websites easily translatable online.”
"To break through the heat of this debate — one that is tinged with controversy and concern involving both immigration policies and U.S.-China relations — we must ask a fundamental question: how can we preserve and enhance the diverse research, education and innovation ecosystem that has fueled our nation’s broad prosperity since World War II? In other words, can we be both open and secure?"
"Higher education institutions must work to bolster the security of their research without sacrificing openness and collaboration, write Peter McPherson and Mary Sue Coleman."
On July 30, 2019, Marie Royce, a senior U.S. State Department official, made remarks titled “The United States Welcomes Chinese Students.” But as Elizabeth Redden at Inside Higher Ed reported, some parts of the remarks were received more as a warning that perpetuated stereotypes of Chinese students.
On July 23, 2019, FBI Director Christopher Wray slightly rephrased his earlier remarks, and said of the Chinese espionage threat, “It’s kind of an all-tools approach by them, and it, therefore, requires an all-tools approach by us.”
