5/29/2025–|Last update: 23:24 (Mecca time)
Beijing criticized – today, Thursday, the United States resolution canceling the visas of Chinese students, describing it as “irrational”, confirming a protest to Washington after Foreign Minister Marco Rubio announced this measure.
“The United States has logically canceled Chinese students’ visas under the pretext of ideology and national rights,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning, adding that “China is strongly opposed to a protest with the United States.”
On the other hand, US State Department spokeswoman Tami Bruce said that the United States will not tolerate the “exploitation” of the Chinese Communist Party of its universities or the theft of American intellectual research and property.
Bruce added to reporters in a statement that the Foreign Ministry will seriously consider the matter of Chinese students in the United States who are a threat or a problem, after Foreign Minister Marco Rubio announced that Washington will begin “strongly” to cancel visas.
“Under the leadership of President Donald Trump, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will strictly work with the Ministry of Internal Security to cancel the visas of Chinese students, including those who have links to the Chinese Communist Party or who are studying in vital areas.”
“We will also review the criteria for granting visas to enhance auditing in all future visas requests from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong,” the minister added.
Hours before Rubio announced, East Michigan University announced that it had ended its engineering partnerships with two Chinese universities, in response to the pressures of the Republicans.
This procedure for Chinese students is renewed a priority from the Trump administration’s first to narrow the screws on academic relations with China, which Republicans have described as a threat to national security.
It also comes at a time when audits in relations between American higher education and China are increasing. The Republicans in the House of Representatives also pressed Duke University to cut its relations with a Chinese university, saying that it allowed Chinese students to access federal funds in Duke.
Last year, Republicans in the House of Representatives issued a report warning that hundreds of millions of dollars of defense financing were devoted to research partnerships linked to the Chinese government, which allows “a secret arrival to the hostile foreign state, which is necessary to protect from its aggression.”
Last April, Trump ordered the Ministry of Education to intensify the application of a federal base that obliges universities to reveal information about financing from foreign sources. During his first term, the Ministry of Education opened 19 investigation into foreign financing for American universities, and found that it reduced the volume of funds flowing from China, Russia and other countries described as foreign opponents.