Original Zhou Deyu's bottom-line thinking Shanghai

Column Author of the Observer Network

Ph.D., Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh, Postdoctoral Fellow, School of History, Renmin University of China

Just like the Trump administration's policy on all matters, when it comes to the issue of Chinese students, they also think about it. For a long time, the U.S. government has been hostile to Chinese students, shouting that Chinese students are spies and threats every day. A while ago, Lu Biao insisted that the visas of Chinese students should be strictly examined. As a result, Trump has made a new tone in the past two days, and began to frequently state that he has never allowed Chinese students to come, and even allowed 600,000 Chinese students to visit the United States.

However, this kind of thing is just like Trump's mouthful running trains on weekdays. If you listen to it, it will pass, and you can't do it true. I don't know how I came up with this figure of 600,000. When the number of Chinese students studying in the United States was the highest, it was 370,000, and now it is 270,000.

Of course, when Trump explained why he started welcoming Chinese students, the intention was straightforward: ¡°I like their students coming here and I like students from other countries coming here.

Trump recently told reporters that more Chinese students are welcome to study in the United States. Without them, American universities would "collapse" video screenshot

This is a rare serious statement from Trump. International students in the United States, especially Chinese students who account for about 35% of them, are the most important top gifters in many American universities and the communities where they are located. Chinese students have relatively strong purchasing power. Not only can they pay tuition in full and provide financial security for the school, but more importantly, their consumption behaviors such as renting houses, buying cars, eating and traveling in the United States also provide important support for the local economy. You can see that there are mushrooming tea shops and Chinese restaurants serving Chinese students around American universities.

The famous right-wing think tank, the Cato Institute, immediately kicked Trump in the ass, saying that 600,000 Chinese students could have a direct financial impact of $321 billion, which is worthwhile.

So Trump does not really welcome China students, he just wants China students to be "big shots" to make money. This is consistent with his consistent idea of trying to make money from countries around the world. Maybe he will one day open a gold card for overseas students with his own image printed on it and sell it to "big people".

But even for this economic reason, there are still many anti-China MAGA camps that don't buy it. Many people think that Chinese students are a threat anyway. Why not leave the opportunity to go to school to Americans?

Marjorie Taylor Green, a prominent MAGA legislator, for example, has a soul-searching question: "If not bringing in Chinese students will close 15 percent of schools, let them close, because they are supported by the Chinese Communist Party. Why should we allow 600,000 students from China to replace our opportunities for American students? We can never allow that."

Of course, the answer to this question is actually very simple, because you can't find 60 American students who can afford tuition and bring the same economic benefits as China students. It is not a matter of one day or two to "suck blood" from high school loans in the United States. Americans who can afford to go to school have already gone to school, and the rest are those who cannot afford it. You can't find hundreds of thousands of Americans who can afford college tuition. Therefore, it is not that international students take away the opportunity of Americans to go to school, but that Americans cannot afford to go to school to give them opportunities.

The MAGA camp is not divided in this regard for a day or two. As early as the beginning of 2025, a group of people led by Musk believed that as long as foreign talents were used by the United States, they would still serve the priority strategy of the United States, which triggered a strong rebound from another group of grassroots MAGA forces, believing that foreign talents No matter what, it is crowding out employment in the country. There are so many talents in the United States, how can it be foreigners' turn?

In 2023, U.S. exports of educational services to China (i.e., the amount used by Chinese students to pay for tuition, accommodation, teaching materials, and related expenses) accounted for 29% of the global export value of U.S. educational services, reaching $14.40 billion, supporting more than 143,000 jobs. The picture shows the change in the export value of each state compared to the previous year. From: US-China Business Council "US Export Report to China", April 2025

The Trump administration has always wanted to balance these two positions, so you will see a lot of policies fighting each other, but in the end it is often the exclusive thinking dominates. For example, in the issue of foreign talent, although Trump seems to sympathize with the position of the group of Musk, but in the subsequent practical policy implementation, still took the hostile attitude of foreign talent, so we have recently seen some Chinese scholars in the United States return to China phenomenon.

So it can be expected that even if Trump is now releasing what "welcome Chinese students" words, used to reassure some schools or local government, etc. When it really comes to implementation, welcoming Chinese students do not know what it is. In addition to studying immigration intermediaries, to believe that the United States really welcomes Chinese students, there is a good goal of being a scam. Don't look at what they say, depending on how they do, these two days the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reminds you to travel to the U.S. security risk is not an empty reminder.

In fact, there is no need to say much about the trend of Chinese exclusion in the United States. This did not start this year. Anyone who is not blind can see that the hostility of the United States towards China and its exclusion of China is long-term, systematic, consensual and has a deep foundation. Although some American industries need labor and money from China, given the overall background that the United States regards China as an enemy, the economic and public opinion foundation for friendship with China is far less than the benefits and public opinion that can be gained by excluding China. Therefore, hostility towards China students cannot be reversed by Trump's two sentences or even sporadic policies.

More importantly, from the perspective of Trump's own ruling needs, xenophobia is always the easiest line to produce results. In American politics, racism is the theme of "catching the spirit", and it is the real spiritual sustenance of most Americans. Although Trump is clamoring every day to revive the economy and diplomacy of the United States, it is difficult and slow to come up with results after tossing around. How can it be intuitive and certain to deploy military police to arrest people?

Hispanics, whose number and political power are much stronger than Chinese, will inevitably be tossed by Trump, and the future of Chinese Americans will not be much better. However, after all, Chinese have a stronger home country than Hispanics, so Trump always has to pull on various issues with China, and Chinese students won't do everything for a while.

Therefore, even if Sino-US relations continue to deteriorate, there is still some room for Chinese students to go to the United States, although their status is becoming more and more embarrassing. For those science and engineering subjects with strong study abroad value, the United States naturally has more and more restrictions on Chinese students. Humanities are less restricted, but it is not so easy to learn.

Affected by Trump's policy, Chinese scholars' interest in scientific research positions in the United States has declined. Screenshot of Nature magazine website

In those years in the United States, someone constantly advised me to study in the United States, most of the time I was discouraged. A lot of people I say you don't really want to be academic, you just want to change the environment to escape years of life, you really want to do academic in the country as well. Of course this thing is not absolutely, American academic research in the Western world is still in a monopoly position, many academic fronts are still in the United States, really suitable for some particular direction people go to the United States to study.

As for the wider number of international students who come to the United States to study for undergraduate and master's degrees, in the final analysis, if everyone is honest, it is not so important whether they learn or not. It's just like many people go to college in China not really to study. Studying abroad is not to learn anything. They just want to change their environment to travel and live, and spend a few years to get a degree. This is also an inevitable demand in society.

If you really want to go abroad in a different environment, foreign languages only learn English, the U.S. study industry is still more mature after all, there are more schools to choose from, there are more living environments to choose from, then to go to the U.S. is always a bit stronger than to go to Southeast Asia or the United Kingdom, you want to learn something or just want to mix.

In fact, no matter what discipline, what is really studying in the United States to learn, is the United States itself. The more the US government is treating China as the biggest enemy, the more we need someone to actually understand the United States, whether good or bad.

It is as if you could read the country¡¯s ¡°Pragmatism of the Peasants¡± by Wallace, to learn about the history and status of the American Rust Belt. But only if you really get to feel the despair and degradation of the local mindset, you can understand why Trump will win the support of those places, why Wallace will firmly rely on Trump, and thus rise up in politics until today as the US Vice President. If you go to truly experience the changes that have taken place in American society over the years, you can understand that there is no coincidence in what is happening in the United States now, and that there is a serious reason behind everything that seems absurd and out-of-the-line, and can find its roots in American history and reality.

Of course, if you just stay in the U.S. campus, mixed with the U.S. minority of liberal middle-aged, not even out of the Chinese community, it may go to the U.S. and not go. but this is also normal, many people in the U.S. native country lived their whole life, understanding of the U.S. has no difference from foreigners, so we will see the U.S. as it is now.

In May, the U.S. State Department website released a statement entitled ¡°The new visa policy prioritizes the United States, not China.¡±

In May, the State Department website posted a statement titled "New visa policy prioritizes the United States, not China," saying it would increase scrutiny of all future visa applications from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong.

But in any case, as long as enough people from China go to the United States, there will always be quite a few people who can know about the United States and become a channel for Chinese people to know about the United States. Non-governmental communication is the foundation of everything. As long as you are not too isolated from the local society, you can always get in touch with some of these aspects in the process of studying abroad in the United States, and countless aspects will eventually merge into a three-dimensional image.

Why does the "China Hand" in the United States always have a peculiar smell? Why do American elites complain about this misjudgment of China every day in recent years? The fundamental reason is that there are not many Americans who can speak Chinese and are willing to come to China, and their understanding of China is monopolized and manipulated by a few people.

On the other hand, China knows more about the United States, not by relying on a few scholars pretending to travel to the United States or carrying second-hand documents, but by ordinary people from different backgrounds and classes who go to the United States to study, live and work., presenting us with a different face of American society. As a relatively young and knowledge-hungry group, China students naturally play an important role in China's understanding of the United States.

Of course, these Chinese students could also help the United States to understand China and promote the normal and beneficial development of bilateral relations.But in the face of America's arrogance and hostility from above, what does this mean?If the United States does not want warm civil exchanges between China and the United States, then the United States will not welcome 600,000 "wrong heads" foreign students, only to meet the cold reality.