Letters | For Chinese students in the US, the tide has turned: for the worse

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Students clap as Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech during a visit to Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Washington, in September 2015. Photo: Reuters

Published: 9:00am, 10 Aug 2020Updated: 9:00am, 10 Aug 2020

Chinese students in the United States are battling a wave of negative sentiment induced by the Covid-19 pandemic and the souring of the bilateral relationship over the trade war.

A 21-year-old Chinese student, who went to the US eight years ago and is now studying at Johns Hopkins University, told the BBC that “as a Chinese living in the US, [she was] very scared now”. Now stranded the US because of pandemic-related flight cuts, and people back home wary that they are a risk to China’s success against Covid-19, many like her feel that “neither the US nor China wants us”.

When I was studying in the US a couple of decades ago, I thankfully never had this sad feeling of being rejected by both home and host that Chinese students now experience. I felt welcomed by both my professors and fellow students. I felt good and proud to be studying at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the best schools in the US. I was a happy student then.

But now the tide has turned. While it’s not unprecedented for foreign scholars and workers to be suspected of espionage, commercial or political, it’s very likely that the unfriendly signals and messaging from the Trump administration has concocted a politicised atmosphere where most Chinese students would feel discriminated against and highly marginalised.

There are some 360,000 Chinese students in the US. Washington suspects some of them of working as spies for the Chinese government. This is raising fears among all students of being targeted.

Randy Lee, Ma On Shan

Racism has no place in world-class Hong Kong

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.css-sioo19{color:#c79a00;}Letters | For Chinese students in the US, the tide has turned: for the worse

Letters | For Chinese students in the US, the tide has turned: for the worse