US-China big chill may freeze out Chinese students from American university research labs

Three lawmakers propose bill to prohibit students from Chinese mainland studying STEM subjects in US
‘Chinese Communist Party has long used American universities to conduct espionage on the United States,’ Republican Senator Tom Cotton says

US-China relations

Simone McCarthy

Published: 6:30pm, 28 May 2020

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American universities may be next to feel the big chill in China-US relations as a group of US lawmakers are proposing a bill to ban mainland Chinese from studying science and technology in the United States, arguing they pose a threat to national security.

The two senators and one member of the House of Representatives on Wednesday said the Secure Campus Act would effectively bar Chinese nationals from receiving visas for graduate or postgraduate study in so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields. Those from Taiwan and Hong Kong would be exempt.

“The Chinese Communist Party has long used American universities to conduct espionage on the United States,” said Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, one of the sponsors of the bill and a critic of Beijing.

“What’s worse is that their efforts exploit gaps in current law. It’s time for that to end,” he said. “The Secure Campus Act will protect our national security and maintain the integrity of the American research enterprise.”

The proposed legislation comes as diplomatic relations have fractured between the world’s two largest economies. The fissures started to show during a trade war that has been rumbling on for almost two years and have only widened amid accusations about the handling of the Covid-19 disease outbreak, and the treatment of ethnic minority groups in China.

Hong Kong is the latest flashpoint after Beijing drew up a national security law that Washington says tramples on the city’s mini-constitution. The US threatened retaliation over the move.

The US bill, which will be introduced to both the Senate and House of Representatives, also targets China’s efforts to recruit overseas specialists in certain fields. One example is the Thousand Talents Programme, a state-run initiative launched in 2008 to recruit leading international experts in scientific research, entrepreneurship and innovation.

The US and China are each other’s top research collaborators, according to statistics compiled by Nature Index. Photo: AFP

The US and China are each other’s top research collaborators, according to statistics compiled by Nature Index, a database collated from research articles published in a group of 82 science journals.

Members of the US scientific community have resisted what they view as actions unfairly targeting foreign-born colleagues, specifically those from China. They have also raised concerns that such campaigns will discourage talented individuals from studying at US institutions.

“While we must be vigilant to safeguard research, we must also ensure that the US remains a desirable and welcoming destination for researchers from around the world,” the members of 60 groups, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Federation of American Scientists, said in a letter to science policy officials last year.

No timeline has yet been set for deliberation of the proposed legislation, but US officials have long raised concerns that Beijing is attempting to steal intellectual property via researchers and funding programmes.

US law enforcement and educational agencies have raised red flags about undisclosed ties between federally funded researchers and foreign governments. A crackdown has included indictments and dismissals.

In January, Charles Lieber, 60, chairman of the chemistry and chemical biology department at Harvard University, was arrested and charged for lying about his involvement in the Thousand Talents Programme.

The bill proposes that all participants in China’s foreign talent recruitment programmes register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. It would also prohibit Chinese nationals and participants in such China-sponsored programmes from receiving federal grants or working on federally funded research and development in STEM fields.

Universities, laboratories and research institutes receiving federal funding would need to attest that they were not knowingly employing participants in China’s foreign talent recruitment programmes. The US secretary of state would be obliged to develop and publish a list of such programmes, according to a summary of the bill released on Wednesday.

Restrictions on visas have already been used elsewhere, namely the media industry, in what has been characterised as an expanding tit-for-tat Cold War between the US and China.

The US earlier this month imposed 90-day visa limits on mainland Chinese journalists working in the country for non-US outlets.

The action follows China’s decision in March to revoke the press credentials for American journalists from three major US newspapers, and declared five US media outlets to be foreign government functionaries. The Trump administration in February labelled five Chinese state media groups as “foreign missions”.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: US-China frostiness may freeze out students

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