US plans to cancel visas of Chinese grad students

The United States is planning to cancel the visas of thousands of Chinese graduate students believed by President Donald Trump’s administration to have links with China’s military, two sources with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The move, first reported by the New York Times, could impact 3,000 to 5,000 Chinese students and could be announced as early as this week, according to the sources, including a current US official and another individual who was briefed on the administration’s internal discussions. The United States and China are at loggerheads over China’s decision to go forward with national security legislation for Hong Kong that democracy activists in the city and Western countries fear could erode its freedoms and jeopardise its role as a global financial hub. Chinese students who are in the US will have their visas cancelled and will be expelled, the source briefed on the plans said, while those already outside the US will not be allowed to return. The main purpose of the action is to clamp down on spying and intellectual property theft that some Chinese nationals are suspected of engaging in on US university and college campuses, the source said, adding that the administration expected significant push back from those institutions because of their financial interests in Chinese student enrolment. Some 360,000 Chinese nationals who attend US schools annually generate economic activity of about $14bn, largely from tuitions and other fees. The decision on the visas is likely to further sour ties between the world’s top two economies.