The US State Department said in a statement Wednesday that “high-risk graduate students and research scholars” had been expelled, after they “were found to be subject to Presidential Proclamation 10043 and therefore ineligible for a visa.”
The State Department said the revocation of visas “safeguards US national security by limiting the PRC’s ability to leverage Chinese graduate students and researchers in the United States to steal United States technologies, intellectual property, and information to develop advanced military capabilities.”
Worsening ties
According to the State Department, those affected by the recent expulsions “represent a small subset of the total number of Chinese students and scholars coming to the United States.”
“We continue to welcome legitimate students and scholars from China who do not further the Chinese Communist Party’s goals of military dominance,” it added.
Beijing has yet to react to the most recent announcement, but in June, China’s education ministry said it “resolutely opposes” any US government move to restrict Chinese students and “strongly condemns any calculated politicization and stigmatization of normal academic exchanges.”
Relations between Washington and Beijing have plummeted under Trump, and the expulsion of Chinese students could potentially be met by Beijing with a similar action, following a trend of tit-for-tat moves in recent months.