The unbearable weight of 0.1% visa rejections: Chinese students navigate increasing barriers to studying in the U.S.
Stories of expulsion and interrogation for Chinese students amidst the narrowing channel for studying.
As reported by Reuters, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said on June 24 that the United States should welcome more students from China, but specifically to study the humanities rather than sciences. Campbell highlighted the need for increased recruitment of international students in STEM fields, focusing on candidates from India rather than China.
In an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal released the following day, Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China said that more than 99% of student visa holders clear immigration without incident. Burns suggested that those who are rejected for visas may not be truthful in their applications and acknowledged the possibility of occasional mistakes by U.S. officials.
Ambassador Burns also highlighted on Twitter that 99.9% of U.S. student visa holders from China enter the U.S. without problem. “In 2023, 🇺🇸 issued over 105,000 visas to 🇨🇳 students, scholars, and their dependents. There are over 292,000 🇨🇳 students currently studying in 🇺🇸 universities and colleges across the country,” he tweeted.
Pekingnology, the sister newsletter of The East is Read, released a detailed story in January about Chinese PhD students being interrogated and deported upon arriving in the United States.
The account has been corroborated by a Bloomberg report on May 29 shedding light on “Expulsions of Chinese Students Spread Confusion From Yale to UVA”, which showed “Customs agents at US airports have barred entry to at least 20 students and scholars with valid visas since November in ‘more insidious’ version of disbanded China Initiative.”
The following are the stories of Chinese students who did not successfully complete their studies, including the 0.1% who encountered visa issues. These problems occurred not only in the U.S. but also in Canada, the UK, and Europe, where they face increasing security scrutiny. These students, as described by the article, find themselves, “deluged by a sprinkle from the tides of times”.
The article was originally published by 知识分子 The Intellectual, a news platform founded in 2015 by three Chinese academics from Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Princeton University. It remains available on the official WeChat blog of The Intellectual.
一群中国年轻人的亲身经历：出国留学的路，越来越窄了
Zooming In on the First-hand Experiences of Young Chinese: The Increasingly Narrow Path to Studying Abroad
Written by Weichu Su, Shengnan Yan, Siyu Ji
In 2021, Lindsey, a freshly enrolled graduate student, created a folder in her browser containing information about the laboratories she was interested in. At that time, she hoped to receive training in these labs through joint training programs or as a postdoctoral researcher.
Fast forward to 2024, now a doctoral candidate applying for the China Scholarship Council (CSC) scholarship, she revisited the folder only to find that “none were accessible, simply because they are all in the U.S.”
“My research area is personality and social psychology. The U.S. takes the lead in this domain with cutting-edge research and the largest pool of distinguished professors. When I initially bookmarked these labs, my focus was solely on their academic achievements without considering the political context,” Lindsey explained.
For now, Lindsey has already abandoned the idea of pursuing academic opportunities in the U.S. in the short term. Despite actively reaching out to potential supervisors, her efforts have not paid off. She sent over 30 emails to institutions in countries including the UK, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium. The responses included rejections from Aarhus University and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, as well as the Max Planck Institute in Germany, all of which currently decline CSC-funded students.
A professor wrote in a rejection letter, “Absolutely, maybe times will change at some point.”
“Among the professors I reached out to, most are against this policy of rejecting CSC-funded students. One professor from Germany apologized for his late reply, explaining that he had just been informed of the changes in the policy concerning international exchange students. He concluded his email with an ‘(alas).’ I think they share a sense of frustration and powerlessness,” Lindsey told The Intellectual.
Since the late 1970s, over 8 million Chinese students have pursued knowledge and cooperation internationally. This mutual exchange has enriched the diversity and innovativeness of the global scientific community and propelled significant transformations in China's development trajectory.
“Academic overhaul”—this was the term used by the first group of Chinese scholars who ventured abroad. These academic pioneers, through their visionary insights and relentless pursuit, have made significant contributions by establishing and reforming academic disciplines, introducing and authoring textbooks, revolutionizing teaching methods, and fostering international academic exchanges. These efforts have progressively refined China’s scientific system amid the waves of globalization, showcasing the depth and breadth of academic exploration.
Unfortunately, the tide of talent mobility, which has continued for four decades, is silently running into adverse currents one after another, turning the freedom to embrace the world into a mere historical spectacle. As with Lindsey’s list, more and more countries are continuously raising the entry requirements for studying abroad, with institutions, universities, and departments involved. The tide of times is once again toying with individual fates, encroaching upon academic developments by the smallest units—specifically, the students.
Some visa reviews take at least one year; Some students are expelled partway.
Lindsey’s rejection due to the CSC program is a mere slice of the predicament faced by Chinese overseas students. According to the cases collected by The Intellectual, “sensitive” subjects or schools would also be a hindrance to securing offers. Even if an offer is successfully obtained, some face infinite waiting during the visa review process, and some encounter expulsion partway through their studies.
“To my knowledge, when applying for a visa to Canada, security investigations must take at least one year with no upper limit. Some have even waited for 6 years without getting one,” Ludo explained. He is currently doing his PhD in Germany, specializing in quantum computing. Previously, his academic career was interrupted for two years because of waiting for a visa review.
Among these interviewed Chinese students studying abroad, most have already made their foray into academia, some of whom have set their minds on an academic career. The tides of times, however, threw them off guard. They were compelled to hastily change course, sliding onto a different track—possibly a different life.
Jude, who received a full scholarship, has never been able to meet his supervisor in person, even though he has been enrolled in the PhD program for over a year. Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, this direct-entry PhD student has been participating in courses and experiments online.
In January 2022, as the U.S. relaxed COVID restrictions and gradually restored various exchanges, other students completed their registrations in December 2021. However, Jude was still unable to obtain a visa. It was then that he realized that this was due to Proclamation 10043—Suspension of Entry as Nonimmigrants of Certain Students and Researchers From the People's Republic of China—issued at the beginning of the pandemic.
This policy prohibits individuals associated with entities involved in China’ s “military-civil fusion (MCF)” strategy from studying or conducting research in the U.S. Jude’s alma mater, Beihang University, is on the U.S. Entity List.
Beihang University and Northwestern Polytechnical University were among the first Chinese higher education institutions to be placed on the Entity List, having been added to the list as early as May 2001. Subsequently, universities such as the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and Sichuan University were also added. After 2018, with the intensification of the U.S. technology blockade against China, the number of universities on the Entity List rapidly increased, reaching 18 by December 2020. The “Seven Sons of National Defense” [a group of seven universities with historical ties to China’s defense industry] affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, including Beihang University, Beijing Institute of Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Harbin Engineering University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Nanjing University of Science and Technology, faced stricter export controls than other universities on the list. In addition, the universities known as the “Two Electronics and One Post”—University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Xidian University, and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications—have also been subjected to the same level of scrutiny.
In January 2022, Jude received a notice of expulsion. He was informed that he could wait no longer and must immediately terminate his studies. Moreover, the university would not issue a degree certificate and even demanded that he pay more than $20,000 in tuition for the past year. After his supervisor argued on his behalf, Jude was awarded a master’s degree without having to pay the tuition; however, he did not receive the last six months of his teaching and research assistant stipend.
To some extent, Jude was fortunate to receive a master’s degree in the end. There have been students who were expelled midway through their studies; they received nothing but deportation—a waste of precious time.
In the early hours of January 2023, Fanny transferred through Hong Kong to New York. She had had a brief reunion with her family for seven days—the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic—before flying back to her laboratory to complete her doctoral studies. Her six-year journey as a Chinese student in the U.S. was nearing its end, with only a year and a half left to finish her scientific training. However, she faced a significant setback.
The loudspeaker at the airport counter required her to stop boarding. For researchers in “sensitive” fields traveling between the U.S. and China in recent years, such abrupt incidents at airports have become all too common.
The Intellectual interviewed some PhD students who had similar experiences of being “interrogated.” Some were pulled aside for hours of questioning right from the baggage claim area, while others were taken to what is colloquially known as the “little dark room.”
“Of course, the ‘little dark room’ isn’t actually dark. The one I was taken to had glass doors and windows, a large room with several long benches, seating about a dozen people. Inside, you were not allowed to use your cell phone,” a computer science student told The Intellectual.
The interrogations that students face typically revolve around the following issues: the primary source of their PhD funding, whether it involves government support, their parents’ occupational backgrounds, their area of research, their supervisor’s background, any collaborative entities involved, the backgrounds of co-authors of their papers, etc. The students’ paper documents, including theses and notes, are meticulously examined. Interrogators review the students’ computers, phones, and hard drives for theses and materials, searching between the lines for “suspicious evidence,” and repeatedly question them. Even private chats, photos, and forum remarks are scrutinized and questioned.
Fanny had no inkling of how to navigate these interrogations, and even if she did, it would be of no help at that time. The airline staff told her there was something wrong with her visa. She couldn’t understand what the supposed “wrong” was since her student visa was valid for five more years. At the Hong Kong International Airport, she repeatedly communicated with U.S. Customs, who did not provide a clear reason, only instructing her to go back and wait for information.
The next day, Fanny received an email stating her visa had been revoked. There was no luggage inspection, no interrogation, and no room for negotiation. “How can a visa still within its validity period be revoked?” she asked. She received no specific answer, but after communicating with other students in the same situation and browsing for information, she roughly pinpointed that it was “because her undergraduate university was on the Entity List.”
Fanny was deluged by a sprinkle from the tides of times.
Throughout her academic journey, Fanny did feel the political pressure but always considered herself “lucky.” In 2018, the US tightened visa policies for Chinese students, reducing the duration of visas to one year for students in sensitive areas like aviation, robotics, and advanced manufacturing. Moreover, these visas require annual renewal, overturning the Obama-era policy that allowed Chinese citizens to obtain five-year student visas. That year, Fanny graduated from one of the “Seven Sons of National Defense” and began her studies abroad, fortuitously securing a five-year student visa just before the policy tightened.
In May 2020, the issuance of Proclamation 10043 and the allegations of “military-civil fusion” left Fanny’s juniors at a loss, as they watched the channel to study in the U.S. closed. At that time, Feng was already in the U.S., momentarily escaping the whirlpool of geopolitical tension. Despite the chaos during the global pandemic, her research continued uninterrupted, and she planned to return home after completing her studies later that year. However, fate seemed no longer to be on her side, even demanding a heavy price.
Not only was Fanny unprepared for the revocation of her visa in early 2023, but her doctoral supervisor and the staff at the international office in the U.S. had also never encountered such a situation. She later discovered she was not alone; she knew five or six others who had their visas revoked while returning to the U.S., including postdoctoral fellows. They had one thing in common: they all graduated from the “Seven Sons of National Defense.”
Many Chinese students in the U.S., aware of similar experiences like Fanny’s, advised, “Try not to return home in the years before earning a PhD.”
After her visa was revoked, Fanny considered other options to continue her academic plans in the U.S., but in vain. She needed to be physically present at her school to access the data for her experiments, and she couldn’t apply for early graduation as she hadn’t met the graduation criteria. With all possibilities blocked, she decided to quit her PhD program. The only thing she regretted was the unfinished research project, to which she committed years of passion and hard work—all gone to waste. She couldn’t complete her study, but not due to her incompetence.
It is as if three years of her PhD were erased from her life. After waiting a year, she opted for a PhD program back in China. “My supervisor has many academic connections in North America and could have recommended me there, but the security check in Canada takes too long, and there’s a significant chance of visa denial. I didn’t want to take the risk and hoped to spend more time with my family.”
Now, she has shifted to a new research field and a new topic.
A year ago, she had to remotely handle her belongings and car in the U.S., quickly erasing her traces there, similar to how someone in the U.S. erased her name from a document.
Tensions are boiling up.
For Chinese students, if their undergraduate or graduate institutions are on the Entity List, or if their major is considered “sensitive” (notably in fields such as computer science, mathematics, biology, chemical engineering, aerospace, etc.), then the U.S. may already be “an inaccessible destination” for academic exchange.
Professor Paul Evans from the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia (UBC) mentioned in a 2022 study that in the U.S., bans on academic exchanges with China often originate from the upper levels of government. The intellectual understands that universities and professors, constrained by funding and scrutiny, are often passively involved in the process, becoming both participants and subjects of investigation.
Paul Evans told The Intellectual that compared to the U.S., Canada was slower to enter the realm of research security. Nowadays, more and more universities are under tremendous pressure and have become participants in scrutiny.
“Due to geopolitical influences, specific regions in Canada have particularly emphasized the security agenda since 2018,” said Paul Evans. “Universities have historically been one of the primary conduits for engagement with China, facilitating long-standing and substantial exchanges between Canadian and Chinese institutions and researchers since the 1980s. Consequently, the media, public, and Parliament have all been involved in applying pressure on universities, leading to intensified scrutiny of academic exchanges.”
In recent years, in addition to facing increasingly stringent scrutiny from universities, the most common problem encountered by Chinese students applying to Canadian institutions has been the lengthening of security checks.
“I joined several group chats about applications and exchanges, including ones for Canada. I asked the group admin about the Canadian security check process and if it was easy to pass. He told me, 'Don't come, run!’” Ludo, whose field is experimental quantum computing, shared with The Intellectual about his application experience.
In 2022, Ludo applied to laboratories in the UK, France, Canada, Australia, Germany, the U.S., Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, and Singapore. Although he received offers from some schools, visa policy restrictions in multiple countries forced him to postpone his entry by two years.
Because of this experience, Ludo gathered information on study policies from these countries and regions and joined numerous visa exchange group chats. One thing is staring in his face: tensions are boiling up.
In 2020 and 2021, the UK introduced more requirements for the Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS), initially launched in 2007. Chinese scholars or students intending to study or research sensitive subjects in the UK must obtain clearance.
“I was among the first to feel the tightening of the ATAS policy. Before that, many thought the review was just a formality, and hardly anyone was rejected. Even after the policy tightened, the initial shared experiences were only about how to go through the process, what format to use for personal information, etc., and not about how to avoid sensitive topics or minimize risks, which are supposedly the most crucial aspects of ATAS. Perhaps it was because no one had any experience with it before. Everyone was caught off guard when the policy suddenly tightened,” Ludo explained.
It wasn’t just students; the British professor who offered Ludo a position was also completely unprepared for this.
“There were questions like these in the ATAS certification: Why are you interested in this field? What do you plan to do after you graduate? I wrote that I was working on this to eventually manufacture large-scale quantum computing chips; I also talked about how cutting-edge the field was, and how it would drive human technological advancement. As for my plans after graduation, I honestly answered that I intended to work in my home country. Two months later, I was denied.”
“When I shared this news with my professor in the UK, he said, ‘Maybe you didn’t boast enough; maybe you should add that our project is part of the UK’s national quantum computing development plan, supported by the British government, and how this a crucial high-tech industry for the UK.’ But by then, I already understood what was going on. While everyone else thought I wasn’t being discreet enough, he thought I hadn’t bragged enough.”
Ludo spent 10 hours writing an email to his professor, explaining the current state of ATAS with comprehensive statistics and other people’s experiences. “He said he would look into it, and then informed me, regretfully, that as far as he knew, once you fail ATAS the first time, there’s basically no chance of getting through later, though the ATAS people would be more cautious in the future.”
Subsequently, Ludo applied to a laboratory in France, which gave him a verbal offer. “Later, they rejected me. I pressed for a clear answer, and they said, ‘Our team really wanted to give you the offer, but unfortunately, the faculty did not approve it, perhaps because quantum computing has become a sensitive area in recent years.’”
Ludo also tried applying to laboratories in the U.S. and received a full scholarship offer, but he ultimately decided to decline it. “There is precedent. I was doing my Master’s in Europe, and one of my cohorts got a full scholarship for a PhD in the U.S. but was delayed a year due to visa issues and had to switch to Europe. Now he's become my junior.”
The uncertainty about the future also led to Ludo's decision to decline the U.S. offer. He had heard of cases like Fanny’s, where a Chinese student's research field was suddenly classified as sensitive when they were nearly completing a PhD in the U.S., leading to a forced withdrawal. “What scared me the most, in that case, was realizing that even if you pass the visa review now, you can’t guarantee that over the five or six years of your PhD, worsening conditions or a trip home won’t render all your efforts futile.” These uncertainties weighed him down.
Ludo eventually chose a laboratory in Germany. “Compared to other countries, Germany is not as strict on traditional science and engineering fields, including generally sensitive areas like quantum computing. However, each country has its own restrictions; for example, Germany specifically limits Chinese students from studying artificial intelligence.”
Additionally, the range of CSC-related rejections has gradually expanded. In 2023, universities in Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, and other countries stopped accepting students applying through the CSC. Last year, Lindsey’s friend attended ETH Zurich with CSC funding, but reportedly, this year the institution is no longer accepting CSC-funded applicants.
Shen Wenqin, an Associate Professor of Higher Education at the Graduate School of Education, Peking University, has long focused on Chinese students studying overseas. His latest research also confirms a structural shift in study destinations. Taking Xiamen University as an example, in 2019, the top six destinations for the university’s undergraduates studying abroad were the U.S. (29.8%), the UK (27.2%), Hong Kong (14.2%), Singapore (5.6%), Australia (4.9%), and Japan (4.4%). By 2022, this changed to Hong Kong (30.1%), the UK (18.1%), the U.S. (17.9%), Singapore (10.3%), Japan (5.3%), and Australia (4.5%).
In some schools, the top destination for Chinese students has even shifted to Singapore. For instance, in 2023, 46 students from Hunan University went to study at the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University. Shen Wenqin reported that Jilin University, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Beihang University, and other institutions also saw a spike in students going to study in Singapore.
The bedrock of academia is crumbling
It seems there’s always a place for Chinese students to go. It requires savvy, flexible strategies and a significant investment of time and money. However, while there are options, certain paths for students in specific disciplines offer unique advantages. The losses incurred during the shift in choices often remain unseen and undiscussed.
“With the revocation of ‘Proclamation 10043’ out of the window, what are the odds that students from sanctioned institutions can pursue an academic career?” This popular post in a study abroad forum was initiated by a Chinese PhD student in Europe who was forced to give up studying in the U.S. His dilemma is that the scale of scientific research in Europe is relatively small, funding is tight, and the overall research atmosphere is laid back with little focus on popular or application-oriented topics. European researchers often lag behind in quantitative indicators such as publications and citations compared to those in the U.S.
“Besides, the Chinese communities in Europe are relatively small, and their information exchange is not as frequent and close as in North America or Asia...Most PhD students who have achieved outstanding research results have experience studying or exchanging in North America, and this experience has played an important role in their research achievements,” wrote the post.
The concerns of academic competition trouble many individuals. Despite finally securing a full scholarship at a UK laboratory, Jude is not entirely satisfied with the research environment compared to the U.S. “The competition in the U.S. may be fiercer, pushing people forward, but Europeans place more emphasis on work-life balance, with supervisors feeling that as long as the thesis is completed, graduation is possible.” He continues to work on projects with his American supervisor, hoping to make up for the loss of not being able to stay in the U.S.
The extent to which different stages of academic research, from doctoral students and postdocs to lecturers, associate professors, and professors, are affected by geopolitical factors varies. Shen Wenqin emphasized that younger scholars bear the brunt. He explained that senior scholars typically have accumulated considerable academic resources and capital before major shifts in international relations occur. The close academic networks of these scholars are often built on long-term and in-depth face-to-face interactions, and overseas visits and learning experiences are crucial pathways for accumulating social capital and establishing trust.
Shen further analyzed that historical exchange experience shows that supervisors, peers, and fellow students of the same supervisors during doctoral studies all have the potential to become strong collaborators. In contrast, younger scholars often find themselves in a disadvantaged position in the face of political changes. They may not have completed the necessary accumulation of transnational academic and social capital in the early stages of their research careers.
On the other end of the academic network, some professors are also directly resisting the regression of policies in American universities.
On March 25, an associate professor from Florida and two Chinese students filed a lawsuit against 15 Florida education officials. They directly challenged a bill passed last year in the state, claiming it was discriminatory and unconstitutional.
The bill in question is SB 846. It prohibits academic collaborations between the state universities of Florida and China, as well as six other “countries of concern,” and bans hiring postdoctoral fellows and admitting graduate students from these countries unless an exemption is formally granted by the state’s highest education authority. Private schools that participate in a government educational scholarship program must also comply. The bill took effect on July 1, 2023. As of February 27, about 400 university staff in Florida have signed a petition against it.
Some students and scholars have already been impacted by this bill. Two graduate students and an agricultural economics professor have brought a case against Florida officials. In the summer of 2023, Professor Zhengfei Guan advertised in the U.S. and internationally, receiving 18 applications, including three from China and two from Iran, with no applications from the U.S. He selected a postdoctoral candidate from China, but due to SB 846, the recruitment was delayed by more than four months and was ultimately unsuccessful, leading the candidate to accept a position outside of Florida.
Professor Guan, who lost his top postdoctoral candidate, wished to recruit a student from China to assist in his work. However, reviewers at the University of Florida required him to answer several questions, including “Why is this person not a security risk?” Professor Guan said that he was not qualified to assess whether someone posed a security risk, but his research topic, “The impact of citrus greening disease on Florida’s large-scale citrus industry,” posed no threat to national security. However, as of now, his plan to recruit students has seen no progress.
Keliang Clay Zhu, a Managing Partner of Deheng Law Offices, represented the above lawsuit and told The Intellectual that the SB 846 bill has indeed caused some Chinese students to drop out or move to other labs outside the state.
Additionally, according to the South China Morning Post, a non-Chinese professor at a medical school cited the new legislation as one of the reasons for leaving the University of Florida. Furthermore, two candidates for the school’s chemistry and physics department declined tenure-track offers because of the hiring restrictions resulting from the law. An earlier report by Science also mentioned that certain departments at the University of Florida heavily depend on students from “countries of concern,” thus considering lowering the GPA threshold to admit domestic candidates who otherwise would not qualify.
Self-imposed barriers not only harm the academic community in the U.S. but also negatively affect Chinese students’ opportunities to study abroad. Shen Wenqin, through analyzing data on the destinations of graduates from some top domestic universities, found a declining trajectory in the proportion of students going abroad for postgraduate studies from 2019 to 2021. The top five universities with the largest declines are Beihang University (down by 13.3%), Fudan University (down by 12.6%), Tsinghua University (down by 11.6%), Peking University (down by 11.1%), and Beijing Institute of Technology (down by 8.1%). Beihang University and Beijing Institute of Technology are listed in the U.S. Entity List.
Jude has observed that more of his juniors are choosing to stay in China for their postgraduate studies. Two main reasons explain this choice: “First, securing scholarships in Europe is nearly impossible, regardless of academic excellence. Many programs in countries like the UK require self-funding and even a ‘bench fee,’ making it anything but cost-effective. Second, students from top programs like Beihang University’s computer science department are often qualified for direct-entry PhDs at prestigious institutions such as Peking University or Tsinghua University. Most European schools are no match for these two universities in China, making staying in China the best option.”
( To protect the identities of the interviewees, the names Lindsey, Jude, Fanny, and Ludo are pseudonyms.）
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