The United States continues to be the preferred choice for Chinese students pursuing education abroad, even as concerns regarding visas and public safety arise among students and their families, according to a representative from the US embassy in Beijing. At the same time, many Chinese students and their parents have voiced worries about the potential unfair treatment they may face from US border authorities in certain situations.
Karen Gustafson, the embassy's minister counselor for consular affairs, informed China Daily that the embassy granted 105,000 visas to students from China last year. "We currently have 290,000 Chinese students studying in the US," she noted. Additionally, a report from the US Department of State revealed that in the first half of 2023, a total of 44,762 students from mainland China received F-1 visas to study in the US, marking a year-on-year increase of 44 percent.
By the end of July, Gustafson reported that the embassy had issued over 80,000 student visas to Chinese nationals, highlighting the ongoing rise in the number of visas granted to Chinese students. The 2023 Open Doors report, published in November, indicated that Chinese students represented about 29 percent of the 1.05 million international students in the US during the 2022-23 academic year, a decrease from 33 percent in the previous year.
Gustafson said that despite a decreasing trend, Chinese students remain the largest group of foreign students in the US, and are expected to "stay at the top and grow". "We really wholeheartedly welcome Chinese students to come to the US, and we are always hoping to encourage more students to come", she said, adding that the embassy is making efforts to maximize student numbers and return to the peak before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hundreds of Chinese students and their parents attended an education fair in Beijing, looking for information on opportunities for studying abroad. Approximately 100 US universities were present at the event. This comes in light of recent incidents where Chinese students, especially those studying science and engineering at US universities, encountered visa denials upon arrival, experienced unfair treatment from border enforcement, and even faced deportation.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in April that enforcing deportation orders against Chinese students has caused significant harm to the individuals concerned and disrupted cultural and academic exchanges between China and the US. "Recent cases demonstrate that US law enforcement officers are engaging in deportation for the sake of deportation, exhibiting political, discriminatory and selective enforcement", she said.
Zhu Chenge, an assistant researcher of US diplomacy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, stated that while the heightened scrutiny of Chinese students by US authorities may appear to impact only a small segment, it is, in fact, undermining a key foundation of the intricate relationship between China and the US. "Normal academic exchanges between two technological powerhouses are disrupted. It is certainly not a positive sign if students and scholars are more concerned about their personal safety than academic matters", Zhu said.
