Students carry the main weight of the cross fire of China-platform

Xiao Chen appeared at the US Consulate in Shanghai on Thursday morning, hours after Washington announced that he would “Aggressively” cancels Chinese students visasS

The 22-year-old had a visa meeting: she headed for Michigan in the fall to study communications.

After a “pleasant” conversation, she was told that her request had been rejected. She was not given a reason.

“I feel like a floating duck thrown out of wind and storm,” she said, using a common Chinese expression used to describe the feeling that uncertain and helplessly.

She hoped because she already had the acceptance letter. And she thought she had escaped bombs in recent days.

First, Donald Trump's administration went to the end Harvard University's ability to enroll international studentsA move that has since been blocked in court. And then he said there was stopped Visa appointments For all foreign students.

But now Chen is ready for plan B. “If I can't get the visa in the end, I'll probably take a year of difference. Then I'll wait to see if things will improve next year.”

A valid visa may not yet be enough, she adds, as visas students can be “stopped at the airport and deported.”

“It's bad for any Chinese student. The only difference is how bad.”

It was a gloomy week for international students in the United States – and maybe even more difficult for 280,000 or more Chinese students who would notice that their country was separated.

Interior Security Secretary, Christie, November, has accused Harvard of Coordination of the Chinese Communist Party.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the move against Chinese students in the United States will include “those who have ties with the Chinese Communist Party or study in critical areas.”

This could be hit by a wide part of them, a communist party membership is common among employees, entrepreneurs, businessmen and even artists and celebrities in China.

Beijing called it “politically motivated and discriminatory actions” and his foreign ministry has officially protested.

There was a time when China sent the largest number of foreign students to US campuses. But these numbers slipped as the connection between the two sides destroyed.

The powerful and increasingly resistant Beijing is now confronted with Washington for supremacy in almost everything from commerce to technology.

Trump's first term had already created problems for Chinese students. He signed an order in 2020, banning Chinese students and researchers with links to the Beijing military since receiving US visas.

This order remained in place during the term of President Joe Biden. Washington has never clarified what a “ties” is with the military, so many students had their own Visa Rejected Or they were turned to the US boundaries, sometimes without a proper explanation.

One of them, who did not want to be baptized, said his visa was canceled by the customs and the border defense (CBP) when he landed in Boston in August 2023.

He was admitted to a PhD at Harvard University. He would study regenerative medicine with an emphasis on breast cancer and had achieved a master's degree from a military research institution in China.

He said he was not a member of the Communist Party and his research had nothing to do with the military.

“They asked me what the connection between my research and Chinese affairs was,” he told the BBC. “I said, how can there be something with breast cancer with national defense? If you know, please tell me.”

He believes he has never had a chance because the employees have already decided. He recalled one of them who asked, “Did you buy your suitcase for you?”

What was surprising or even shocking then, slowly became normal, as more and more Chinese students were struggling to provide visas or recognitions to study science and technology at US universities.

Cao, majoring in psychology, whose research includes a neuroscience, spent last school year, applying for doctoral students in the United States.

He graduated from the highest level universities – the authority that could send him to school at Ivy League. But out of more than 10 universities he has applied for, only one has expanded an offer.

Trump's abbreviations to biomedical studies did not help, but the distrust of Chinese researchers was also a factor. The allegations and rumors of espionage, especially on sensitive subjects, have emerged over Chinese citizens at US universities in recent years, even derailed some careers.

“One of the professors even told me,” We rarely give offers to Chinese students these days, so I can't give you an interview, “G -N CAO told the BBC in February.

“I feel like I'm just sand under the wheel of time. There's nothing I can do.”

For those who have graduated from US colleges, returning home to China was also not easy.

They were praised as a bridge to the rest of the world. Now they find that the degrees they want do not attract the same reaction.

Chen Jian, who did not want to use his real name, said he quickly realized that his bachelor's degree from a college in the United States had become an obstacle.

When he first returned in 2020, he was internalizing at a state bank and asked a leader if he had a chance to stay.

The supervisor did not say it straight, but Chen received the message: “Employees should have local degrees. People like me (with overseas degrees) will not even receive an answer.”

Later, he realized that “there really is no colleagues with a bachelor's experience in the department.”

He returned to the United States and made his master at John Hopkins University, and now works at Chinese technology giant Baidu.

But despite the degree of a prestigious American university, D -Chen does not think it has an advantage over the firm competition of graduates in China.

What has not helped also is the suspicion of foreign graduates. Beijing has strengthened the warnings of foreign spies, telling civilians to be alert for suspicious figures.

In April, a prominent Chinese businesswoman Dongchu told shareholders at a closed -door meeting that her company, home appliances manufacturer GREE Electric, “never” never “recruits Chinese people educated abroad” because they are spies.

“I don't know who is and who is not,” G -Ja Dong said in comments that have leaked and became viral online.

Days later, the CIA has released promotional videos encouraging Chinese employees dissatisfied with the government to become spies and provide classified information. “Your fate is in your hands,” the video says.

The suspicion of foreigners, as the United States and China stick to each other, is a surprising turn to many Chinese who remember that they have grown in a completely different country.

Gian Nor, who also did not want to use her real name, says she was “very shocked” by the remarks of Gj Dong.

The 24-year-old is a recent graduate of journalism at Columbia University in New York. She says she is not interested in working in Gree, but what surprised her was a change in attitudes.

The fact that so many Chinese companies “do not like anything that can be related to the international” is a huge contrast to what D -Jan grows – a childhood “filled with (conversations focused on) the Olympics and the World Exhibition.”

“Every time we saw foreigners, my mother will encourage me to talk to them to practice my English,” she says.

This desire to exchange ideas and to learn from the outside world seems to be diminishing in China, according to many.

And America, once a place that has attracted so many young Chinese, is no longer so welcoming.

Looking back, d -Jan, he can't help but recall his friend for a farewell dinner before leaving for the United States.

Then a sleek comment, now summarizes fear in Washington and Beijing: “Don't become a spy.”

Additional reporting by Kelly Ng