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CNN
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Trump administration moves Harvard to Bar Harvard as international students register It bounces all over China, with staff and commentators looking through one lens. It’s growing competition between Washington and Beijing.
“China has consistently opposed the politicization of education cooperation,” a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry said Friday, adding that the US move “will only damage its unique image and reputation around the world.”
Some commentators on Chinese social media platforms took a similar tack, “It’s fun to see them destroy their strength.”
“Trump is coming to rescue again,” another wrote, commenting on the hashtag on news that has tens of millions of views. “Recruiting international students is… the main way to attract the best talent! Will Harvard still be the same Harvard after this path is cut off?”
The announcement by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a clear escalation of the conflict between the older and wealthiest league institutions and the White House to control US international students amidst immigration crackdowns. US President Donald Trump’s administration has revoked hundreds of student visas in almost every corner of the country as part of a massive crackdown on immigration.
Harvard and the Trump administration have been locked in conflict for months as the university requested that the university make changes to campus operations. The government has returned to foreign students and staff who believe they have participated in the controversial campus protests against the Israeli Hamas war.
But the cancellation is not just a feud between the university and the US president. It is also the latest in the spread of the rupture between the two superpowers.
For years, China sent more international students to the United States than any other country. These deep educational relations are being restructured by the growing geopolitical competition that has fostered the ongoing trade wars and technological wars.
“This administration is responsible for Harvard University’s promotion of violence, anti-Semitism and coordinating it with the Chinese Communist Party on campus,” DHS Chief Secretary Christa Noem said in a statement Thursday.
The DHS statement included allegations of relationships between Harvard University and individuals related to Chinese institutions or military-related research, as well as relationships with entities blacklisted by the Trump administration for alleged human rights violations. It links information about a letter sent to Harvard earlier this week by a bipartisan US lawmaker, demanding information about the university’s “partnership with foreign enemies.”
Harvard has not responded to CNN requests to comment on alleged partnerships. In a statement on the website, the university said it was “committed to maintain its ability to host the universities and international students and academics who will come from more than 140 countries and enrich the country.”
The ability of Elite American University to recruit top students from around the world is often seen as a key factor in American science and technology talent and an important source of income for the university.
Both DHS decisions prohibit Harvard from registering international students for next year, requiring current foreign students to move to another university to maintain their status.
According to a tally on the Harvard International Office website, international students make up more than a quarter of Harvard Student Organizations, and Chinese students make up the largest international group.
Among those students is Fangzhou Jiang, 30, a student at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. He said he couldn’t believe it when he heard that his university status was in danger and immediately began to worry about whether Visa was still in effect.
“I was shocked for quite a few minutes. I didn’t think the administration could go this far,” said Jiang, who is also the founder of an education consulting firm that helps foreign students enroll in American universities. “From a young age, when I was the best university in the world, I knew I was Harvard from a young age,” he said.
Ivy League schools like Harvard, Princeton and Yale are the Chinese names of China, and American universities have been viewed for many years as the famous path to education and the legs of China’s highly competitive career radder.
China has been the top source of international students since 2009 and for the 15th consecutive year since 2009, according to figures from Open Doors, the database office of the US division that tracks the registration of international students in the US National Assistance Database.
Along the way, US-China education relations have developed close ties between Chinese and American academics and institutions, but US universities and industries are widely seen as benefiting from their ability to attract top talent from China and elsewhere to their halls.
Harvard educated Chinese figures like him, former vice-prime minister, who played a key role in negotiating Trump’s Phase 1 trade agreements during his first term as the US president.
However, these ties have been subjected to harsh scrutiny in recent years as the US has started to see the increasingly assertive and powerful China as a technological rival and a threat to its own superpower.
Over 277,000 Chinese students studied in the US between 2023 and 2024, down from over 372,000 between 2019 and 2020.
Meanwhile, the emphasis on China’s national sentiment and government national security has led to a shift in perceptions of the values of the US and Chinese universities.
The Department of Homeland Security’s claims about Harvard’s institutional relationships with entities and individuals with connections to military-related research is the latest move that reflects Washington’s deep concerns about access to sensitive, militarily applicable American technology through academia.
To crack down on the perceived threats of Chinese students espionage in US soil, Trump introduced the ban during his first term that effectively hindered graduates in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields of Chinese universities, which are thought to be linked to the military by obtaining a visa to the US.
His first administration also launched the now-defunct China initiative, a national security program aimed at blocking China’s intelligence reporting activities in the United States, including those aimed at stealing emerging technologies from research universities.
The program, which drew comparisons with anti-communism during the McCarthy era in the 1950s, was cancelled by the Biden administration after facing widespread blowback against complaints that what was considered an overreedy and promoted prejudice against innocent Chinese Americans.
The broader tightening of US immigration policies in Trump’s second term has unleashed a new wave of anxiety and uncertainty among many students and schools.
These concerns are shared by international students in many countries, but the growing tension between the two countries has already seen an increase in pressure on Chinese students and academics.
At least 12 well-known scholars with Chinese roots who had worked in the US for the past year have returned to China and featured posts at prominent universities around the country, CNN discovered.
Also, for some students at the start of their academic and professional careers, the latest developments make them unclear what to do next.
Among them is 22-year-old Sophie Wu, from Southern Tech Hub in Shenzhen, a deep Chinese technology company that was accepted in Harvard’s graduate program this fall after earning his bachelor’s degree in the United States. Wu said he felt “paralysis” after hearing the news.
“I didn’t expect the administration to make such an irrational decision, and I feel it’s more of a retaliation than a policy decision,” she told CNN. “International students are being held hostage for political purposes.”
