WH Considered Limiting Chinese Students

Earlier this year, according to The Financial Times, the White House (led by aide Stephen Miller) considered whether to limit Chinese nationals from studying in the United States.

Why? Well, for one, the idea was to tackle the problem of Chinese espionage. That is, if Chinese students were restricted from coming to the U.S., they couldn’t then turn into non-traditional intelligence collectors participating in economic theft from the United States.

A second reason was also articulated: to “hurt elite universities whose staff and students have been highly critical of Mr Trump.”

Christopher Rim over at Forbes has a great take-down of both arguments – noting the first (ending espionage) sounds horrifying like the reasoning behind Japanese internment during WW2, and the latter would end up hurting the U.S. as much as any particular university.

It’s important to realize that China sends more students to the United States than any other nation. Some 33% of our international students come from China. (More data on Chinese international students can be found here.)

International students as a general matter contribute to our universities and our national economy. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, we’re talking about billions of dollars. International students contributed 39 billion to the U.S. in 2016. That means Chinese international students alone contributed some 12.87 billion to our economy.

I realize that I’m a documented international student fan, but I can’t be alone in worrying over the fact that this proposal was ever seriously considered.

-KitJ