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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   20283 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025

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https://www.reuters.com/world/us/rubio-says-us-will-start-revoking-visas-chinese-students-2025-05-28/

WASHINGTON, May 28 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Wednesday the United States will start "aggressively" revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.

If applied to a broad segment of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese university students in the United States, the move could disrupt a major source of income for American schools and a crucial pipeline of talent for U.S. technology companies.

President Donald Trump's administration has sought to ramp up deportations and revoke student visas as part of wide-ranging efforts to fulfill its hardline immigration agenda. In a statement, Rubio said the State Department will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from China and Hong Kong.

"The U.S. State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students," he said.

To what extent is this foreign/defense policy, and to what extent is this a fig leaf for prior CW against higher education and foreign students? Shouldn't we be trying to deprive the PRC of human capital? Being anti-CCP, I'm concerned about stuff like this, but a "to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students," where "Chinese student" is the only criteria given by the Secretary of State doesn't seem like a good idea.

Edit: A longer quote of Rubio, via Politico (???):

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” he said in a statement. “We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.”

If anything, this just seems dumber - why is it "Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields," rather than "Those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party, regardless of citizenship?"

Noah Smith makes a good case that international students are good, but it's paywalled. However, here's a quote answering the question of whether foreign students displace or subsidize native students:

All this tuition money from international students allows American universities to pay for more spots for domestic students. In fact, you can see this effect in action. Shih (2017) looked at the effects of various exogenous shocks — baby booms in foreign countries that led to more international enrollment in the 90s, and then 9/11, when increased suspicion of international students led to a sudden drop in enrollment. He found that when more international kids attended a U.S. university, the number of spots for American students also rose:

I focus on a dramatic increase in international enrollment at U.S. graduate programs during the late 1990s, which suddenly reversed following heightened scrutiny of student visa applications in the aftermath of 9/11…The primary findings reveal that international students actually raise domestic enrollment. Preferred estimates indicate that 10 additional international students increase domestic enrollment by roughly 8…This positive effect also appears during the bust period…

At the margin universities can charge international students high prices and use the profits to subsidize the cost of enrolling more domestic students…I provide multiple forms of evidence that indicate cross-subsidization underlies the crowd-in effects. The positive impacts appear to be driven by foreign Master's students, who pay full-sticker price tuition…[T]he positive impacts are concentrated on domestic graduate students in academic programs, who require subsidies…[T]he crowd-in effects are most pronounced among public universities which prioritize enrolling domestic students, pricing tuition below cost for state residents, while also charging foreign students tuition rates between 2 and 3 times higher.

If you were to kick out all of America’s 1.1 million international students, Shih’s estimate would suggest that domestic enrollment would fall by 800,000. Even if it were only half or a quarter of that, that’s a substantial number of Americans who wouldn’t get the chance to go to college.

And the burden would fall hardest on state schools, for whom the difference in tuition between foreign and domestic students is highest, and who have already suffered the most from funding cuts. State schools are much more important for uplifting the American working class into the middle class than Harvard or MIT. So by kicking out international students, Trump is depriving the working class of life-changing educational opportunities.

Some non-zero number of 'Chinese students' are also Chinese spies or CCP operatives.

Do you object to the government excluding them?

No, I object to the government excluding human capital we'd otherwise poach, especially if we're in a de facto Cold War with China. Prior to the Nazis expelling and marginalizing Jewish scientists, Nobel Prizes were predominately won by German scientists/institutions; since WWII, Nobel prizes have been predominately won by US scientists/institutions. China has a lot of brains and, therefore, a lot of brainpower - we should be trying to get their best and brightest. Also, money - if Chinese families want to subsidize Americans' education, let them. By all means, screen for CCP connections, but don't emphasize "Chinese" over "CCP!"

screen for CCP connections

I'm doubtful we're executing on this effectively.

There's also a pretty big difference between an 18-year-old spending 6 figures to go to a state school whose uncle happens to be well-connected to the party in a rural province, and a 26-year-old grad student with a fuzzy past going into [insert military relevant field] at [insert top tier school for that field].

No doubt though that doesn't really speak to our counter-intelligence capabilities. Perhaps if we had less recent history of CCP connected honeypots or chauffeurs I'd have more confidence in our screening abilities.

Absent confidence in our capabilities, I'm unbothered by a finer net with more bycatch.

I'd hazard a guess that bad actors are getting past the gate-keepers, but the Secretary of State saying "Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” rather than "The U.S. State Department will work with the Department of Homeland Security to aggressively revoke visas for those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party" doesn't inspire confidence the administration will take a more intelligent approach.

No, but I'd expect them to catch more bad actors while also increasing the the bycatch.

Or perhaps the PRC will change tactics and induce non-citizens to do these things.

They have far less ability to do this. Forcing them to play on hard mode is a win.

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