A group of House Republicans on Friday put forward legislation seeking to prevent Chinese students from studying in American schools, as some U.S. lawmakers are targeting China over national security concerns.

Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., introduced the bill that could bar Chinese nationals from receiving visas that allow foreigners to travel to the U.S. to study or participate in exchange visitor programs. Five other Republicans co-sponsored the measure.

By granting Chinese nationals such visas, the U.S. has “invited” the Chinese Communist Party "to spy on our military, steal our intellectual property, and threaten national security,” Moore said in a statement. “It’s time we turn off the spigot and immediately ban all student visas going to Chinese nationals.”

The measure is unlikely to pass, and it has drawn criticism from organizations and scholars over concerns that hostile policies and rhetoric toward Chinese students could hurt U.S. interests.

“No policy should target individuals solely on the basis of their national origin," Fanta Aw, executive director and CEO of NAFSA, an association of international educators, said in a statement.

"Making international students — the most vetted and tracked nonimmigrants in the United States — a scapegoat for xenophobic and anti-Chinese sentiment is misguided and antithetical to our national interest," Aw said.

Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said China “expresses strong concern and firmly opposes such practices." He said education exchange and cooperation has long served as a pillar for the stable development of China-U.S. relations.

The Asian American Scholars Forum said such legislation would harm the talent pipeline of Asian American scientists, scholars and researchers, undermining U.S. leadership in science and innovation.

Despite the bill's slim chance of getting approved, Yangyang Cheng, research scholar at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, said the bill “should be seen as part of a broader effort to restrict academic freedom and hurt higher education in this country, to control what can be taught, which research projects can be pursued, and who have access to the classrooms and laboratories.”

In the 2023-24 school year, more than 277,000 Chinese students were studying in U.S. universities, or a quarter of the total number of international students, according to an annual report on international students from the Institute of International Education. The number of Chinese students in the U.S., however, has been declining for years. Last year, China lost its status to India as the top feeder country of international students.

In 2023, Florida passed a law prohibiting state universities from hiring students from China and six other countries for graduate assistant and postdoc positions., and it's been challenged in court. Several U.S. universities have ended academic partnerships with Chinese schools amid mounting pressure from Republican lawmakers over national security concerns.

Reactions on China’s social media to the new legislation were varied. Some who said they had recently received offers from American schools expressed concerns, some dismissed it as "a political show,” and some called it “another Chinese Exclusion Act.”

==================================================

Laura Geller is celebrating your beauty this International Women's Day! Get 45% off site wide with no coupon code needed. Offer valid 3/8 - 3/10.

==================================================

House GOP promotes use of ‘Taiwan’ over ‘Chinese Taipei’ in slight to Beijing

A group of House Republicans is introducing legislation to assert Taiwan as the official name of the independently-governed island in U.S. communication, pushing back against claims to the territory by the Chinese government in Beijing.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) authored the America Supports Taiwan Act on Friday, legislation that would eliminate any reference to “Chinese Taipei” in U.S. communication and replace it with “Taiwan.” Reps. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), Barry Moore (R-Ala.) and Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) are co-sponsors. A copy of the legislation was exclusively shared with The Hill.

The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official U.S. stance is not to recognize or advocate for Taiwan’s independence. The U.S. rarely uses the term “Chinese Taipei,” although it has appeared in some government communication. Taiwan’s embassy in Washington is referred to as the “Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office” — a nod to Beijing’s demands that the country not be referred to as Taiwan. The legislation does not address that office’s name.

The People’s Republic of China, the official name for the government in Beijing, opposes any international effort to recognize Taiwan’s independence, and Chinese President Xi Jinping has threatened to take over the island by force. Beijing put a trade embargo on Lithuania after it officially recognized the Taiwan representation in the country, as opposed to the Taipei economic office.

Donalds’s legislation aims to bolster U.S. policy supporting Taiwan against Chinese coercion or aggression which threatens its sovereignty.

The legislation “decries the United States Government’s use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ nomenclature, and instead favors the use of ‘Taiwan’, so as to avoid connotations of possession with the ‘Chinese Taipei’ term in English, and support resolution of cross-Strait differences by peaceful means, free from coercion, in a manner acceptable to the people on both sides of the Strait,” according to the text.

“Taiwan is a key U.S. strategic partner despite Chinese claims over their sovereignty. It’s important that we shoot straight with the American people, the world, and call things what they are,” Donalds said in a statement to The Hill.

“The name ‘Chinese Taipei’ is nothing more than a tool of Beijing’s strategy of diplomatic coercion. The ‘America Supports Taiwan Act’ takes corrective action to stand with our partner and counter the encroachment of the Chinese Communist Party.”

The legislation gives U.S. agencies 14 days to update their websites and protocols to better reflect “Taiwan” instead of “Chinese Taipei.” There are carve-outs for the U.S. to refer to Taiwan as Chinese Taipei in international organizations where the country uses that name and when referring to “historical context explaining the People’s Republic of China’s attempt to control Taiwan through persuasion and coercion.”

==================================================

Laura Geller is celebrating your beauty this International Women's Day! Get 45% off site wide with no coupon code needed. Offer valid 3/8 - 3/10.

==================================================