As Trump welcomes Chinese students, schools cut ties under Republican pressure

While US President Donald Trump this week said he would allow 600,000 Chinese students into the United States, members of Congress in his Republican Party are increasingly moving to dismantle many of the long-standing partnerships that would make their arrival possible.

On the day Trump said the US would welcome more Chinese students, Temple University in Philadelphia announced it was ending its partnership with the China Scholarship Council, the main Chinese government body funding study abroad for Chinese nationals.

On Monday, Temple’s president, John Fry, said that the school would no longer admit students under the programme because of “potential national security concerns” raised by the US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. He did not specify what the concerns were.

Last month, the public university was one of seven universities targeted by Congressman John Moolenaar of Michigan, the Republican chair of the House committee. In separate letters on July 8, he asked them to “reconsider” their partnerships with the CSC, alleging that it represented a “[Chinese Communist Party]-managed technology transfer effort that exploits US institutions and directly supports China’s military and scientific growth”.

Two days later, Dartmouth College, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Tennessee all announced they were severing ties to their CSC programmes, under which graduate students were co-funded by the universities and the Chinese government. Dartmouth and Notre Dame both suggested in statements to the media that they had begun the decoupling process prior to Moolenaar’s letter, though neither school responded to a request for clarity on their timelines.

On Friday, Temple spokesperson Steve Orbanek told the Post the university was “confident” that its CSC programming, much of it focused on law students, complied with applicable federal directives and requirements, despite concerns raised by Moolenaar. He added that the university hoped to expand engagement with Chinese students through other channels.

South China Morning Post