Chinese student visa campaign follows years of espionage incidents

The Trump administration has intensified its audit in the citizens of Chinese studying at the universities of the United States after several cases in recent years of students from the Communist state who participate in the alleged hidden activity while they are in the United States.

The incidents, which included allegations of espionage, conspiracy and accusations of misleading federal officials, have occurred as a result of Chinese citizens or others through Chinese relations participating in joint education programs between the United States China.

Foreign Minister Marco Rubio announced on Wednesday that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Internal Security are planning to “cancel” student visas for Chinese citizens strongly “, including those who have links to the Communist Party of China.

A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry criticized the new policy in statement On Thursday, X, saying that this step was “completely unjustified” and harmed the reputation of the United States.

The Foreign Ministry says it will “cancel” the visas of Chinese students strongly

“Quoted by ideology and national security as an excuse, this step seriously hurts me the rights and legal interests of international students from China and people’s exchanges between the two countries are disrupted,” said Lyn Jian spokesman.

Nearly 300,000 Chinese citizens have student visas in the United States. It is not clear whether the Ministry of Foreign Affairs plan to target all or some of them only. Fox News Digital has arrived in the definition section.

Below is a look at some of the recent incidents that include Chinese citizens in universities.

Five Chinese citizens involved in the Camp Grayling incident

The Ministry of Justice brought charges against five students from the University of Michigan last year after they were faced with the main sergeant at the Grailing camp in 2023.

The students had cameras with them and discovered that the American National Guard was conducting a huge training process at the site with the members of the Taiwanese army, according to what he said. complaint.

An official at the FBI wrote in the complaint, noting that all of them are Chinese citizens studying at the University of Michigan as part of the school’s joint program with a university and its headquarters in Shanghai, noting that some of them had taken pictures of military facilities and military operations at Camp Grayling.

The FBI asked the court to issue arrest orders for students to make wrong data and destroy the records.

Chinese citizens penetrate the main military base

Two graduate students at the University of Michigan admitted in 2020 after they were arrested and photographed the defense infrastructure at a naval air plant in Ki West, Florida.

Secretary of Minnesota University

Fengyun Shi, a Chinese citizen studying at the University of Minnesota, was convicted of the American District Court in the Eastern Province in Virginia last year of using a drone to take pictures of the naval bases in Norfolk, Virginia.

Shi was sentenced to six months imprisonment and a year of the supervision release, and the Biden administration canceled its advice in response to the charges. ICE announced in May that he had deported him to China.

The Trump administration begins a new wave of displacement of the international student visa: “No one has the right to visa.”

Head of the Department of Chemistry at Harvard University

Although he was not a Chinese citizen, Charles Leber, the former head of the Harvard Chemistry Department, condemned in 2021 to make false statements to the authorities and failed to report his income with the Chinese University of Wuhan Technology and a contract with the Chinese talent program.

Espionage

Ji Zhao, a Chinese national student and once at the Illinois Institute of Technology, was sentenced to eight years in prison after being convicted by a jury in 2022 to try to commit espionage and steal commercial secrets.

Ji was found to collect information about defense contractors, engineers and others as part of a broader effort by high -level Chinese intelligence officials to obtain access to technological progress in the United States.

Rubio advertisement It also comes after Harvard University filed a lawsuit claiming that the Trump administration has incorrectly banned all foreign citizens from Ivy League by canceling student visa certificate. The judge temporarily prevented the administration from carrying out the ban as the case is operated in the courts.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is now checking all visa holders associated with Harvard

The Acting ICE director, Todd Leon Harvard, told a letter that was announced through the court’s files that the cancellation was the result of the spread of anti -Semitism on the campus, but also as a result of the “serious fears” of the administration that the university “coordinated with the Communist Party”.

Lyon has cited several examples, including Harvard, which has accepted $ 151 million of foreign donors since 2020, where she worked with “academics in China” in the projects funded by “Iranian government agent”, partnership with Chinese universities and the use of public funds to do so and cooperate with people “linked to the Chinese defense base.”

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“This coordination is a good and objective reason to withdraw the Harvard University degree (student visitor program) to register foreign students,” Leon wrote.

Harvard’s lawyers argued during a court hearing on Thursday that Trump administration The university did not give an opportunity to refute allegations related to anti -Semitism and CCP relations before the age of the foreign student. The administration agreed to give Harvard one month to respond to these claims while the ban remains suspended.