Foreign Ministry calls for US to end restrictions on Chinese students

China urged the United States to stop unjustifiable restrictions on Chinese students and reconsider the impact of its Immigration and Nationality Act and Presidential Proclamation 10043, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Friday.

His remarks came after Washington said that the country’s visa restrictions based on Proclamation 10043 only relate to less than 2 percent of the overall number of Chinese students and exchange visa applicants.

The proclamation, signed by former US president Donald Trump last year, accuses the Chinese government of using overseas Chinese students to acquire sensitive US technologies and intellectual property, and it denies entry to those Chinese students and researchers who Washington defines as being connected to China's "Military-Civil Fusion Strategy".

Speaking at a regular news briefing in Beijing, Wang said that while the incumbent US administration pledges to be open to international students, it continues to honor this discriminatory presidential order, which is “completely inconsistent with the spirit of openness and freedom that it claims to champion”.

Wang described the behavior as “a backward step that runs counter to historical trend”.

According to an analysis report by a think tank affiliated with Georgetown University, the proclamation so far may have affected 3,000 to 5,000 Chinese students, representing between 16 percent and 27 percent of the 19,000 Chinese nationals who enroll as graduate students in science, technology, engineering and mathematical disciplines in the US each year.

While people-to-people and cultural exchanges are the foundation of China-US relations, Wang noted that academic, educational, scientific and technological exchanges are an important part of such exchanges.

“We urge the US side to reconsider this issue, stop its unjustifiable restrictions on Chinese students and protect their legitimate rights and interests,” he said.