More Chinese students heading to U.S.
(AP)
Updated: 2006-04-21 07:00
BEIJING - Biologist Zhu Heng lived the ordeal that Chinese students dreaded
because of U.S. visa restrictions imposed after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
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| Athena Ren, a
22-year-old student from the Chinese Agricultural University in Beijing
who plans to start a five-year degree in animal sciences at New York's
Cornell University this fall, waits to apply for her U.S. visa outside of
the U.S. embassy visa department in Beijing, China Wednesday April 19,
2006. [AP] |
| Zhu was on a fellowship at Yale University when he returned to Beijing for a
visit in 2002. He waited in China for a year — away from his fiancee, his
fellowship and his lab — while the U.S. government did a background check
ordered for visiting researchers in sensitive science fields.
Zhu lost the fellowship, the fiancee, his credit rating, car and apartment.
"It screwed up my life totally," he told a Yale medical journal in 2003.
But that was three years ago. Now, Zhu's life has turned around, and so has
the U.S. visa system for Chinese students.
Procedures have been simplified and waiting times slashed. Visa approvals are
up and American campuses are again growing in popularity among Chinese.
The number of Chinese students granted U.S. visas rose 25 percent last year
to 20,244, returning to pre-2001 levels for the first time, according to the
U.S. Embassy in Beijing. China had more than 61,000 students in American
universities last year, more than any country except India.
"The U.S. has a rich source of creative ideas and high-tech," said Di Luyi,
24, an assistant producer for a Shanghai talk show who is applying to American
universities.
"If we want to be more creative ourselves, then going to learn from the U.S.
is a better way than only staying here," she said.
The United States was once the top choice for Chinese who studied abroad.
But anti-American sentiment following the U.S. bombing in 1999 of the Chinese
Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and the tightening of visa restrictions after
the 2001 attacks made some applicants think about other destinations — or
consider staying home.
By 2003, the number of U.S. visas granted to Chinese students had fallen to
12,455 — 35 percent below the 2001 level.
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