China’s Ministry of State Security has issued a warning to students seeking to study abroad: don’t cast yourself as a regime opponent in your college application essay. An article shared by the WeChat account of the Ministry of Public Security, a top domestic policing body, but attributed to the powerful intelligence service the Ministry of State Security, warned about the alleged risk college consultancies pose to national security. In the MSS’ telling, college consulting services are illegally inserting “anti-China prejudices” into students’ application essays to make them more attractive to foreign universities. Specifically, the article claims that foreign universities want essays with “run” flavor to them, a reference to content encouraging emigration from China. The essay further claims that negative information about China is a result of the infiltration of “hostile foreign forces.” It offered an anonymized retelling of a purportedly true story, in which a young person named Zhang was tricked into including “false reactionary political speech” in his college application by an unscrupulous college consultancy:
In order to realize his dream of studying abroad, a student named Zhang purchased the VIP services of a study abroad consultancy, hiring a team of professionals to help him develop an optimized study abroad plan. The head of the consultancy, “Little Rui,” told Zhang that one foreign university had rolled out the red carpet for Chinese students, with their odds of acceptance greatly increased if their application essay had a sufficiently “run” flavor to it. Under the consultancy’s guidance, a great deal of rhetoric pandering to anti-China prejudices—including false reactionary political speech—was grafted onto Zhang’s essay. Zhang had unknowingly transformed from a young student with a simple background into an anti-China “crusader” in the blink of an eye. Zhang is a victim of the college consultancy’s illegal behavior. [Chinese]
On X, Chinese-language users speculated that the MSS article presaged a crackdown on studying abroad. On Weibo, one user quipped that “top officials should set an example by making their children return to China.” It is also possible that the article indicates a narrower campaign against college consultancies. In 2021, the state announced sweeping restrictions on private tutoring schools it criticized as “severely hijacked by capital.” In 2023, the state-run outlet China Daily warned against hiring college consultancies to help students win admission to domestic colleges. More recently, Global Times has written about the “parental anxiety” that drives spending in that sector.
Chinese students looking to study abroad in the United States may be stuck between a rock and a hard place. In the past year, there have been a number of complaints from Chinese students with valid visas who have been denied entrance into the United States on murky national security grounds. At The Washington Post, Lily Kuo and Cate Cadell wrote on the experiences of Chinese students and scholars who feel they have been unfairly targeted by American security officials at the border:
Six Chinese students and two visiting scholars who spoke to The Washington Post described being questioned upon landing in the United States about their research, families and any possible connection to China’s ruling Communist Party. Two of them, their visas canceled, were immediately repatriated. All but one were midway through their studies and had previously been allowed to enter with valid visas.
[…] “It’s a lot of money, family money, to have at risk. … It feels like gambling,” said Min, a Maryland-based Chinese student halfway through a science-related graduate degree, who spoke on the condition that her surname be withheld out of concern for her visa status. She said discussions among other students center on fears that a potential Trump administration could mean a further ratcheting-up of restrictions on Chinese students.
[…] Just last month, Clyde Yicheng Wang, an assistant professor in politics and East Asian studies at Washington and Lee University, was questioned by Customs and Border Protection officers as he prepared to board a flight from Charlotte to London.
[…] “We talk about China being a surveillance state, and you arrive in the U.S. and the U.S. definitely appears to be a surveillance state,” Wang said. “I can definitely see that becoming a moment of disillusion.” [Source]
The U.S. is not the only country where some Chinese and other international students have found a cold reception. At The Guardian this week, after reports of tumbling student visa applications and international enrollments, Joyce Yang wrote that “we’ve been so demonised, [it’s] no wonder Britain’s losing us”:
The political climate for international students over the past year (I’ve been here for four years, but I feel like the situation has been especially tense since parties began their election campaigns) has been extremely bleak. The Tory government and Reform leader Nigel Farage demonised international students in their bid to win votes in the election this summer.
[…] Senior Tories such as Robert Jenrick and James Cleverly have repeatedly framed international students as low-quality students abusing the immigration system; while Farage pledged to “freeze non-essential immigration”, and to further restrict our right to stay in the UK after graduation.
[…] I am also fed up with the stereotypes. Coming to London from Beijing four years ago, I have learned that encountering discrimination as an international student is a fact of life. Most of my coursemates are friendly, but assumptions pushed by rightwing politicians and newspapers against us persist: that we are all extremely rich, don’t speak English and refuse to “integrate”. Since the Covid pandemic, research shows how discrimination against students from east and south-east Asia has surged. I have a Chinese friend who had eggs thrown at them, and another who was punched in the face while walking home. Many seem to think every Chinese student is a communist spy – even though many Chinese students are taking great risks protesting against their government. Sometimes it feels like who we are as people is irrelevant: our not-so-white faces and our visa status are enough to tell the whole story. [Source]
