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Late last month, the Trump administration said it would begin to aggressively revoke visas from Chinese students with connections to China's ruling Communist Party or who are studying in fields deemed critical. That has sent tremors through the U.S. scientific community. NPR's Emily Feng reports.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: David Ho is a celebrated virologist whose many accolades include the Presidential Citizens Medal and Time Magazine's Man of the Year for his work on HIV AIDS. Now he's studying COVID.
DAVID HO: Two major pandemics that plague humanity in the last 45 years or so.
FENG: And his research, Ho says, is groundbreaking because he can hire the most talented students from all over the world, including from China.
HO: Maybe the average American doesn't realize that much of the scientific workforce is comprised of foreign scientists and Chinese scientists.
FENG: Dr. Ho himself is not from China. He was born in Taiwan. But Dr. Ho sees no problem hiring Chinese postdoctoral researchers.
HO: And the very, very best generally stay in America and contribute to America. So that party affiliation, to me, hasn't played a role at all.
FENG: The Trump administration argues some Chinese students are a threat to national security, and he accused China's Communist Party of stealing American research. Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China until earlier this year, points out the U.S. already screens Chinese students very closely.
NICHOLAS BURNS: If a Chinese citizen has connection to the military or the intelligence services, certainly we don't want those people in the country - in our country.
FENG: A connection to the Communist Party, Burns argues, is not a very accurate measure of a student's intentions.
BURNS: And to essentially say to those people - largest country in the world, along with India - you are hereby excluded from the United States if you have any connection whatsoever with the Communist Party, I think that's shortsighted.
FENG: The exact impact of the new policy will depend on how broadly the administration applies its criteria to pull back visas. But those working in science and technology fields say the announcement has already had a chilling effect.
KEN ONO: Yeah, fear is rampant.
FENG: This is Ken Ono, a science technology engineering and math, or STEM, adviser at the University of Virginia.
ONO: The damage I'm most worried about will be those students who just choose to leave because they no longer feel welcome.
FENG: Joseph Tucker is a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also codirects a scholarly exchange program with China, and he says his research could not happen without students from China. Not because university labs like his prefer foreign students - they simply choose people who are the best in their field.
JOSEPH TUCKER: If you were a CEO of a company, who would you hire? You'd hire the best people that are available.
FENG: A lot of Tucker's research is related to public health issues specific to North Carolina. American citizens, he argues, benefit when researchers from around the world work side by side in the U.S.
TUCKER: It's a public resource, and all of our findings are published in open access journals, so anyone can see the research findings. They're presented to the public.
FENG: Dr. Ho, the virologist, says there is now a brain drain away from the U.S. Starting in the first Trump administration, he has already seen a precipitous drop in Chinese students asking to work in his laboratory. Instead, he's receiving a new kind of inquiry.
HO: Whether I would be willing to take a position in China or in European institutions. They know what's happening in America at this time.
FENG: For nearly five decades, the U.S. educational system was venerated within China. Though, going forward, Dr. Ho warns, perhaps no longer. Emily Feng, NPR News.
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