Revoking visas of Chinese students 'aggressive' power play in no one's interest

Amid the uproar of Donald Trump's crackdown on international students in the United States, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Wednesday that the US will "aggressively revoke" the visas of Chinese students studying in the country.

Following his announcement, the US State Department published a statement titled "New Visa Policies Put America First, Not China", saying it will work with the Department of Homeland Security "to aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields".

Yet given that the US Court of International Trade ruled on Wednesday that Trump had overstepped his authority over tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Rubio might be overly presumptive in assuming he has the authority to give an order to revoke the visas of international students from a particular country. Federal immigration law requires individualized assessments for visa revocations. As such, mass actions targeting a specific group could face legal challenges for exceeding statutory limits or violating due process.

The executive orders Trump has issued have given the world an impression that he and his administration can do anything they want without any consideration of the law. But in a pivotal decision, the US Court of International Trade struck down the sweeping reciprocal tariffs unilaterally imposed by Trump in April, citing the misuse of executive authority and the absence of congressional oversight.

According to the court, Trump's use of the IEEPA to impose universal duties on imports exceeded the scope of the law, which does not grant the president the power to unilaterally regulate importation through tariffs. Additionally, the three-judge panel found that the specific tariffs targeting Canada, Mexico and China related to fentanyl did not align with the threats outlined in the orders, further undermining the administration's justification for the tariffs.

And revoking the visas of Chinese students is no small matter and any decision to do so must be based on the law.

More than 270,000 students from China are currently studying in the US. It is the accumulation of cultural exchanges between the two countries over the past several decades that has made it normal for many Chinese students to consider studying in the US. At the same time, many US universities have been more than willing to accept students from China. Not just for financial reasons, but also because of their academic research achievements.

Chinese scholars and researchers have contributed considerably to what the US has achieved in science and technology over the past several decades. In other words, US universities have benefited financially by enrolling students from China, and Chinese students have contributed to the development of science and technology in the US.

Politicizing visas for students from China in the name of safeguarding national security will not just reduce the revenue of US universities, but also do a disservice to academic researches in many US institutions of higher learning.

The move and the accompanying rhetoric show how deep-rooted the Cold War mindset is in Washington. The political circle in Washington appears to have no forward-looking vision for the long-term development of humanity. Instead, fixated on an imagined golden age of US splendor, they turn a blind eye to the fact that cooperation between the US and China holds great significance and potential for the future of humanity.

If the US does start to revoke the visas of Chinese students, China will undoubtedly take countermeasures, which will definitely further damage the already fragile bilateral relations.

By blocking international students including those from China from studying in the US, Washington is only ring-fencing itself academically from the rest of the world, which will amount to scientific suffocation for the US because collaboration is the lifeblood of scientific progress.

China has repeatedly called on US politicians to view its development objectively and rationally, stop creating bloc confrontation, and refrain from fueling anti-Chinese sentiment in the US.The ruling that presidential authority falls within the bounds of the law is the opportunity for the administration to sober up with a reality check.