The anti-China academic panic is hurting America

Chinese social media has been abuzz with the disturbing story of a Chinese woman, referred to by the pseudonym “Meng Fei,” who was pursuing a Ph.D. in America. When traveling back to the U.S. to complete her studies, Meng was detained in a “little dark room” at Dulles International Airport in Washington D.C. for over eight hours, then left in solitary confinement for another 12 hours. She was unable to speak to family or friends during this time. She was then sent back to Beijing — forced to pay for her $3,700 ticket on the spot — and has since been banned from entering the United States for five years. 

Upon returning to China, Meng Fei was able to connect with 10 other Ph.D. students who had had similar experiences. None had conducted confidential research, and none had undergraduate majors appearing to fall in the scope of Presidential Proclamation 10043, a Trump-era policy banning Chinese students from entering the U.S. if they attended universities with suspected ties to the People’s Liberation Army. Though many of these students had won Chinese government scholarships during their undergraduate years, none had a clear reason why they had been detained and denied entry, and all had valid visas at the time. 

This sort of treatment is eerily similar to what American scholars might expect when visiting China. In the name of protecting research security, the U.S. government has created a law enforcement architecture grounded in exclusion and fear, mirroring the very authoritarian society we are trying to compete with. Shakedowns at the border — which are also happening to Chinese American scientists and their families — are part of a broader array of policies that aim to “protect” American science by treating ethnically Chinese scientists with suspicion.

New research on the effects of the now-defunct “China Initiative” — a campaign launched by the Justice Department in 2018 against the theft of American research and intellectual property by Chinese nationals — demonstrates how the crackdown on Chinese scientists has been counterproductive.

At the outset, the mandate of the China Initiative seemed strange to those working in universities. On most campuses, there is no classified research. Fundamental and applied research is conducted according to the open science model, which means that work is publicly available, data is shared and results are published. How can you steal something that is out in the open? 

FBI field offices were instructed to go out and find cases of Chinese espionage on American campuses, and FBI Director Christopher Wray began touting the number of ongoing investigations. But these cases rarely produced evidence of actual espionage, instead centering around fraud, often when U.S.-based researchers failed to properly disclose affiliations with Chinese entities on federal grant forms. This is a real issue, and the FBI did uncover some actual malfeasance, most notably in the case of Harvard chemist Charles Lieber, who failed to disclose his affiliation with a Chinese talent program and made false statements to the FBI. 

But fraud is not espionage. And after three years of unfettered investigations, the China Initiative only turned up a handful of cases of anyone actually stealing something on a university campus. The narrative that “Chinese students and scientists are nefarious spies” was a bust. 

Researchers have begun demonstrate the effect of these policies on U.S. science. One new paper shows how Chinese and Chinese American scientists are now wary of participating in basic scientific activities and collaboration. About 35 percent of Chinese scientists surveyed “feel unwelcome in the U.S.,” and 72 percent “do not feel safe as an academic researcher.” Roughly 45 percent of the respondents who had obtained federal grants no longer seek to apply, worried about attracting unwanted attention and coming under investigation.

Another study from UCSD shows how the China Initiative actively damaged scientific productivity in the life sciences and biomedical fields. The researchers compare the publication rates of researchers at U.S. institutions who had collaborations with institutions in China to those who had collaborations with institutions in other countries, looking before and after the rollout of the China Initiative. After 2018, American scientists who collaborated with China experienced a 7.2 percent decline in their citations, and this effect was larger for Asian scientists. 

The China Initiative was formally rolled back in 2022, in large part because of an unprecedented pushback by the American scientific community. But some members of Congress are actively seeking to revive it, and state governments are creating new policies that could be even more damaging. A new Florida law restricts state universities and colleges from “accepting grants from or participating in partnerships or agreements” with schools from “countries of concern,” including China. This covers funding and research contracts, which means that universities cannot offer Ph.D. admissions to Chinese students unless they receive approval from a state board. Florida faculty have petitioned against the measure, citing the need to preserve international student recruitment. 

Creating an environment hostile to Chinese scientists reduces the competitiveness of U.S. science. Students like Meng Fei are core to the American research enterprise. Roughly 17 percent of all U.S. doctoral degrees in science and engineering went to Chinese students, and, of that group, 87 percent ultimately stay in the U.S. and become part of the American labor force. This is one of the core advantages of the United States in its emerging competition with China — our universities and society are so attractive that China’s best and brightest want to come, and they want to stay. 

Or at least they used to. Recent data suggests that 61 percent of Chinese researchers in the U.S. have thought about leaving. In 2021 alone, more than 1,400 Chinese scientists left the U.S. for China. Just last month, it was announced that Berkeley’s mathematics phenom Sun Song has left for a faculty position in China. 

Our national overreaction to the “threat” of Chinese scientists should be considered one of the most inhumane and counterproductive policies of this new era of U.S.-China strategic competition. Unless we change the narrative and treat Chinese students and scientists with respect, America will simply be pushing them away, harming our own interests and accelerating China’s scientific development. 

Rory Truex is associate professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. His research and teaching focuses on Chinese politics.