Business and economic statecraft are not the same thing; what makes sense in one arena does not necessarily apply in another. What may be financially profitable in the near term can lead to national defeat not long after. This week, President Trump announced a plan to welcome 600,000 Chinese students into American universities. For perspective, there are roughly 270,000 students from China currently in the U.S. Trump wants to more than double this, and effectively hand off scientific expertise to Beijing at America’s expense. So much for “America-First.”
Human capital is something that gets neglected in power politics; yet if you look closely, it is a deciding factor in geopolitics and economics over the course of centuries. The Battle of Talas in 751 AD between the Arab Abbasids and the Tang Dynasty may have transferred paper-making technology from China to the Middle East. Nautical human capital from Italy, in the form of Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci, and Ferdinand Magellan from Portugal, helped cement Spain as a major power in the 16th century with their expertise in navigation. After World War II, the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in multiple intelligence operations to secure the German scientists who would guide the “Space Race” of the Cold War. Raw materials and technology matter, but the brain power that makes it all happen arguably matters more.
[RELATED: Trump Allows Chinese Students into U.S. Universities in Exchange for Rare Earth Minerals]
No global power in its right mind would voluntarily train its major rival in advanced technology and sciences, and yet, America already does precisely that.
Chinese students have historically made up the largest foreign contingent of foreign students in America’s colleges and universities in recent years, only recently being overtaken by India. Just this March, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sent letters to the presidents of “Carnegie Mellon, Purdue University, Stanford University, the University of Illinois, the University of Maryland, and the University of Southern California” over the prevalence of Chinese students involved in sensitive research funded by the federal government.
This is not a problem that is anywhere near being fixed, and recent scandals at American universities involving Chinese espionage are showing that America is already dodging bullets from this self-imposed problem. The University of Michigan is under investigation by the Department of Education over two cases of Chinese nationals attempting to smuggle “biological materials” into the country. Chinese espionage was revealed earlier this year at Stanford University. The FBI has warned about the risks that China poses to universities. In Europe, the UK has warned about Chinese influence in British academia, while a Chinese student in South Korea was arrested last December for taking drone footage of American naval assets. Even when off campus, America’s universities are targets for China. In July, a Chinese national named Xu Zewei was arrested in Italy after hacking and trying to steal COVID-19-related research from the University of Texas. These are just a few of the cases that have come to light publicly. Doubling the number of Chinese students in the U.S. statistically ensures more cases like this will occur.
It is a false notion that students from China come to the U.S. to experience freedom and American culture. Many Chinese students attend U.S. universities to opt out of national placement exams that would otherwise determine whether and where they can attend university at home. Once accepted to U.S. universities, Chinese students get “briefed and debriefed” by Beijing. Even if Chinese students carry pure motives to study in America, they are nonetheless coerced by the CCP, which can easily threaten family members back in China. On the U.S. side of the equation, American universities are happy to charge foreign students a higher tuition than American students, effectively incentivized to discriminate against American citizens. As it is, American students are drastically behind in math and science when compared to their international peers. This is a recipe for geopolitical disaster, and Trump’s proposed policy will throw gasoline on an already well-lit fire.
Amid the zeitgeist about “diversity” in universities, the leftist side of America’s political divide has decried that universities do not reflect America’s diversity. In 2020, a report released by the Urban Institute found that black and Hispanic students in California’s universities do not reflect the state’s population. What is missed in the debates over merit versus diversity in higher education is the fact that the best of America’s own citizens will never get slots in university programs that are incentivized to take students from abroad and from America’s top geopolitical adversary. Trump’s policy proposal of the moment will help ensure that Americans of every color will not only be locked out of many science and math programs in higher education, but it will also set them on a track to lose jobs to the Chinese students he seeks to import.
[RELATED: H-1B Visa Undermines American Students and Workers]
To cut labor costs, American companies often fill high-tech roles in science, math, and engineering (STEM) fields by hiring workers from abroad. In 2019, 23.1 percent of all STEM workers in the U.S. were foreign nationals. A 2024 report by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics found that the proportion of foreign-born workers in STEM fields increased to 26 percent, with naturalized citizens comprising a larger share of the STEM workforce than native-born Americans. If 600,000 Chinese students were to enter U.S. universities, it is reasonable to envision a sizable number of them working in American STEM fields, effectively insourcing foreign labor from the U.S.’s top adversary into some of its most sensitive fields and most lucrative jobs.
Barring some Trumpian “Art of the Deal” jiujitsu, the prospect of 600,000 Chinese students is a Faustian bargain.
Cover by Jared Gould, incorporating the Chinese flag by Khunnok Studio (Adobe Stock, Asset ID #324582271) and a photo of Donald Trump by Gage Skidmore (via Flickr).
