Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States should accept more international students from China but they should study the humanities and not the sciences, the second-highest ranking U.S. diplomat said on Monday, noting that American universities are limiting Chinese students’ access to sensitive technology due to security concerns.
Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said not enough Americans are studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics. He said the U.S. needs to recruit more students in those fields, but not from China, and from India, which is an increasingly important U.S. security partner.
For many years, Chinese students have made up the largest demographic of international students in the United States, reaching about 290,000 in the 2022/23 academic year. But some in academia and civil society argue that deteriorating U.S.-China relations and concerns about the theft of U.S. expertise are hindering scientific collaboration and subjecting Chinese students to unfair suspicion.
“We would like to see more Chinese students coming to the United States to study humanities and social sciences, rather than particle physics,” Campbell told the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank.
Campbell was asked about the China Initiative, an initiative introduced by the Trump administration to combat Chinese espionage and intellectual property theft, which was ended under the Biden administration after criticism that it encouraged racial profiling of Asian Americans.
Campbell said U.S. universities have made “deliberate efforts” to help Chinese students continue their higher education, but have also been “cautious about Chinese students’ labs and some of their activities.”
“I think it’s possible to throttle or limit certain types of access, and I think that’s particularly common in technology programs across the United States,” he said.
Campbell said some have suggested China is the only source to fill the shortage of science students.
“I believe the biggest increase we need to see going forward is a significant increase in the number of Indian students coming to American universities to study technology and a variety of other fields.”
Campbell said the U.S. must be careful not to sever ties between China and the U.S., but that Beijing was largely to blame for weakening ties in the academic, business and non-profit sectors.
“It’s really China that is making it difficult to do the kind of work we want to continue,” Campbell said, adding that foreign businesspeople and philanthropists are wary of staying in China for long periods due to concerns about their personal safety.
(Reporting by Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Rod Nickel)
