Bill to ban Chinese student visas slammed

A bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives that would ban visas for all Chinese students is "absurd" and would cost the U.S., said people from both China and the U.S.

Representative Riley Moore introduced legislation on Friday that could bar Chinese nationals from receiving visas that allow foreigners to travel to the U.S. to study or take part in exchange visitor programs. Five other Republicans co-sponsored the measure.

The measure is unlikely to pass, and it has drawn criticism from organizations and scholars over concerns that hostile policies and rhetoric could hurt U.S. interests.

"No policy should target individuals solely on the basis of their national origin," Fanta Aw, executive director and CEO of NAFSA, an association of international educators, said in a statement.

"Making international students — the most vetted and tracked nonimmigrants in the United States — scapegoats for xenophobic and anti-Chinese sentiment is misguided and antithetical to our national interest," Aw said.

"In reality, this bill has nothing to do with the vast majority of Chinese students studying in the U.S., including me," said a Chinese graduate student at the University of Chicago, who spoke to China Daily under the pseudonym Benjamin.

Benjamin said the bill aims to curb "espionage activities" in the U.S., but the consequence would be to prohibit all Chinese students from studying in the U.S..

"It is such an absurd and laughable idea, and such a policy will end up hurting the innocent," he said, adding that proposals like this will negatively impact the relationship between the U.S. and China and incite racial prejudice in the U.S..

"This is dangerous and problematic. It's appealing to the populists to attract eyeballs. But this kind of policy is not embraced by American young people around me," he said. "The public mood is not necessarily in sync with the bill."

Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said China "expresses strong concern and firmly opposes such practices".He said education exchange and cooperation have long been a foundation for stable China-U.S. relations.

John Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, issued a statement condemning the introduction of this bill. "We strongly reject this move to paint all Chinese students as a threat and caution against racial profiling based on geography and not fact," Yang said in a statement.

"History has shown us time and again that exclusionary policies based on stereotyping rarely address actual national security concerns — instead, they fuel prejudice, division and unfair targeting of Asian immigrants and the Asian American community more broadly," said Yang.

Agencies contributed to this story.