Chinese Students Required to Spy Under Chinese Law: 600,000 Coming Soon
President Trump has announced that he may allow as many as 600,000 Chinese students to enter the United States. While I generally support most of the president’s decisions, this move poses a serious threat to U.S. national security.
There have been numerous cases of Chinese graduate students stealing American intellectual property and even biological samples. But the most compelling reason to restrict their entry is that Chinese law obligates all citizens to spy for the regime. And the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) routinely threatens or coerces individuals and their families until they comply. By this standard, Chinese students in the U.S. are effectively acting as spies, or what U.S. law officially refers to as “foreign agents.”
Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), individuals must register if they act “at the order, request, direction, or control of” a foreign principal, even without a contract or formal agreement. The law also considers whether requests are made through coercion or threats, and whether the foreign principal exercises power over the agent. By these standards, Chinese students studying in America meet the definition of foreign agents and should be required to register.
The PRC’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, Article 7, states: “All organizations and citizens shall support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts in accordance with law, and shall protect national intelligence work secrets they are aware of.” In practice, this means that when intelligence agencies demand information or assistance, compliance is mandatory, and refusal can result in punishment.