Array
There’s more than one way to skin the cat, whether it be an Academia cat, a trade cat, or a nat-sec cat. And this method will be difficult to challenge in court.
Late yesterday, Marco Rubio announced that the State Department would go for the feline-defurring hat trick. The State Department will launch a review of all student-visa application and grants for students from China and will «aggressively revoke» — a quote — any connected to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in «critical fields.» The move may provide Donald Trump some leverage in trade talks after a loss yesterday at the Court of International Trade, but that hardly appears to be Rubio’s only goal:
Last year, House Republicans issued a report warning that hundreds of millions of dollars in defense funding was going to research partnerships linked to the Chinese government, providing “back-door access to the very foreign adversary nation whose aggression these capabilities are necessary to protect against.”
The Department of Homeland Security raised similar issues in a letter barring international students at Harvard University last week. Secretary Kristi Noem accused Harvard of “coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party,” citing research collaborations with Chinese scholars. It also accused Harvard of training members of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a Chinese paramilitary group.
This is likely the real issue driving Rubio. The US has spent the last quarter-century selling China the rope by which they plan to hang us, and that’s not just true of the government.
