The Chi­nese gov­ern­ment said Fri­day that the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s move to ban in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dents from Har­vard would harm Amer­i­ca’s in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ing, as anx­ious stu­dents and par­ents over­seas fret­ted over what would come next.

Among the two largest parts of the in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dent com­mu­ni­ty in Har­vard are Chi­nese and In­di­an stu­dents. The uni­ver­si­ty en­rolled 6,703 in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dents across all of its schools in 2024, ac­cord­ing to the school’s da­ta, with 1,203 of those from Chi­na and 788 from In­dia.

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s move, an­nounced Thurs­day, was a hot top­ic on Chi­nese so­cial me­dia. State broad­cast­er CCTV ques­tioned whether the U.S. would re­main a top des­ti­na­tion for for­eign stu­dents, not­ing Har­vard was al­ready su­ing the U.S. gov­ern­ment in court.

“But with the long lit­i­ga­tion pe­ri­od, thou­sands of in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dents may have trou­ble wait­ing,” the CCTV com­men­tary said.

It went on to say that it be­comes nec­es­sary for in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dents to con­sid­er oth­er op­tions “when pol­i­cy un­cer­tain­ty be­comes the norm.”

Ed­u­ca­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion with the U.S. is mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial and Chi­na op­pos­es its politi­ciza­tion, For­eign Min­istry spokesper­son Mao Ning said at a dai­ly brief­ing in Bei­jing.

“The rel­e­vant ac­tions by the U.S. side will on­ly dam­age its own im­age and in­ter­na­tion­al cred­i­bil­i­ty,” she said.

She added that Chi­na would firm­ly pro­tect the rights and in­ter­ests of Chi­nese stu­dents and schol­ars abroad but she didn’t of­fer any de­tails on how it would do so in this sit­u­a­tion.

In­di­an au­thor­i­ties say they cur­rent­ly as­sess­ing the im­pact of the U.S. or­der on In­di­an stu­dents who are al­ready en­rolled with Har­vard, as well as those as­pir­ing to study there in fu­ture, but have not is­sued any state­ments of crit­i­cism.

Chi­nese stu­dents in U.S. pre­vi­ous point of ten­sion

The is­sue of Chi­nese stu­dents study­ing over­seas has long been a point of ten­sion in the re­la­tion­ship with the Unit­ed States. Dur­ing Trump’s first term, Chi­na’s Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion warned stu­dents about ris­ing re­jec­tions rates and short­er terms for visas in the U.S.

Last year, the Chi­nese for­eign min­istry protest­ed that a num­ber of Chi­nese stu­dents had been in­ter­ro­gat­ed and sent home up­on ar­rival at U.S. air­ports.

Chi­nese state me­dia has long played up gun vi­o­lence in the U.S. and por­trayed Amer­i­ca as a dan­ger­ous place. Some Chi­nese stu­dents are opt­ing to study in the U.K. or oth­er coun­tries rather than the U.S.

Mean­while, two uni­ver­si­ties in Hong Kong ex­tend­ed in­vites to af­fect­ed stu­dents. The Hong Kong Uni­ver­si­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy said it would wel­come in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dents al­ready at Har­vard and those who have been ad­mit­ted in a state­ment Fri­day. City Uni­ver­si­ty in Hong Kong did as well with­out men­tion­ing Har­vard by name.

Some peo­ple in Chi­na joked on­line about hav­ing the uni­ver­si­ty open a branch in the north­east­ern Chi­nese city of Harbin, whose name shares the same char­ac­ter as Har­vard’s name in Chi­nese.

Wait and see

Mum­bai-based high­er ed­u­ca­tion and ca­reer ad­vi­so­ry firm, ReachIvy, is re­ceiv­ing anx­ious queries from as­pi­rants and their par­ents about the im­pact of Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s lat­est move.

The com­pa­ny’s founder, Vib­ha Kagzi, her­self an alum­nus of the Har­vard Busi­ness School, said they were ad­vis­ing stu­dents to keep calm, and wait to see how the sit­u­a­tion un­folds as le­gal chal­lenges were un­der­way.

“Har­vard will sure­ly fight back,” she said, adding that the sit­u­a­tion re­mains flu­id.

Kagzi, while re­call­ing her days from 2010 at Har­vard, said the U.S. was then wel­com­ing in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dents and its im­mi­gra­tion poli­cies sup­port­ed ed­u­ca­tion­al as­pi­rants.

“In­di­an stu­dents should stay hope­ful. Uni­ver­si­ties val­ue glob­al tal­ent and are ex­plor­ing all op­tions to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity in ad­mis­sion and learn­ing,” she said.

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As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Ka­nis Le­ung in Hong Kong and AP re­searcher Shi­huan Chen con­tributed. Roy re­port­ed from New Del­hi.

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