Visa policy frustrates Chinese students

Chicago Tribune ^ | Michael A. Lev

[ASaneGuy]

BEIJING -- The well-ordered world of young scientist Fu Zhang came crashing down last Monday when an American diplomat rejected his visa application after a three-minute interview. Now there would be no year as a visiting fellow at Ohio State University, which had promised him a $1,500 monthly stipend, $20,000 for laboratory supplies and a chance to work with Bo Yuan, a renowned expert in the study of the human genome.

......
"These are not people who are going to open up gas stations," said Greg Leonard, director of the international student office at Boston University, which reports a higher number of Chinese student visa rejections this year.
"If they stay, they wind up in private business, private research labs or academia," said Leonard. "They are pulling their own weight and making contributions ordinary people like you and I aren't capable of making."
......
"Immigration regulations allow for people--and in fact encourage people--with advanced degrees to work and stay in the United States," said Lawrence Bell, director of the international student office at the University of Colorado. "So for those students who are able to get advanced degrees and contribute to the U.S. economy in significant ways, what's the problem?"
......
oston University has been waiting more than a year for the arrival of Liu Yue Hua, a top electrical engineering student who has been turned down eight times for a visa. Her father was so upset he participated in one of the demonstrations at the embassy, holding up a white T-shirt with his plea written on it: "My daughter was accepted to Boston University; please give her a visa."
......
The U.S. concern that Chinese students will not return home is valid. The Chinese government acknowledges it has a "brain drain" problem. It says that two-thirds of the students who have gone abroad in the past two decades have not returned. But more are returning as China's economy develops and the government gets more aggressive about wooing them with research grants and other benefits.

[DWSUWF]

"...The U.S. concern that Chinese students will not return home is valid. The Chinese government acknowledges it has a "brain drain" problem..."

Anything that hurts Red China is good.

Is there a concern that those who stay are problems to us in some way?

If not, we should encourage their escape from Red China.

[evolved_rage]

an American diplomat rejected his visa application after a three-minute interview

An american job was saved today...and the competitive advantage of a few US patents may last a little longer too.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

An American job saved today...twenty lost tomorrow...

[HumanaeVitae]

As I recall, Saddam's "Dr. Germ" got her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Cambridge University. She later was reportedly involved in experiments where she watched as people died from her "creations".

Thug-like regimes that could have never produced advanced technology on their own should not be allowed to partake of the fruits of a free society. Sorry, Wang. Go tell your Commie leaders you want capitalism and freedom as well.

[newgeezer]

Yo, Red China! We're having second thoughts about educating your brightest young people. We're thinking maybe it will come back to haunt us someday (perhaps very soon).

So, young Chinese citizen, you are now free to go home and enjoy all that your own country has to offer. If you don't like it, maybe you and some of your fellow countrymen should think about changing things over there. Feel free to use force, if you can find any (I hear citizen arms might be in short supply).

[OldSmaj]

...State University, which had promised him a $1,500 monthly stipend, $20,000 for laboratory supplies and a chance to work with Bo Yuan...

"They are pulling their own weight and making contributions ordinary people like you and I aren't capable of making."

Uh, did I miss something here?

How is getting a $1500.00 per month stipend and $20,000.00 for lab supplies, pulling one's own weight?

I have begged, pleaded, cajoled, and everything else to get assistance for my kid's and all we get is BS from Junior colleges. My oldest son is still paying back money that he was loaned, yes, loaned for his eduction. Cheap bastards wouldn't even discuss a stipend for him.

Send all of 'em back. Give the money to AMERICAN students!

We provide quality eductaion to these people so that they may go back to their countries and use it against us.

What a crock.

[elfman2]

There've been reports out for years that among the large number of Chinese student exists a large number of spies. With the raised tensions of the Wong Way incident, we're probably being a lot more selective, but claiming it's for economic reasons.

It must drive the PRC mad when they go to great effort to recruit a bright young 18 year old and then have him rejected for admission.

[Lloyd227]

"a $1,500 monthly stipend, $20,000 for laboratory supplies "

Say what?

Could you repeat that please?

With two sons presently in college and two more just beginning to look at their options, I have a very good idea how difficult this kind of support is to find.

Just what is it that this particular student brings to our country and to this university which would merit this amount of financial aid? (besides diversity I mean!)

While I understand that this is most likely one very sharp student, one of my son's closest friends scored a 1500 on his SAT and (so far) has no financial aid offers of any kind.

Once more, I'm reminded that something went awry in the progress of America.

[elfman2]

Too many American students just want to "do" other American students and party. A lot of these hungry Chinese kids will study 16 hours 7 days a week. Nevertheless, I'm all for greater scrutiny being placed on these kids for security reasons, and I don't think public universities should be offering scholarships to foreigners for any reason.

[JEC]

You realy don't know how badly this breaks my heart. Maybe now some poor American will get what they justly deserve... A free education that has been going to some foreigner that does not belong here.

[blackdog]

That is the cost of your son being served by diversity. A college campus must be a hodge podge of diverse global and domestic human leaches.

My wife is a professional research chemist. The stories she comes home with are pathetic. She has seen entire corporations have all their proprietary secrets pissed away to the chinese and Indonesians like water. When bringing it to the radar screen in 1999 at a very big company, she was fired. She got quite a severance and had to sign papers in order to get it committing her to silence. She got three years salary and they are still patenting her research today(3 years later). She was unemployed for about 2 days when competitors heard of her services being available. The company she is with now guards their secrets so closely, they refuse to let any university anywhere co-op or do petty contract testing/research. The foreign students at such schools just send all the research back home. Several companies have deliberately set up garbage co-op's just to see how long it takes for the research to flow back home. It takes no more than a few weeks.

[B4Ranch]

If your kids were illegal aliens, they would be seated with full tuitions paid by ............the American taxpayer.

[JEC]

Congradulations to your wife. I was at my wifes campus today and it was unbelievable the number of foreign students that were walking around. I personally did not like the number of arab students.

[Enemy Of The State]

"These are not people who are going to open up gas stations," said Greg Leonard

Absolutely correct! They will be returning to do research in Chemical and Biological institutes that manufacture weapons to use against the United States. The US should stop educating foreigners in such sensitive fields. Come on over if you want to learn medicine but go somewhere else if your thinking about studying nuclear fission or some other potentially hazardous security threat.

[blackdog]

The theft of our proprietary processes, methods of manufacturing, methods of research, and our industrial capabilities is more of a long term security threat than a few bug breeders or nuclear thieves. These students are taught to absorb and retain as much data as possible to send back home (Where mamma-san is on a kidney transplant list). They do this even when it is not related to their field of study. They attend and record lectures and presentations on subjects they have absolutely no relevance to. Take one on a tour of a laboratory sometime. You have to club them over the head to give up their tape recorder and camera.

[blackdog]

The arab students are usually pretty dumb. They just come from royal families and powerful business interests. They are spoiled and arrogant, unwilling to learn anything they do not quicky grasp. The Chinese and Indonesian students are a different story. There are even a lot of sham corporations set up here in the US that they collaborate with. They have huge lines of credit and resources, but really don't make much of anything. They are set up just to steal information. By buying domestic materials and offering them for resale to domestic companies even at a price which shows a loss, they do so to get access to US engineers, chemists, factories, and research facilities under the cover of sales calls. A sales person is supposed to know your industry, not the other way around. There is a chemical company in Chicago who has a staff of 650 people, yet they have no lines of credit with any railroad company or trucking firm who would handle any raw or finished goods. They are owned by the Lippo Group when you peel the onion back far enough.

[the bottle let me down]

Difference between undergraduate and graduate study. In engineering and the hard sciences, students are paid to do their graduate study and research, at least at the top schools.

The biggest problem these programs have is finding qualified US citizens who are able to do the work. Too few undergraduate majors and limited career paths for technical people have created an incentive for such students to go to law or business school. After all, how many Fortune 500 companies are run by scientists or engineers? How many are run by salesmen? How many engineers hit a career ceiling or are laid off at 40?

[adx]

They will be returning to do research in Chemical and Biological institutes that manufacture weapons to use against the United States. The US should stop educating foreigners in such sensitive fields.

Agreed. Just recently got my bachelor's in electrical engineering last December, and I remember my thoughts concerning the foreign students in my classes, especially those of Chinese/Middle Eastern extraction. My thoughts were (and still are): "Hmm, just whose ballistic missile and/or WMD program are YOU going to be working in when you graduate?"

[Freee-dame]

They are owned by the Lippo Group when you peel the onion back far enough.

Clinton...Riady...Indonesia...China