President Trump considered banning Chinese student visas to keep out spies

• The Trump administration debated banning visas for Chinese nationals to come and study at US universities for fear of spying 
• The head of the FBI said China uses non-traditional intelligence gatherers, like students, to steal information in the US.

By Alex Lockie

Chinese honeytraps: FBI Director Christopher Wray said Chinese "collectors" — what the intelligence community calls people who gather intelligence on behalf of agencies or governments — had infiltrated US universities.

President Donald Trump's administration debated the idea of banning visas for Chinese nationals to come and study at US universities for fear of spying, the Financial Times has reported.
Former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, now US ambassador to China, shot the initiative, according to the FT.

The report said the idea was championed by Trump administration immigration hardliner Stephen Miller.
Under Trump the US has confronted China like never before, and the FT's report comes at a time of record high military tensions between the great powers.
President Trump's recent National Security Strategy explicitly called for the kind of review reportedly put forth by Miller.
The strategy said it would "review visa procedures to reduce economic theft by non-traditional intelligence collectors" while reevaluating how the US provides access to foreign students in science fields, which have national security implications.

Chinese students-spies
FBI Director Christopher Wray.

In February, FBI Director Christopher Wray described China as a "whole-of-society threat" that required from the US a "whole-of-society response."
Wray said Chinese "collectors" — what the intelligence community calls people who gather intelligence on behalf of agencies or governments — had infiltrated US universities.
"I think in this setting, I would just say that the use of nontraditional collectors — especially in the academic setting, whether it's professors, scientists, students — we see in almost every field office that the FBI has around the country," Wray said.
"They're exploiting the very open research-and-development environment that we have, which we all revere, but they're taking advantage of it," Wray said. 

He added that there is a naiveté among academics about the risks posed by Chinese nationals at US universities.
The Institute of International Education found that US universities in 2015-16 admitted nearly 329,000 Chinese students. 

These students, who live and spend money in the US, represent one of the few trade surpluses the US enjoys over China in the services sector, while China dominates trading of goods.
"We do not open investigations based on race, or ethnicity, or national origin," Wray later told NBC News. 

"But when we open investigations into economic espionage, time and time again, they keep leading back to China."

Downward spiral of US-China relations
The US and China have increasingly began butting heads in less of a rhetorical sense, and more in their military relations.
Beijing protests every time a US or international warship transits the South China Sea, a key waterway in the Pacific that China has laid unilateral claim to, in violation of international law.
On Sunday a Chinese destroyer nearly rammed a US destroyer that was sailing within 12 miles of a sea feature claimed by China.
The encounter "constituted a risk of collision, in violation of the International Rules of the Road [Collision Regulations], which govern the safe navigation of vessels" and "violated the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), a multilateral agreement including both the PRC and the US," Lawrence Brennan, a maritime lawyer and former US Navy captain told Business Insider.
The incident also followed the US sanctioning China for buying Russian arms, as well China denying a US ship the right to make a port call in Hong Kong. 

China recent cancelled military-to-military talks with US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, despite previously hailing those talks as important.
In May, the US banned all Chinese-made smartphones from the Pentagon, saying devices from Huawei and ZTE "may pose an unacceptable risk to department's personnel, information and mission."

Repressive Experiences in China Studies

First-of-its-kind survey of China scholars seeks to quantify just how frequently they encounter repressive actions by the Chinese state intended to stop or circumscribe their research. A majority say self-censorship is a problem.

By Elizabeth Redden

Anecdotes abound of scholars who write on controversial subjects being denied visas to enter China, having difficulty accessing archives on the mainland or being “taken for tea” by Chinese police or security officials during the course of their fieldwork. 

But just how common are these kinds of experiences?
A survey of more than 500 China scholars discussed Saturday at the American Political Science Association’s annual meeting in Boston finds that such “repressive research experiences are a rare but real phenomenon” in the China studies field and “collectively present a barrier to the conduct of research in China.” 

Researchers found that about 9 percent of China scholars report having been “taken for tea” by Chinese government authorities within the past 10 years, to be interviewed or warned about their research; 26 percent of scholars who conduct archival research report being denied access; and 5 percent report difficulties obtaining a visa.
A majority of researchers believe their research is either somewhat sensitive (53 percent) or very sensitive (14 percent). 

Sixty-eight percent of scholars say that self-censorship is a problem for the China studies field.
“Our own conclusion is that the risks of research conduct in China are uncertain, highly individualized, and often not easily discernible from public information. The decision about whether or not to pursue a particular potentially sensitive research project is a therefore highly personal one. Scholars encounter real consequences for conducting certain research in China, and these risks are higher for both Chinese researchers, and the Chinese colleagues and interlocutors who interact with foreign scholars,” Sheena Chestnut Greitens, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri, and Rory Truex, an assistant professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, write in a paper outlining the results of their survey.

Greitens and Truex write that their survey provides “the first systematic data on the frequency with which China scholars encounter repressive actions by the Chinese government.” 

The researchers sent the survey to 1,967 social scientists they identified having expertise in China and received 562 complete responses, for a 28.6 percent response rate. 

Respondents include anthropologists, economists, historians, political scientists and sociologists. 

The researchers limited the sample to scholars working in Australia, Europe, Hong Kong, New Zealand and North America.
The survey focuses specifically on researchers' experiences, but it comes at a time of increasing concern about Chinese influence on Western academe more broadly. 

Reports last fall that academic publishers were censoring journal content in China raised widespread alarm, and Chinese-government funded Confucius Institutes, centers of Chinese language and culture education that are located on U.S. college campuses, are coming under increasing scrutiny.
Greitens and Truex divided the repressive research experiences they documented into three main categories:
Restrictions on access to China. Greitens and Truex found that the Chinese government "does restrict visa access for work that it considers potentially problematic." While there are some high-profile cases of scholars who report being "blacklisted" from China long term, the researchers found that "the most common form of restriction is temporary visa ‘difficulty’ rather than outright denial or long-term blacklisting." Greitens and Truex note that it is not always clear that the reason for difficulties is related to the scholar’s research, but the scholars often believed or received informal indication this was the case.
Restrictions on access to research materials and subject. Restrictions on access to archival research materials are fairly common: 26 percent of all scholars who do archival research report facing restrictions, as do 41 percent of responding historians, whose research depends most heavily on access to archives. Denials of access to particular materials often seemed to be based on the topic of those materials, though, as Greitens and Truex write, “archivists rarely cited sensitivity as the reason for denial, instead citing digitization or other internal processes.”

The survey findings also suggest that access to archival materials has changed over time, and that previously accessible materials are no longer available to foreign researchers.
Of those researchers who use interviews or participant observation in their research, about 17 percent report that they’d had interview subjects “withdraw in a suspicious or unexplained matter, an experience that is most prevalent in political science and anthropology.”
Surveillance and intimidation. Among the 9 percent of respondents who said they’d been interviewed by Chinese authorities (“taken for tea”) within the last 10 years, Greitens and Truex write that there were certain common patterns in their experiences. “A scholar attracts attention in the course of research -- attending a protest, requesting archival access, giving a talk, etc. Agents of the local government in turn respond, gather information on the researcher, and often seek an end to, or place boundaries around, the research activity,” they write.
In addition, about 2 percent of respondents reported having their computer or other materials confiscated during field research. And 2.5 percent -- 14 individual scholars -- reported experiencing temporary detention by police or physical intimidation. Greitens and Truex found that “these higher-impact events occurred disproportionately in places with a heightened security presence, such as Tibet and East Turkestan.”

Impact on a Range of Research Subjects
Over all, Greitens and Truex found that while it does appear that “research topic area plays a role in repressive experiences,” it is “far from deterministic.” 

For example, they found that scholars who studied topics considered sensitive like ethnicity, religion and human rights were disproportionately likely to encounter difficulties getting visas. 

But researchers who studied other topics including the environment, China’s foreign relations and gender had problems, too.
In many cases Greitens and Truex note that “research is not blocked, but allowed to proceed while being monitored along the way.” 

One theme of their findings was what scholars describe in open-ended responses as “fuzzy” or unclear boundaries: “You never know where the border is; you only know when you have crossed it,” one respondent said.

Warnings frequently come through informal channels. 

Twelve percent of all scholars, and 17 percent of those who said they do intensive field research, say that a Chinese colleague or friend had been contacted about their work. 

“We note that this is consistent with a broader pattern... where political sensitivity is communicated through indirect channels and language than directly through formal procedures, where relationships rather than documents and institutions are leveraged for that communication,” Greitens and Truex write.
China scholars reported adjusting their research strategies in various ways to avoid drawing undesired attention from Chinese state authorities. 

Nearly half (48.9 percent) said they have used different language to describe a project while in China. Nearly a quarter (23.7 percent) shifted a project’s focus away from the most sensitive aspects, while 15.5 percent reported having abandoned a project entirely. 

Just 1.6 percent reported publishing anonymously.
Though the majority (68 percent) of respondents agree that self-censorship among China scholars is a problem in the field, Greitens and Truex write that their "survey data also challenges the definition of self-censorship and the notion that it occurs primarily because of self-interested careerism. Respondents stressed discretion as a necessary ethical principle for social science research in China, given the potential for a scholar’s Chinese interlocutors to disproportionately bear the negative consequences of sensitive research. They also drew a distinction between censoring the conclusions of academic work and choosing to adopt more publicly critical stances on policy issues, especially those that fell outside their specific research area."
Asked to offer advice on how to manage sensitive research in China, respondents emphasized the importance of listening to Chinese colleagues and protecting research subjects and interlocutors above all else.

Enemy of the Press

The time I was turned away from China
By Jon Russell 

Earlier today, November 26 2017, I was turned away from immigration at Shanghai’s Hongqiao airport by Chinese officials.
Alongside a number of other visitors, I had been waiting in line to take advantage of the city’s 144-hour ‘transit’ visa, which allows travelers with an onward flight to stay in Shanghai without needing to secure a visa before they travel.
The transit visa is issued on arrival if a visitor is not returning to the destination from which they arrived. 

For example, someone arriving from Hong Kong qualifies for the visa so long as their onward destination is outside of China but not Hong Kong. 

I flew in from Hong Kong and my exit ticket to Bangkok was booked for early afternoon on November 29, putting me comfortably inside the 144-hour limit.
As someone who has lived in Asia for nearly a decade, I’ve become accustomed to visas and the fact that, even when there’s another option, getting one before you travel is the best approach. 

In the case of China, however, I’ve long given up on the prospects of doing so.
Even though TechCrunch’s reporting aims to highlight promising startups and the role of tech in this modern and connected world, my status as a journalist in Thailand — where I live and hold an annual visa as a registered member of the media — has made getting a legitimate pre-travel visa for China impossible. 

The fact that I am from the UK — which doesn’t have 10-year visa options like the U.S. — means that one route taken by some reporters, who are able to get decade-long business visas, is not open to me.
Last summer, for example, I visited the Chinese embassy in Bangkok to start the process for a visa for our next TechCrunch China event in Beijing that November. 

Ultimately, I was told I was welcome to apply but that I would require a range of paperwork in addition to the usual documents, including approval from the municipal government of Shanghai and the mayor of Shanghai.
In order to make progress, I had a member of the embassy staff explain the requirements in Mandarin over the phone to an employee at TechCrunch’s partner company in China. 

I was later told by our partner that what was required was unclear and likely impossible to deliver on.
China, you see, will never reject your visa. 

Instead, an insurmountable wall is erected to prevent you from ever applying in the first place.
That’s where the appeal of the transit visa comes in. 

You simply book your flights to ensure you won’t overstay, then turn up.
Since 2015, I have used the transit visa system on six occasions. 

Even then, I’ve been nervous. 

Each time, I watched other travelers processed quickly after showing their documents, while I was kept waiting — one time for more than an hour as my bag ended up in lost property — as immigration officials looked over a computer screen (presumably showing my details) and summoned their seniors. 

Eventually, after waiting on the sidelines and watching travelers flow through with success, I’d be told I had been let in.
Travelers pass through immigration in Shanghai while I wait

Not this time
This time however, starting at around 5:30 pm, the wait was noticeably longer than usual. 

A senior official returned after around 45 minutes, telling me I was to board a plane to return to Hong Kong.
I was permitted to stay for 24 hours under the shorter transit visa option, but my request to stay for three days — and not utilize the full 144-hour visa — would not be allowed.
The reason, as it was explained to me, was that in 2015 I had broken Chinese law when I failed to present myself to authorities in Beijing when I had visited and stayed at an Airbnb residence on two different trips. 

Unbeknownst to me at the time — and something that was not communicated by Airbnb — foreigners are required to register at a local police station, but in most cases the hotels where they stay handle this.
Therefore anyone using Airbnb, or staying with friends, must voluntarily visit the city’s police station and register. 

As anyone who has ever spent time in China and doesn’t speak the language will know, that’s challenging. 

But it is the law. Even still, I was surprised. 

I used the very same transit visa on my last trip to Shanghai in June, and again in November of last year when I visited Beijing. 

This year, I was granted a visa on arrival (which is not a transit visa) to visit Shenzhen in June without trouble.
The immigration officers explained to me that a new law that had come into effect in recent months meant I was unable to exercise the longer transit visa. 

My previous visits were not subject to that, I was told. 

The officials denied my request for details about this new law.
The two incidents that they cited — from the first half 2015 — did indeed happen. 

However, it wasn’t until I was leaving Beijing Airport on the second trip that I was made aware of my "crime". 

Two burly immigration officials pulled me to the side of the immigration queue and took my passport. 

They then berated me in Mandarin and summoned an English-speaking officer.
After some delay and an explanation of the police registration requirement, I was instructed to give information about my host. 

I provided her telephone number and name as requested. 

The officers made me sign a piece of paper that was written in Mandarin and, after I expressed concern that I would miss my flight, I was allowed to leave and get an exit stamp in my passport.
I made my flight, just, but the incident made an impact. 

Aware that Airbnb operated in a legal grey area in China at the time and concerned I might have put my host in hot water, I decided to stop using the service in China and contact her to ensure all was okay.
My host, who is Chinese, told me that she did indeed receive a call from the police who asked to know the nature of our relationship, including how long had she known me. 

She told them I had booked the room online. 

She provided a fake address, likely due to the same cautions I held, and the matter was seemingly closed.
I spoke to her after I left Shanghai yesterday and she recalled that her experience with me was “super weird.” 

As an Airbnb host for four years who has welcomed more than 100 guests, she said she had never had any problem like it with anyone else. 

She repeated her belief that I didn’t actually need a visa for short stay.

Back to Hong Kong
Back to the situation in Shanghai this weekend, faced with the prospect of being denied entry, I tried my best to calmly explain that I was only made aware of my rule-breaking the second time. 

Since then, I explained, I had made a point of only staying in hotels as I didn’t want to break rules. Plus, most importantly, I had since returned to China, been permitted entry, and complied with the requirement each time.
My plea fell on deaf ears, however. 

Perhaps angry at my efforts to argue my cause, I was informed that the senior officer had decided to remove my option for a 24-hour visa. 

I was told to travel immediately, I would not be admitted — period. 

I need to leave now, they said. 

The plane I had taken in from Hong Kong had been turned around and was ready to leave; this was the flight I was to be on.
The reason I was in Shanghai was our latest TechCrunch China event which runs for two days. 

This meant I would miss all of it.
Compounding my misery, Hong Kong Airlines, which I used to fly into Shanghai, then informed me I’d need to buy a ticket to leave, although I later ‘struck a deal’ to go back for free.
Exit agreed, I was then accompanied by a very tall security officer, who took my passport and escorted me and the airline representatives to collect my luggage and arrange my seat on the next flight at the Hong Kong Airlines desk.
I asked if I could take a photo with my chaperone to mark the occasion, but was told no.

“Have a happy journey” — ground staff, airline staff and the immigration officer arrange my ticket back to Hong Kong

Ticket secured, I was escorted back through checkin and onto the plane — it was truly whirlwind — all while my passport was in the possession of my large minder. 

At the plane, it was briefly returned to me, but I was told that I had been given a seat on the condition that my passport was turned over to the Hong Kong Airlines crew, who would return it to me when we landed.
Options exhausted, I reluctantly agreed and, after holding the flight up significantly through my situation, I walked through a plane of disgruntled passengers glaring at me — the cause of their 90-minute delay — to take my seat in the corner at the rear of the plane.
One airline attendant had apparently heard what had happened to me and offered an apology.
“This is the Mainland, sir.”

Why the trouble?
I’ve heard stories of senior people at major global media companies being given transit visas on the condition that they remain inside the airport, and other such restrictions on political reporters, but I didn’t ever think I — a technology blogger — would join the club.
It’s hard to speculate on Chinese policy with any certainty. 

One thing I do know is that Chinese immigration have been aware that I am a “journalist” since I was given a tourist visa in 2015.
At the time, the official who granted me the visa told me that, even though I had applied for a three-month, multiple-entry visa, he would only give me a one-week visa. 

These are ‘special’ since they are not even among the options for travelers. 

His main concern was that I might write stories while on Chinese soil and, since he didn’t entirely understand what TechCrunch did, he wanted to err on the side of caution.
My experience this week shows that the level of caution has been raised significantly. 

I neither write investigative stories about the Chinese government, nor do I cover politics. 

But I am someone who is viewed as a member of the media. 

While in the past, there was some tolerance to us passing through, China has decided to get tighter still.
The fact that the 19th Congress has just taken place, thus making politics more intense right now, may be a factor.
Some might suggest that stories I’ve written on censorship in China may be a reason, but I’ve been covering thorny topics for some time, and it hasn’t ever prevented my entry into China.
It’s hugely disappointing for me because I always enjoy my short trips to China. 

It’s a great chance to see a different kind of innovation to the U.S., one that isn’t as well-understood or even reported on as the U.S.. 

Then there’s the opportunity to talk to young startups, huge $500 billion giants like Tencent, and those with designs on influencing Asia and other parts of the world. 

I’ve lost count of the number of events, company launches, and other story opportunities that I’ve had to pass on due to visa concerns.
Our objective is to shine light on these topics for our readers, but unfortunately the Chinese government is making that hard to do.

Orwell's 2017: How China made Victoria's Secret a pawn in its ruthless global game

The lingerie brand’s star model Gigi Hadid got into trouble over a gaffe that a more seasoned business traveller to China might have anticipated. So what hope for future forays into this repressive state?

By Paul Mason

Models celebrate at the end of the 2017 Victoria’s Secret fashion show in Shanghai, China. 

Gigi Hadid

As a movie plot, it would work better for Johnny English than James Bond: the lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret saw its launch in China mired in controversy when the People’s Republic refused to issue visas to invited celebrities and journalists. 

Katy Perry was barred for supporting the independence of Taiwan, while model Gigi Hadid transgressed by squinting in a way some Chinese people thought was racist, while posing with a fortune cookie that looked like Buddha. 

Add in China’s standard unpredictability when it comes to issuing press visas and you have loss of face all around.

Victoria’s Secret staff emails are being watched. 

To which seasoned business travellers to China might respond: why do you think we’ve been carrying burner phones and disposable laptops there for years?
This is serious business. 

Demand for high-end women’s underwear is surging in China, as real wages rise and women’s social attitudes change. 

Sales volumes have doubled in five years, to $18bn (£14bn). 

For reference, the combined efforts of all the queues of sheepish men outside Britain’s knicker shops this Christmas will drive the UK total to just $2bn. 

But the average Chinese retail outlet still prefers functionality over seductiveness – with shop window displays that would make the ladies underwear section at Marks & Spencer look risque. 

Into this gap have surged numerous online-only Chinese underwear brands, selling designer garments at less than half price of the equivalent VS product. 

But their presence in the malls, where the young salaried women shop is still minimal. 

So battle is commenced – with the Chinese brands engaged in a price war against each other, while being relentlessly boosted by the state-owned media against the foreign competition. 

The ultimate prize is significant: whoever wins brand supremacy, once China’s 200 million young adult women are prepared to buy bras at $90 (£68) a time, will be raking in large profits.
Under Xi Jinping, everything is political. 

Hadid was hounded across Chinese social media for having “mocked Asian people”, according to the newspaper Jing Daily, which added that the company’s “insufficient response” – ie refusal to sack her – was “a slight to the national pride of Chinese millennials”. 

She has since apologised for her actions, saying “ I have the utmost respect and love for the people of China.”
Xi, whose “thoughts” were enshrined in the party constitution in October, has effectively turned the brittle nationalism of Chinese cyberspace into government policy. 

China is building a new physical infrastructure across Central Asia and into Europe, buying up assets as far as Greece and the Balkans and building up its military to match the US’s presence in the region. 

Xi has cracked down on all potential opponents, issuing a series of warnings to anybody who might be thinking of opposing him. 

And he has ordered the party cadres to learn actual Marxism – not the neoliberal management theories people thought were Marxism under his predecessors.
The impossibility of knowing how this will play out is summed up in the Chinese bureaucracy’s habitual use of the word “while” – often inserted between two entirely opposed objectives. 

For example, Xi will “lower Chinese barriers for foreign investors, while strengthening domestic innovative capabilities in digital, engineering, genetic, aerospace, cyberspace, and smart technologies”. 

How many Chinese barriers should foreign businesses expect to encounter if they want to invest in such capabilities? 

They are left guessing, as are the organisers of Victoria’s Secret who could not even get a permit to film on the street outside the venue where their fashion show was to be staged.
The game China has played with globalisation up to now has been logical and, if we consider how brutally its own markets were torn open in the 19th century, karmic. 

It has protected its own industries and consumer sector behind a string of unofficial barriers, and with a slew of soft loans and politicised investments that a regular capitalist government could never get away with.
Above all, it used the Great Firewall, which western companies initially accepted as part of the political setup, as a protective economic barrier behind which it could create global-scale tech and internet companies. 

But China’s intended next steps in shaping its domestic market will take this principle a whole lot further.
Sesame Credit, a credit-scoring agency setup by Alibaba and Tencent, is designed to make Orwellian self-surveillance a reality. 

As well as creditworthiness, it measures political loyalty – based on user data gathered by China’s two biggest internet companies. 

People with low scores won’t get job offers, loans or high-speed internet; people who network with people with low scores will also get downgraded. 

The project, which is awaiting regulatory approval, has been decried as a mass surveillance tool. 

But it is nothing compared to what China is planning with artificial intelligence. 

Last month, the Chinese state issued a strategy designed to achieve global leadership in AI by 2030. As part of the plan, the private sector is ordered routinely to share its user data with the state. 

This puts China in the unique position among major powers of having no formal barriers to state exploitation of private commercial data. 

If it succeeds, China will create a consumer market whose customer data is completely interpenetrated with state surveillance mechanisms, and a population whose behaviour can be predicted right down to their choice of underwear.
In these circumstances it is right to ask: what is left of the idea of a global marketplace? 

The Shanghai branch of Victoria’s Secret will look like any other branch in the world – but it will be selling into a marketplace whose dynamics it cannot properly see, in which its customer data is not protected from the state, and where every purchase, every search inside its online store is recorded, as of right, by the government – as with any business operating in China.
Ten years ago, it was only corporations such as Google who had to decide whether they could ethically continue operating in markets distorted by state surveillance. 

Today that dilemma is beginning to confront the most basic, physical consumer brands trying to operate in China – and, as mass surveillance technology is deployed, it will get worse.
On the internet, there is already Balkanisation; there is the Chinese tech market and the rest of the world. 

Soon, right down to issues such as choice of styles or colours in fashion, global companies will be selling into two kinds of market. 

In one, consumers really do exercise choice, and consumer data is for the use of the seller only; in another, China, every micro-level consumer choice is scanned by the mass surveillance programmes in case it signals disloyalty.
Victoria’s Secret clearly blundered into an issue it could not anticipate, but the experience should prompt all businesses operating in China to ask the question: with every sale I make, am I now providing a repressive state with the means to keep my customers under surveillance?