FILE: Washington D.C., USA - May 12, 2020 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Various of White House

FILE: Washington D.C., USA - Date Unknown (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
2. White House

FILE: Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA - Date Unknown (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
3. Various of buildings, students on Harvard University campus

USA - June 4, 2025 (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Liu Xinyi, Harvard University student from China (partially overlaid with shot 5):
"Questions about the visas, and academic standing, and even personal safety have become far more urgent. And for the students here, I know some of my friends are also considering transfer to other universities or contacting the labs in Hong Kong. So we're also seeking some backup plans. And along with this disruption of the studies, and we are now just worrying about the future career, and there's a lot of plans being disrupted, like maybe it's not able (possible) to work in the United States anymore as international students."

++SHOTS OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++
FILE: Boston, Massachusetts, USA - Date Unknown (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
5. Various of buildings, students on campus of Harvard University, university's flag
++SHOTS OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++

FILE: Denver, Colorado, USA - July 24, 2020 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
6. Various of students on campus

Hong Kong, China - June 4, 2025 (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Mallie Prytherch, Assistant to Director, Center for Contemporary China and the World, University of Hong Kong:
"Most of the international students in the United States are graduate students. And some of them may spend 8 to 10 years doing a PhD. They may uproot their whole families to go to the United States, and they may put eight years of their life into research that's funded and then be told, 'Oh, you must leave. You must take your family. And also your research belongs to us, because it's funded by the government. So you can't even have that.' So there is a bit of anxiety among people who are considering studying in the U.S. They're looking other places, not just Hong Kong, but Europe as well."

FILE: New Jersey, USA - June 6, 2024 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
8. Aerial shot of campus

Hong Kong, China - June 4, 2025 (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Mallie Prytherch, Assistant to Director, Center for Contemporary China and the World, University of Hong Kong (starting with shot 8):
"It's going to affect small universities more than it will affect large ones like Harvard. Harvard University has a large endowment, and they've been able to use that to push back against the demands of the Trump administration. But a lot of smaller colleges, especially smaller liberal arts universities, depend very heavily on foreign student tuition for their funding. And if they couldn't enroll foreign students or specifically Chinese students even, many of them may have to close. So this really restricts the power of the educational lobby and the power of educational institutions in the United States."

FILE: New Jersey, USA - June 6, 2024 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
10. Various of signs of Kean University, fountain

FILE: Los Angeles, USA - May 2024 (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
11. Various of students on campus of University of California Los Angeles

Washington, D.C., USA - June 4, 2025 (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Klaus Larres, Richard M Krasno Distinguished Professor of History and International Affairs, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (starting with shot 11):
"It is clearly a self-defeating policy. It robs the United States of very good talent from all over the world, including China, but also from Europe, from many other countries and continents. And it is really very regrettable. It will have serious consequences for American science and academia in the long run."

FILE: Washington D.C., USA - March 14, 2020 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
13. Capitol Hill
14. Washington Monument

The Trump administration's decision to revoke visas for some Chinese students is a self-defeating policy and has disrupted plans for studies and future careers, agreed U.S. international students, university faculty and global experts in interviews with CGTN on Wednesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that the Trump administration will "aggressively" revoke the visas of Chinese students, and that criteria will also be revised to "enhance scrutiny" of future visa applicants from China and China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Liu Xinyi, a Chinese student at Harvard University, said she and many like her are now reformulating their academic trajectories in the wake of the announcement.

"Questions about the visas, and academic standing, and even personal safety have become far more urgent. And for the students here, I know some of my friends are also considering transfer to other universities or contacting the labs in Hong Kong. So we're also seeking some backup plans. And along with this disruption of the studies, and we are now just worrying about the future career, and there's a lot of plans being disrupted, like maybe it's not able (possible) to work in the United States anymore as international students," said Liu.

According to experts, the Trump administration's move sends a message to prospective students all over the world who may consider studying in the U.S. that their right to continue studying in the country may be revoked at any time without cause.

"Most of the international students in the United States are graduate students. And some of them may spend 8 to 10 years doing a PhD. They may uproot their whole families to go to the United States, and they may put eight years of their life into research that's funded and then be told, 'Oh, you must leave. You must take your family. And also your research belongs to us, because it's funded by the government. So you can't even have that.' So there is a bit of anxiety among people who are considering studying in the U.S. They're looking other places, not just Hong Kong, but Europe as well," said Mallie Prytherch, the Assistant to the Director at the Center for Contemporary China and the World at the University of Hong Kong.

Prytherch said that smaller universities in the U.S. may not be able to survive financially if the visa-revoking policy targeting Chinese students is carried through.

"It's going to affect small universities more than it will affect large ones like Harvard. Harvard University has a large endowment, and they've been able to use that to push back against the demands of the Trump administration. But a lot of smaller colleges, especially smaller liberal arts universities, depend very heavily on foreign student tuition for their funding. And if they couldn't enroll foreign students or specifically Chinese students even, many of them may have to close. So this really restricts the power of the educational lobby and the power of educational institutions in the United States," said Prytherch.

Klaus Larres, Richard M Krasno Distinguished Professor of History and International Affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the policy ultimately harms U.S. interests, despite the Trump administration's "America first" framing.

"It is clearly a self-defeating policy. It robs the United States of very good talent from all over the world, including China, but also from Europe, from many other countries and continents. And it is really very regrettable. It will have serious consequences for American science and academia in the long run," said Larres.