The F.B.I. has spent decades investigating some professors and students from China suspected of using their studies to secretly spy for their home country. As the Trump administration tries a new, more aggressive effort to stop such activity, experts fear it will do more harm than good for American research.

数十年来，联邦调查局一直在对一些来自中国的教授和学生展开调查，他们涉嫌利用所学知识为自己的祖国秘密从事间谍活动。随着特朗普政府试图以更积极的新举措来阻止此类间谍活动，专家们担心，这对美国的科研事业带来弊大于利的影响。

The plans the State Department announced this past week to revoke visas of some Chinese college students strike even some former spy-hunters as a heavy-handed attempt to solve a more complicated problem.

国务院上周宣布将撤销部分中国学生签证，就连一些前反间谍官员也认为，这种粗暴手段根本无助于解决一个本质上更为复杂的问题。

“The overall number of People’s Republic of China students that actually pose some type of national security risk is relatively low compared to the number of students that will continue to support and further U.S. research,” said Greg Milonovich, a former F.B.I. agent who managed the counterintelligence division’s academic alliance program as well as the national security higher education advisory board.

“与那些将继续支持和推进美国科学研究的学生人数相比，真正构成某种国家安全风险的中华人民共和国学生总数相对较低，”前FBI特工格雷格·米洛诺维奇说道，他曾管理反情报部门的学术联盟项目和国家安全高等教育咨询委员会。

In announcing the move late Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave few specifics, offering only that the U.S. government would “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”

周三晚些时候宣布这一举措时，国务卿鲁比奥没有给出具体细节，只是表示美国政府将“大力吊销中国学生的签证，包括那些与中国共产党有联系或在关键领域学习的学生”。

How that vaguely defined standard will be enforced is not yet clear, but the directive is part of a broad campaign by the Trump administration to force major changes in American higher education. College campuses, administration officials say, are in crisis, and only the federal government is willing and able to fix the problems.

这个定义模糊的标准将如何执行尚不清楚，但该指令是特朗普政府广泛行动的一部分，旨在推动美国高等教育进行重大改革。政府官员说，大学校园正处于危机之中，只有联邦政府有意愿也有能力解决这些问题。

The senior White House adviser Stephen Miller outlined on Friday what the administration viewed as a threat to its interests. “We’re not going to be awarding visas to individuals who have a risk of being engaged in any form of malign conduct in the United States, which of course would include espionage, theft of trade secrets, theft of technology or other actions that would degrade the security of our industrial base,” he said.

白宫高级顾问斯蒂芬·米勒周五阐述了政府认为对其利益的威胁。他说：“我们不会向那些有可能在美国从事任何形式的恶意行为的人发放签证，这当然包括间谍活动、窃取商业机密、窃取技术或其他会损害我们工业基础安全的行为。”

Some 277,000 students from China attended school in the United States last year, second only to the number of students from India. Federal authorities have long grappled with the challenge of trying to prevent individuals from within that large group from stealthily siphoning critical technology or expertise to Chinese companies or government officials.

去年，约有27.7万名中国学生在美国上学，规模仅次于印度留学生。长期以来，联邦当局一直在努力应对一项挑战：如何阻止这个庞大群体中的个人偷偷地为中国公司或政府官员窃取关键技术或专业知识。

Mr. Milonovich said that American officials had long worried about the risks posed by some Chinese students but that the administration’s most recent push would ultimately harm the advancement of U.S. technology.

米洛诺维奇说，美国官员长期以来一直担心一些中国学生带来的风险，但政府最近的努力最终会损害美国科技的进步。

Some students arrive in the United States with pre-existing affiliations with Chinese government and intelligence agencies, while “many others are contacted, recruited or co-opted while they are in the U.S. studying,” he said.

他说，一些来到美国的学生本来与中国政府和情报机构已有联系，而“其他许多人是在美国学习期间被接触、招募或收买的”。

The authorities say that is what happened when Yanqing Ye came to study science at Boston University. Ms. Ye, according to an indictment unsealed in 2020, was a lieutenant in the Chinese Army before she arrived in the United States, and as a student in Boston, she continued to carry out assignments for her Chinese superior officers, sending American documents and information to China.

当局说，叶延庆（音）来波士顿大学学习科学时就是如此。根据2020年解封的一份起诉书，叶延庆在来美国之前是中国陆军中尉，在波士顿上学期间，她继续为她的中国上级军官执行任务，向中国发送美国文件和情报。

Still, Mr. Milonovich added, given that the United States employs “tremendous numbers” of scientific and technological experts originally from China or other foreign countries, “we need this continued pipeline of intellect and skill.”

不过，米洛诺维奇补充说，鉴于美国雇用了“大量”来自中国或其他国家的科技专家，“我们需要这种持续的智力和技能输送渠道”。

Peter Zeidenberg, a lawyer who has defended college professors accused or suspected of economic espionage, said that the administration had yet to articulate the national security danger it is trying to avoid, but that it had already succeeded in scaring talented people away from the United States.

律师彼得·泽登伯格曾为被指控或涉嫌从事经济间谍活动的大学教授辩护，他说，政府尚未明确说明它试图防范的国家安全危险，但已成功将众多人才拒于美国门外。

“This is a self-defeating and self-destructive strategy, if you can call it a strategy,” he said. “These students fill our labs and they perform all the research. They’re some of the smartest, most talented scientists in America and I have no idea how these labs are going to operate without them.”

“这是一种弄巧成拙、自我毁灭的战略，如果能被称之为战略的话，”他说。“这些学生充实了我们的实验室，承担了大量的科研工作。他们是美国最聪明、最有才华的科学家群体，我难以想象，如果没有他们，这些实验室将如何运作。”

F.B.I. officials have long argued that China is engaged in a relentless and far-reaching effort to steal as much scientific expertise as it can from the United States, to benefit Chinese companies and markets. National security officials say that while much of that suspicious activity occurs in the business world, a great deal also goes on among college researchers. To counter that threat, federal agents have for years delivered classified briefings to select college officials, and broader warnings to colleges generally.

FBI的官员们长期以来一直认为，中国正不遗余力、大范围地从美国窃取尽可能多的科学专业知识，使中国的公司和市场从中受益。国家安全官员说，虽然大部分可疑活动发生在商界，但高校研究领域同样问题严重。为了应对这种威胁，联邦特工多年来一直向部分大学官员提供机密简报，并向高校发出更广泛的警告。

While those efforts have produced a significant number of tips and criminal cases, they also have elicited some controversy and distrust between educators and investigators.

尽管这些努力产生了大量的线索和刑事案件，但也引起了争议，在教育工作者和调查人员之间引发了不信任。

In 2018, the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, faulted what he called the “naïveté” of some college administrators toward the danger posed by Chinese students, teachers, and researchers.

2018年，联邦调查局局长克里斯托弗·雷批评一些高校管理人员对中国学生、教师和研究人员所构成的危险“太天真”。

“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 F.B.I. has around the country,” he said.

“非常规情报收集者的使用，特别是在学术环境下——无论是教授、科学家还是学生——我们在联邦调查局遍布全国的几乎所有外勤办公室都能看到这种现象，”他在讲话中指出。

That year, the Justice Department began what it called the China Initiative, to crack down on trade secret theft, including at universities.

那一年，司法部启动了所谓的“中国行动计划”，旨在打击包括大学在内的商业秘密窃取行为。

Most of the criminal cases that emerged from the initiative focused on professors rather than students. Yet not all of those indictments won convictions in court, and critics accused federal prosecutors and agents of casting a cynical eye at people of Chinese descent. In the face of such criticism, the Biden administration shuttered the initiative in 2022, though it continued to investigate possible crimes by Chinese academics.

该行动中出现的大多数刑事案件集中在教授而非学生身上。然而，并非所有这些指控都能在法庭上被定罪，批评者指责联邦检察官和特工对华裔人士抱有偏见。面对这样的批评，拜登政府在2022年停止了该计划，但仍继续调查中国学者可能犯下的罪行。

The security concerns around Chinese students did not disappear, and in fact go back decades. In 1998, a congressional report warned that the F.B.I. “has inadequate resources in light of the extensive numbers” of visitors from China, including “students, diplomats, business representatives and others who may be involved in intelligence and military-related technology transfer operations in the United States.”

对中国留学生的安全担忧并没有消失，实际上，它可以追溯到几十年前。1998年，一份国会的研究报告就曾警告说，鉴于来自中国的访美人员“数量庞大”，包括“学生、外交官、商业代表和其他可能参与美国情报和军事相关技术转移行动的人”，FBI“资源不足”。

Current and former officials have said that the resources to monitor and investigate possible student spies only face further strain given the administration’s focus on immigration. It has pressed hundreds of F.B.I. agents into duty backing up Department of Homeland Security agents seeking to apprehend and deport undocumented immigrants.

现任和前任官员均表示，在政府将大量资源投入移民执法的背景下，用于监控和调查潜在学生间谍的执法力量正面临进一步的压力。数百名FBI特工已经被抽调到国土安全部，协助执行逮捕和驱逐非法移民的任务。