In 1987, when Haipei Shue arrived in the United States as a student, he recalls receiving the warmest of welcomes. He was a graduate student in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

薛海培记得，他1987年来美国留学时受到了最热烈的欢迎。当时他是威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校社会学系的一名研究生。

“People were curious about us, inviting us to their homes, wanting to be friends,” Mr. Shue said on Thursday, describing an openness that defined his early years in a country then seen by many in China as a beacon of opportunity.

“人们对我们充满好奇，邀请我们去家里做客，想和我们交朋友，”薛海培上周四接受采访时说道。在那个许多中国人视美国为机遇灯塔的年代，这种开放态度是他早年在这个国家生活的鲜明写照。

“It was an extraordinary time,” he said.

“那是个非凡的年代，”他说。

That era of academic exchange between China and the United States, beginning in the 1970s under President Jimmy Carter as a form of soft power diplomacy, now stands in sharp contrast to the Trump administration’s recent stance toward the country.

这段始于上世纪70年代卡特总统时期的中美学术交流曾是美国软实力外交的重要体现，与现在特朗普政府的对华政策构成了鲜明的对比。

The administration announced this week that it would aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students with ties to the Chinese Communist Party or for those studying in broadly defined “critical fields.” The administration also plans to enhance vetting of future applicants for student visas, including looking at social media posts.

上周，美国政府宣布将“大力撤销”与中国共产党有关联或在宽泛定义的“关键领域”学习的中国学生的签证。政府还计划在未来加强对学生签证申请者的审查力度，包括审查他们的社交媒体记录。

Those policies promise to reduce the number of students from China coming to the United States, who have been a fixture on American university campuses for decades. In 2024, there were roughly 277,000 students.

这些政策势必将缩减中国赴美留学生的规模。数十年来，他们已经成了美国校园的一部分，在2024年，有大约27.7万名中国学生在美国留学。

The Trump administration says China exploits U.S. universities to bolster its military and technological capabilities. And Trump officials argue that some Chinese students may pose risks of espionage and technology theft.

特朗普政府指控中国利用美国高校增强其军事与科技实力。政府官员们更是声称部分中国学生可能构成了间谍活动与技术盗窃的风险。

“We are using every tool at our disposal to know who wants to enter this country and whether they should be allowed in,” Tammy Bruce, a State Department spokeswoman, said. “Every visa adjudication is a national security decision.”

美国国务院发言人塔米·布鲁斯表示：“我们正在利用我们所能利用的一切工具了解谁想进入这个国家，以及他们是否应该被允许进入。每一次签证裁决都是国家安全决定。”

To Mr. Shue, 64, now president of United Chinese Americans, a Washington D.C.-based civic group, the policy change stirs profound disappointment. His journey to the United States in the late 1980s was emblematic of a period of increasing friendliness between the two superpowers.

对于现年64岁、华盛顿特区的公民团体美国华人联盟会长的薛海培来说，政策转向让人深感失望。他在20世纪80年代末来美的经历恰是中美两个超级大国关系升温期的缩影。

Mr. Shue recalled the generosity of Americans. David Scott, a wealthy businessman with ties to the Reagan administration, funded his education through a foundation. That period, Mr. Shue remembered, was characterized by the bipartisan embrace of Chinese students, culminating in the Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992, which granted legal residency to thousands of Chinese students in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

薛海培回忆起美国人的慷慨。与里根政府关系密切的富商戴维·斯科特通过一个基金会对他的学业进行了资助。他说那是两党共同接纳中国学生的时代，最终催生了1992年的《中国学生保护法》，该法案在天安门广场大屠杀之后赋予数以千计的中国学生合法居留身份。

“It was overwhelming support and care and concern,” said Mr. Shue, who helped push for the legislation and has long advocated easing China’s authoritarian rule and increased freedom within the country.

“当时我们获得的支持、关怀与关心让我们感动不已，”薛海培说。他曾帮助推动这项立法，并长期倡导放松中国的威权统治，增加国内自由。

Mr. Shue expressed dismay at the Trump administration’s actions, viewing them as a betrayal of the U.S.’s image as a “beacon for humanity.”

薛海培对特朗普政府的举措感到痛心，认为这背叛了美国作为“人类灯塔”的形象。

The history of Chinese students in America is long and complex, dating back to the 1850s, when Yung Wing of Yale College became the first Chinese student to graduate from an American university. As Robert Kapp, a retired historian of China and former president of the U.S.-China Business Council, explained, early students sought Western knowledge to modernize China.

中国学生赴美留学的历史悠久而复杂，可追溯至19世纪50年代，当时耶鲁学院的容闳成为首位从美国大学毕业的中国学生。正如研究中国问题的退休历史学家、美中贸易全国委员会前主席罗伯特·卡普所解释的，早期留学生寻求学习西方知识以推动中国的现代化进程。

The normalization of U.S.-China relations in the 1970s under President Richard M. Nixon and China’s premier, Zhou Enlai, ushered in a new era of academic exchange. Later, China agreed to send thousands of students to the U.S., a number that later swelled to hundreds of thousands annually.

20世纪70年代，理查德·米尔豪斯·尼克松总统和中国总理周恩来推动下的中美关系正常化开启了学术交流的新纪元。随后，中国同意向美国派遣数千名学生，这一数字后来逐年增长至每年数十万。

President Carter, Dr. Kapp recalled, “said, ‘Why don’t you send some students to the United States?’”

卡普回忆称，卡特总统曾说：“你们为何不派些学生来美国呢？”

And, he said, Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader, responded, “‘Well, how about 10,000?’ — it went from there.”

他还提到，中国领导人邓小平回应道：“那1万名如何？”——故事就此开始了。

For China, it was a crucial step in the country’s modernization. For the U.S., welcoming China’s students was a form of soft power.

对中国而言，这是国家现代化进程中的关键一步；对美国而言，接纳中国学生是一种软实力的体现。

The 1980s and 1990s witnessed a surge of talented Chinese students, many of whom have made significant contributions to American academia, business, science and technology. And the makeup of the Chinese student population at American universities shifted as well, from primarily graduate students in the 1980s to a growing number of undergraduates today.

20世纪80至90年代，大批才华横溢的中国学生赴美，其中许多人对美国的学术、商业及科技领域做出了重要贡献。与此同时，美国大学中中国学生的构成也发生了变化：从20世纪 80年代以研究生为主，到如今本科生数量不断增加。

“Opening up education was important for establishing ties, for building bridges,” said Professor David Bachman, an international relations expert at the University of Washington.

华盛顿大学国际关系专家大卫·巴赫曼教授表示：“教育开放对建立联系、搭建桥梁至关重要。”

But now, he said, “I can imagine that there’ll be very few Chinese students here in 10 years,” he said.

但他接着说：“我可以想见，十年后这里的中国学生将寥寥无几。”

And vice versa. As geopolitical tension between the U.S. and China ramped up during the Covid pandemic, the number of American scholars studying in China fell to fewer than 1,000 in 2024 from about 11,000 in 2019, said Rosie Levine, executive director of the U.S.-China Education Trust.

反之亦然。美中教育信托基金执行董事罗西·莱文指出，随着新冠疫情期间中美地缘政治紧张局势加剧，美国在华留学的学者数量已从2019年的约1.1万人降至2024年的不足1000人。

President Trump’s latest move, Ms. Levine said, may lead Beijing to retaliate, too, further limiting the number of American students in China — and with it, she said, the United States’ overall understanding of a critical global power.

莱文称，特朗普总统的最新举措可能导致北京采取反制措施，进一步限制美国在华学生数量。她认为，这将削弱美国对这个关键全球大国的整体认知。

While acknowledging the need to address security threats, she said that U.S. policies need nuance.

在承认需应对安全威胁的同时，她强调美国政策需要讲究策略。

“These policies are so broad,” she said, “that they don’t give U.S. officers the ability to effectively distinguish between individuals who pose security risks and those who are just genuinely seeking educational opportunities.”

她说道：“这些政策覆盖面太广了，以至于美国官员无法有效区分那些构成安全风险的个体和那些纯粹寻求教育机会的人。”

Ms. Levine said she believed that the administration’s focus on ties to the Chinese Communist Party also raised questions about the new vetting procedures.

莱文表示，她认为政府对与中国共产党关系的关注也让新的审查程序备受质疑。

“There’s 99 million CCP members in China,” she said. “Working for the Communist Party or being a member of the Communist Party is a really poor determinant of someone’s intentions.”

“中国有9900万名共产党员，”她说，“为共产党工作或成为共产党员，根本无法作为判断一个人意图的依据。”

For Mr. Shue, the moment is personal. After the Trump administration’s announcement, he found himself unable to sleep, mulling the contrast between the United States of four decades ago and the nation he lives in today.

对薛海培而言，这关乎个人感受。特朗普政府发布声明后，他辗转难眠，反复思索四十年前的美国与如今他所生活的国家之间的反差。

“It’s something I can barely wrap my head around,” he continued. “How did we deteriorate to this point where foreign students, especially those from China, are viewed as a potential liability rather than assets?”

“这让我几乎无法理解，”他继续说道，“情况怎么会恶化到这个地步——外国学生，尤其是中国学生，被视为潜在的负担而非财富？”