In the hours after the Trump administration announced that it would begin “aggressively” revoking the visas of Chinese students, the line to apply for new visas at the United States Embassy in Beijing still stretched down the block on Thursday.

在特朗普政府宣布将“积极寻求”撤销中国学生签证数小时后，周四在北京的美国大使馆外，申请新签证的队伍仍然排得很长。

But for many of the hopefuls — including some who walked out of the embassy with their visa applications approved — any celebration was laced with a mix of anxiety and helplessness.

但对许多满怀希望的申请者——包括一些走出大使馆成功获签的申请者而言，任何庆祝都夹杂着焦虑和无助。

“What now? Something new every day?” said Li Kunze, 18, who had just successfully applied for a visa to study as an undergraduate. He had not heard the news until he left the embassy. “I don’t even know if they can give me this visa that I just got.”

“下一步怎么办？每天都有新情况？”现年18岁的李昆泽（音）说，他申请的留美读本科的学生签证刚刚获批。他离开大使馆才听到这个消息。“我甚至不知道他们是否能把我刚拿到的签证发给我。”

He sighed. Since it was too late to apply elsewhere for his undergraduate years, “I can only brace myself,” said Mr. Li, who plans to study applied mathematics. But, “in the future, if I can avoid going to the United States to study, I will. They make people too scared.”

他叹了口气。因为现在申请去其他国家读本科为时已晚，“我只能做好准备，”打算攻读应用数学的李昆泽说。但是，“未来能不去美国留学就尽量不去。他们也太吓人了。”

The scene outside the embassy captured the complicated feelings many Chinese students have toward studying in the United States. Hundreds of thousands still go each year, lured by the promise of a world-class education. Some also have deep admiration for America’s professed values of openness and diversity.

大使馆外的这个场景捕获到了许多中国学生对赴美留学的复杂感情。每年仍有数十万中国学生去美国读书，吸引他们的是世界一流教育的诱惑。有些人也深深向往美国宣称的开放和多元价值观。

But they must reckon with the fact — made clearer by the Trump administration every day — that many in the United States may not share that admiration.

但他们必须考虑一个特朗普政府每天都在明确的事实，那就是许多在美国的人也许并不认同那种钦佩。

Even before the announcement by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the United States would begin revoking student visas, Chinese students and their families were uncertain about their prospects for studying in America. Two days earlier, Mr. Rubio had ordered a pause on new interviews for student and exchange visas.

甚至在美国国务卿马可·鲁比奥宣布美国将开始撤销学生签证之前，中国留学生和他们的家人对赴美学习的前景感到不确定。两天前，鲁比奥已下令暂停新的学生和交流签证面签预约。

哥伦比亚大学上周的毕业典礼。目前有数十万中国学生在美国读书。

Chinese students have been singled out before. In 2020, during his first term, President Trump issued a proclamation banning students from certain Chinese universities from graduate study in the United States, alleging that those universities had ties to China’s military. The parameters of that proclamation, which is still in effect, were vague, but it has been used mostly to deny visas to people in fields such as the physical sciences, engineering and computer science, according to researchers.

中国留学生以前也曾被当作针对性目标。2020年，在特朗普的首个任期内，他曾发公告禁止从某些中国大学毕业的学生来美国攻读研究生学位，称这些大学与中国军方有联系。虽然该范围界定模糊的公告目前仍有效，但据研究人员说，该公告主要是用于拒发读物理类科学、工程学、计算机科学等学科的学生签证。

But the effect of the earlier measure was relatively limited, resulting in the revocations or denials of about 3,000 visas between 2020 and 2021, according to U.S. government data.

但以前这个措施的影响有限，据美国政府的数据，从2020年至2021年间，这仅导致约3000份签证被撤销或拒签。

It is unclear what the scope of the new revocations will be, but they are likely to be much more far-reaching. Mr. Rubio’s order said only that they would include “those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party” or “studying in critical fields.”

目前尚不清楚新规波及的范围，但其影响可能更为深远。鲁比奥的命令只是说，将被撤销的签证是那些发给“与中国共产党有联系”或“在关键领域学习”的人。

As Chinese students were digesting the announcement, the response from Chinese officials was relatively muted.

在中国学生还在消化这个公告的同时，中国官员们的反应相对克制。

Asked at a regularly scheduled news conference on Thursday about the move, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry said that the United States was “using ideology and national security as an excuse” to harm Chinese students.

中国外交部发言人在周四的例行记者会上被问及对此事的看法时说，美国“以意识形态和国家安全为借口，无理取消中国留学生签证，严重损害中国留学生的合法权益”。

“This politically discriminatory practice by the U.S. side exposes the lie of the so-called ‘freedom and openness’ that the U.S. has always advertised,” the spokeswoman, Mao Ning said, adding that China had communicated its displeasure to the Americans.

发言人毛宁说，“美方这一政治性、歧视性做法，戳穿了美国一贯标榜的所谓自由开放谎言”，还说，中国已向美国表达了不满。

In other disputes with the United States, the Chinese government has often been quick to retaliate — imposing reciprocal tariffs on the United States, for example, or expelling American journalists after Mr. Trump ejected Chinese ones during his first term.

在与美国的其他争端中，中国政府通常很快采取报复做法，例如，对美国征收对等关税，或在特朗普上个任期里驱逐了中国记者后，也驱逐了美国记者。

But on the question of international students, China has little leverage. In 2024, there were only about 800 American students in China, a number that reflects many Americans’ lingering fears of visiting China, especially after its three years of lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic. (In 2019, there were around 11,000 American students.)

但在留学生问题上，中国几乎没有任何筹码。2024年在中国读书的美国学生人数只有800人左右，这一数字反映出许多美国人对访问中国的持续担忧，尤其是中国在新冠病毒大流行期间实行了三年封控措施后。（2019年在中国读书的美国学生约为1.1万人。）

杜克大学和武汉大学在中国的联合办学项目——昆山杜克大学。2024年在中国读书的美国学生人数仅为800名左右。

Beijing would probably be reluctant to use those remaining students as bargaining chips, said Denis Simon, the former executive vice chancellor of Duke Kunshan University, a partnership between Duke University and Wuhan University. China has made clear that it wants to recruit more American students to burnish its international image; China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has said that he wants 50,000 young Americans to study in China in the coming years.

中国政府可能不情愿将这些仍在中国的学生作为谈判筹码，曾任昆山杜克大学常务副校长的丹尼斯·西蒙说道，该校由杜克大学与武汉大学联合办学。中国已明确表示希望更多的美国学生来华读书，以提升自己的国际形象；中国领导人习近平表示，中国“未来5年愿邀请5万名美国青少年来华交流学习”。

Instead, Mr. Simon said, China could retaliate in unrelated ways, such as reducing cooperation with the United States on controlling the flow of fentanyl, or withholding rare earths exports.

西蒙说，中国可能会在其他无关领域进行报复，例如减少与美国在芬太尼控制方面的合作，或停止出口稀土产品。

Or perhaps, Chinese officials might see the Trump administration’s measures as so self-defeating that they feel little need to respond, said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

美国外交关系委员会高级研究员黄严忠说，中国官员也可能认为特朗普政府的措施如此之损人不利己，以至于他们觉得没必要做出回应，

Revocations would be likely to make more Chinese students choose other countries, such as Singapore or the United Kingdom, or to stay at home to study.

撤销签证的做法可能会让更多的中国学生选择去其他国家，例如新加坡或英国，或留在国内念书。

“Even if China doesn’t do anything, it would make their image, their reputation, their soft-power initiatives, more appealing,” Mr. Huang said.

“即使中国不采取任何行动，这也会让他们的形象、他们的声誉和软实力更具吸引力，”黄严忠说。

Until the 2023-24 school year, Chinese students were by far the most populous group of international students in the United States, contributing billions of dollars each year to the American economy and solidifying the country’s reputation as a magnet for global talent. Many of those students, especially at the graduate level, are in STEM fields.

截至2023-24学年，中国留学生一直是美国大学里最大的国际学生群体，每年为美国经济贡献数十亿美元，巩固了美国吸引全球人才的声誉。其中许多学生，尤其是研究生，集中在STEM专业。

美国大使馆2023年在北京组织的大学招生会。

Though the number of Chinese students has begun to decline in recent years, amid heightened U.S.-China geopolitical tensions, interest has remained strong. There were around 277,000 Chinese international students in the United States in the 2023-24 term, according to government data. In fact, applications from China for undergraduate study grew 6 percent this year, according to the Common App.

尽管近年来，由于美中地缘政治紧张局势加剧，中国留美学生的人数有所下降，但中国学生对去美国留学的兴趣依然浓厚。据政府数据，2023-24学年在美国读书的中国留学生约为27.7万名。事实上，据通用申请系统(Common App)的数据，美国大学今年收到的来自中国的读本科申请增长了6%。

“For STEM, you should definitely go to the United States, because STEM is the most developed there,” said a woman at the embassy who gave only her surname, Fan. She said she had just been approved for a visa to study computer engineering at a master’s program in Seattle.

“如果想读STEM专业的话，绝对应该去美国，因为美国的STEM专业最发达，”美国大使馆外一名只透露自己姓范的女士说。她说她的签证申请刚刚获批，将去西雅图攻读计算机工程硕士学位。

Ms. Fan said she was not worried about the Trump administration’s various assaults on American universities, and on Chinese and other international students. She pointed to the long line of other visa applicants as proof that others were still hopeful, too. “I think Trump is just a lot of noise, but not much action,” she said.

范女士说，她并不担心特朗普政府对美国高校以及中国留学生和其他国家留学生的各种打压。她指着排长队的其他签证申请者，认为这正说明大家依然抱有希望。“我认为特朗普只是空谈，没有太多的行动，”她说。

Others were less optimistic. Jason Wei had just left the embassy without being approved to return to his master’s program in electrical engineering in New York, where he still has one semester left. The embassy officer had asked him to provide more information, including his previous passport, he said.

其他人就没有这么乐观了。杰森·魏（音）刚从大使馆出来，他申请回纽约继续攻读电气工程硕士学位的签证没有获得批准，他还有最后一个学期的课要上。他说，大使馆官员要求他提供更多信息，包括他以前的护照。

Mr. Wei said he had expected the delay, as there had been a similar one when he first applied for the visa a year earlier. (He had to reapply now because he had returned to China for a summer internship.) He suspected it was related to his field of study.

魏先生说，他已预料到签证审批过程会拖延，因为一年前他第一次申请签证时也遇到过类似的情况。（因为暑假期间回中国参加一个实习项目，他现在不得不重新申请签证。）他怀疑这与他的专业有关。

“It’s up to fate,” he said. “I can’t do anything about it.”

“只能听天由命了，”他说，“我没有办法。”