"Researchers" aren't exactly your typical students though. They contribute a huge amount to the IP developed within a country.

PhD students do a lot a the grunt work that more famous people get most of the credit for.

> They contribute a huge amount to the IP developed within a country.

And can willingly, or under coercion by their home government (We'll put your parents in prison, rape your mother, have you stabbed in the street), hand over every last bit of data they have access to on any project(s). Considering most decent educational institutions receive mountains of defense department money and have all sorts of government-involved research projects for all sorts of emerging technologies that have anything remotely approaching intelligence community or military applications... I can see why we'd want to crack down, purely for opsec reasons, on students coming from a country that is most likely going to overtly be our enemy sometime in the near to mid-term future.

But seriously, why would a Chinese student, born, raised and educated in China, be loyal to USA because he studied here for x years? USA and China are heading to a collision of sorts, China would not trust thousands of US born students and researchers in high positions.

This is the kind of approach to things that I tend to associate with the global non-denominational death cult.

That's an over-generalization. No country is one entity in the context of "what it thinks".

Well, someone makes that decision. Today is Trump and his advisers (if he listens to anyone :)) and Congress. No polls or votes are taken on things like banning Chinese students or not.

Frankly, I don't think we should educate anyone that goes back to a hostile country. China is rising, and that can cause a lot of problems for us, see China Sea for one. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/03/china-army-colonel-says-beij...

The genius of American policy.

Create a hostile environment for Chinese students so that they are encouraged to return home.

Then prevent them from coming at all because they may return home.

This completely ignored that the massive majority of Chinese stay in the US, and even more would stay in the US contributing disproportionately more than nearly every other grouping of people.

If it wasn't for the US driving them away, it's hard to see why any Chinese national, especially a well educated one, would ever choose to leave the US for China.

>Frankly, I don't think we should educate anyone that goes back to a hostile country. China is rising, and that can cause a lot of problems for us, see China Sea for one.

This would be an utterly disasterous policy. The only reason to enact it is if your own side is actively seeking war.

And may I note that irrespective of the overall behaviour of the two regimes, in the case of complaining about China causing problems for US interests in the China sea, the China sea is a lot nearer to China than it is to the US.

>>in the case of complaining about China causing problems for US interests in the China sea, the China sea is a lot nearer to China than it is to the US.

Trade routes over for one. Freedom of navigation is another reason. What they might go after next time is another concern. Like it or not, USA has interests and allies over there.