WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The United States will “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday in a major escalation of tensions with Beijing, and another blow to American higher education institutions.

The plan was met with strong opposition from China, which saidon Thursday it had lodged a formal protest with the US over what it called a “politically motivated and discriminatory” move.

The revocations will target Chinese students including “those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” Rubio said.

“We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong,” he said, noting that the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security would work together on the visa revocations.

The surprise announcement risks disrupting ongoing efforts by the US and China to de-escalate tensions, coming just weeks after both sides declared a 90-day truce over punishing tariffs on each other’s goods, and deepens the spiraling confrontation between President Donald Trump and the nation’s top universities.

Rubio’s comments follow a series of extraordinary steps by the Trump administration to deter foreign students from studying in the US – from ordering embassies to pause new student visa appointments to revoking Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students. (A federal judge later halted the Harvard ban.)

The latest move is set to spark consternation and outrage in China, the country of origin for almost a quarter of international students in US higher education. It’s also likely to deepen anxiety across American universities, where Chinese and other international students are a significant source of revenue.

There are signs that Beijing has been caught off guard by the announcement. For much of Thursday, China’s state-controlled media remained largely silent on the news that will significantly impact the fate of hundreds of thousands of Chinese students.

That changed when official comment eventually came from Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, who accused the US of using ideology and national security as a “pretext” for the move.

“This politically motivated and discriminatory move exposes the lie of America’s long-touted claim of being ‘free and open,’ and will only further damage the United States’ international image and national credibility,” Mao said in a regular news conference.

She added that it would harm the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese students and disrupts people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.

Fear and anger is already spreading among Chinese students studying in the US.

Candy, a statistics student at the University of Michigan, who did not want to give her full name, said she feared her visa would be canceled before she graduates.

“Ending up with only a high school diploma is something I dread,” she said from China, where she’s visiting family. “I pray to make it through my undergraduate study safely and smoothly.”

“When I first heard the news, I wanted to curse Trump.”

A pipeline of talent

For decades, American universities have attracted some of China’s brightest minds. Seen as a path to a prestigious education and better career opportunities, US colleges have drawn Chinese students from middle-class families as well as the political and business elites. Many Chinese officials have sent their children to American schools, including leader Xi Jinping, whose daughter Xi Mingze studied at Harvard under a pseudonym.

Some top Chinese officials have been educated in the US themselves. Liu He, Xi’s former economic tsar, obtained a MPA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in the 1990s; Wang Huning, the Chinese Communist Party’s ideology guru, was a visiting scholar at the University of Iowa in the 1980s.

“Many of China’s officials, entrepreneurs, and scientists — especially those who played key roles during the era of reform and opening-up — received their training in the US,” said Zichen Wang, a research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, a non-government think tank in Beijing.

“When they returned to China, they brought back not only professional knowledge and credentials, but also a deep respect and admiration for America as an open and inclusive society,” he said.

Student exchanges have been a key constant in the ebb and flow of US-China relations — ties that are now increasingly defined by growing geopolitical rivalry that has fueled an ongoing trade and tech war.

China was the top source of international students in the US for 15 straight years until it was surpassed by India just last year, according to figures from Open Doors, a State Department-backed database tracking international student enrollment.

After decades of growth, the number of Chinese students in the US reached a peak of over 372,000 in the 2019-2020 school year, before declining to more than 270,000 in the 2023-2024 year – a drop that coincides with the Covid-19 pandemic but also increasing friction between the two governments.

The number of American students in China is much smaller, plunging from more than 10,000 to the low hundreds during the pandemic. In the 2023-2024 academic year, an estimated 800 American students were enrolled in China, according to the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

Even as relations plummeted, Chinese officials have repeatedly underscored the important role of people-to-people exchanges in stabilizing fractured ties.

During a visit to San Francisco in November 2023, Xi said China was ready to invite50,000 American students to China over the next five years. In June last year, the Chinese leader again called for more exchanges between Chinese and American universities to boost mutual understanding.

Now, the Trump administration’s move to revoke Chinese student visas risks further undermining an already fragile bilateral relationship, said Wang, the researcher who recently graduated from a master’s program at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

“Despite numerous challenges in bilateral relations, student exchanges remain one of the few genuine and impactful areas of engagement between the two countries,” he said. “The fact that an announcement like this comes at a time when mutual trust between China and the US is at a historic low is, in my view, quite saddening.”

Growing concerns

On Tuesday the US State Department instructed American embassies and consulates worldwide to pause new student visa appointments as it moves to expand “social media screening and vetting” to all applicants of student visas.

The following day a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry said the country is following the development, and urged the US to “protect the lawful and legitimate rights and interests of all international students, including those from China.”

Rubio’s statement on Wednesday did not specify what are the “critical fields,” but there has been long-standing concern in Washington about Chinese academics accessing sensitive and military-applicable American technology.

To crack down on the perceived threat of Chinese students conducting espionage on US soil, Trump introduced a ban during his first term that effectively prevented graduates in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields from Chinese universities believed to be linked to the military from gaining visas to the US.

His first administration also launched the now defunct China Initiative, a national security program intended to thwart China’s intelligence activities in the US, including those aimed at stealing emerging technology from research universities.

The program, which drew comparisons to the anti-Communism “red scare” of the 1950s, was cancelled by the Biden administration after facing widespread blowback for what was seen as overreach and complaints that it fueled suspicion and bias against innocent Chinese Americans.

It’s also unclear how US officials will define students “with connections to the Chinese Communist Party” which is ubiquitous across China and boasts 99 million members. As a result, many Chinese students could have parents or relatives who are party members or work in the vast state-owned sector.

“If you count in all the friends and relatives, it wouldn’t be farfetched to say that almost everyone is somehow linked to the Communist Party in China,” Wang said.

This story has been updated with additional details.

CNN’s Cynthia Chan and Simone McCarthy contributed to this report.

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