Beijing backs Yale stance on foreign students, rips US actions

China said it was “very regrettable” that the U.S. and some American institutions have imposed restrictions on humanities exchanges, after Yale University’s president pledged support for international students amid growing tensions between the two countries.

Personnel and cultural exchange “should not be politicized and interfered with,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a briefing in Beijing yesterday. “This is inconsistent with the aspirations of the two peoples and has caused widespread concern among the academic circles of China and the United States and all sectors of society.”

Lu was responding to a question about an open letter Yale president Peter Salovey sent to students and faculty last week affirming the Ivy League school’s “steadfast commitment” to its foreign talent. U.S. concerns about technology and intellectual property theft by China have been at the center of the deepening trade war between the two countries.

“In recent weeks, tensions in United States–China relations and increased scrutiny of academic exchanges have added to a sense of unease among many international students and scholars here at Yale and at universities across the country,” he wrote.

Salovey’s letter came as Emory University terminated two Chinese-American professors, Li Xiao-Jiang and his wife Li Shihua, for failing to disclose ties to China.

The couple, professors of human genetics at Emory’s School of Medicine, didn’t disclose research funding from China and their work for Chinese universities while receiving federal grants, the Atlanta college said last week.

Emory said it began an investigation in response to a letter sent to U.S. universities from the National Institutes of Health raising concerns about foreign influence on research. Karen Leigh & Dandan Li, Bloomberg