P O I N T O F D E PA R T U R E
STUCK IN THE MIDDLE Chinese international students find themselves in the crosshairs of collapsing US-China relations. Macrina Wang *All names with an asterisk are pseudonyms. These interviewees have requested anonymity for a variety of reasons — mainly because of uncertain U.S. visa statuses or fear of identification for political reasons.
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n March 17, Chen* began his eighteen-hour journey from New York City to Guangdong. For weeks, experts had pinpointed New York as the next COVID19 epicenter, and rumors swirled of an imminent lockdown. His parents asked him to come home. Chen made a list of pros and cons, then booked a flight set to take off from JFK a day later. Before he left the city, he emptied his Upper West Side apartment—where he’d lived for half a year as a graduate student at Columbia—leaving behind only nonessential books, clothes, and furniture, packing as if he would never return. Three months after arriving home, Chen booked a visa renewal appointment with the U.S. Embassy in Guangzhou. His F-1 visa—the student visa which had granted him a year’s stay in the U.S.—was expiring in August. Mere days before his appointment, he received an email from the U.S. Embassy, notifying him of his appointment’s cancelation. Not just his, but all immigrant and non-immigrant visa appointments at every U.S. embassy in China from June 8 through June 26 had been suspended. The reason provided by the email was limited staffing due to the
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pandemic. Chen tried to reschedule the appointment. But whenever he checked the website, no appointment slots were available for F-1 visa holders. For the past two months, he has been regularly scouring the website, looking for an opening. There have been none. He has called the U.S. Embassy three times, seeking clarity, but has received ambiguous responses each time, Embassy representatives saying it is ultimately up to American authorities. His visa expired on Friday, August 14.
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ince the first U.S. COVID-19 case was reported in late January, U.S.-China relations—already shaky from a two-year-long trade war—have only continued to deteriorate. The two powers have clashed on every significant frontier, from technology to trade, national sovereignty to human rights, and the pandemic has only amplified pre-existing tensions. Both countries have, at some point, blamed the origins of the virus on the other. President Trump’s popularization of terms like the “Chinese virus” and “Kung Flu” has also proven incendiary, as incidents of Covid-related anti-Asian racism surge worldwide. Students from both sides are getting caught in the crosshairs of the two countries’ disputes. Chen isn’t
