United States Sinophobia Tracker

Tracking paranoid rhetoric, visa restrictions, and the targeted policing of China-connected research, which combine to create a hostile atmosphere for Chinese people in the U.S.

About This Page

“Faculty members, post-docs, research staff and students tell me that, in their dealings with government agencies, they now feel unfairly scrutinized, stigmatized and on edge – because of their Chinese ethnicity alone.”

—MIT President L. Rafael Reif, June 25, 2019.

Since early 2018, the American immigration and justice system has appeared to target Chinese students, and ethnically Chinese researchers, with paranoid rhetoric, visa restrictions, and targeted policing and politicization of China-connected research. Together, these three trends comprise the primary — but not only — components of the current atmosphere of suspicion and distrust in America of not just Beijing, but Chinese people as a whole.

This tool tracks rising Sinophobia in the U.S. Click on the filters to view different categories of Sinophobia-related developments, including Responses to Sinophobia, like the letter by the MIT President cited above.

Read about why SupChina launched this Sinophobia Tracker, in the words of our Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Goldkorn.

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Responses to Sinophobia

I was arrested under the DOJ’s China Initiative. Congress must investigate the program.

An op-ed by Chén Gāng 陈刚, the MIT professor whom the U.S. Department of Justice dropped all charges against, a year after accusing him of failing to disclose ties to China. In his opinion piece, Chen describes his time under investigation as “a living hell,” calls the China Initiative “terribly misguided,” and says that there were “critical mistakes on the part of the FBI, federal prosecutors, and other federal investigative agencies” that need to be reviewed “by Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice to hold individuals accountable for this glaring misconduct.”

January 21, 2022 Boston Globe

Responses to Sinophobia

As U.S. Hunts for Chinese Spies, University Scientists Warn of Backlash

“A chilling effect has taken hold on American campuses,” the New York Times reports in the aftermath of the prosecution and acquittal of nanotechnology professor Hú Ānmíng 胡安明 of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Hu told the NYT that the trial was “the darkest time of my life,” adding, “My basic human rights were invaded, my reputation was destroyed, my heart was deeply hurt, my family was hurt.” Scientists and university administrators say that the U.S. government targeting of ethnic Chinese scientists “has slowed research and contributed to a flow of talent out of the United States that may benefit Beijing.”

November 28, 2021 New York Times

Responses to Sinophobia

Stanford professors urge U.S. to end program looking for Chinese spies in academia

"The 'China Initiative' launched in late 2018 aimed to prevent U.S. technology theft by China but has since 'deviated significantly from its claimed mission,' according to the Sept. 8 letter, which was signed by 177 Stanford faculty members and made public by them on Monday [September 13]."

September 13, 2021 Reuters

Responses to Sinophobia

Gang Chen’s case should be the end of the DOJ’s ‘China Initiative’

Maggie Lewis, a Professor of Law at Seton Hall University, responds to the indictment of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Gang Chen, arguing that the case "underscores two major concerns with the [Department of Justice's] China Initiative: an over-emphasis on national security and an under-emphasis on bias."

January 26, 2021

Responses to Sinophobia

Ghosts of Communists past

Tianyu M. Fang reports for SupChina that Yáng Jiànlì 杨建利, a prominent Chinese human rights activist, has been denied U.S. citizenship because he used to be a Communist Party member in the 1980s until he joined in the 1989 Tiananmen protests. Fang concludes, "The lesson here, perhaps, is to recognize the layered complexities and deep contradictions in the politics of Chinese individuals rather than inciting lazy Sinophobia and loyalty tests."

January 19, 2021 SupChina

Responses to Sinophobia

U.S. probes of Chinese researchers draw more organized opposition

"The Justice Department’s effort to prosecute some Chinese researchers in the U.S. accused of hiding their ties to the Chinese government is facing increasing pushback from some academics and Chinese-American groups."

October 1, 2020 Wall Street Journal