8 Instances Of Chinese Nationals Arrested Across US College Campuses
Several Chinese nationals with links with American colleges and universities have been arrested in the past five years, arousing national security problems.
President Donald Trump announced on August 25 that 600,000 China students would be authorized to study in the United States. In an interview in August with the correspondent of Daily Call White, Reagan Reese, Trump said that authorizing him Chinese students to study in America is the “good thing to do”. (Linked: exclusive: Trump says that allowing Chinese students is “the right thing to do”)
He said in June that Chinese students could benefit American schools as long as they do not present security risks.
Trump’s remarks mark a clear change in the announcement of Secretary of State Marco Rubio on May 28, the United States would begin to revoke visas for certain Chinese nationals, including students related to the Chinese Communist Party or study the sensitive areas.
However, even if the president has defended the authorization of Chinese international students in American universities, several cases in the past five years reflect a wider scheme of arrested Chinese nationals, accused or detained in the United States on risks and alleged national security violations.
In recent months, several incidents have involved Chinese students and researchers in the United States has tried to pass biologically dangerous matters from China.
Chengxuan Han, Chinese citizen and doctorate. Student at the Huazhong University of Sciences and Technology in Wuhan was arrested and accused of smuggling of goods in the United States and false declarations, according to the USAO (USAO) Office for the Oriental District of Michigan.
Yesterday, @Fbidetroit Arrested a second Chinese national for organic materials traffic in the United States and lie to federal agents.
This individual is Chengxuan Han, citizen of the People’s Republic of China and doctorate. Student in Wuhan, China. Han is the third … pic.twitter.com/te4tjgtjqi
– FBI Director Kash Patel (@Fbidirectorkash) June 9, 2025
Prosecutors allegedly alleged that Han had sent four China packages in 2024 and 2025 containing concealed organic materials addressed to people related to a laboratory at the University of Michigan. When Han arrived at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on June 8, Han would have lied to customs and border protection officers (CBP) on expeditions and investigators later discovered that she had wiped her electronic devices a few days earlier.
During the interrogation, Han admitted to having sent the packages, confirmed that they contained biological equipment linked to roundworms and admitted false statements to the American authorities, according to the press release.
Zaosong Zheng, a 31-year-old Chinese national, was sentenced in January to Boston, Massachusetts, to a period, three years of supervised release and withdrawal from the United States after pleading guilty of having made false statements, according to the USAO of the Massachusetts district.
Zheng, who came to the United States on a J-1 visa to conduct cancer research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, was arrested in December 2019 at Logan airport with 19 stolen bottles of hidden biological equipment in his luggage, the press release said. He admitted that he planned to take the samples in China to conduct research and publish under his own name.
The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is affiliated with Harvard University, according to Harvard Crimson.
More recently, Gu, a 22 -year -old Chinese philosophy student went to the University of Houston on a scholarship, was detained on his arrival in Texas in August, according to a report by Associated Press (AP).
Although he allegedly had the appropriate documents and the prior study experience in the United States, he was questioned for 10 hours about the links with the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese scholarship board.
The CBP officers interviewed Gu on the members of his parents in the Chinese Communist Party, his own involvement in the League of Young Communists and mentions the Chinese Stock Exchange Council in his discussions – although he said that he had never received government funding, AP reported. After three questioning cycles, it was expelled 36 hours later, the withdrawal documents indicating inadequate documentation, according to the point of sale.
Similarly, five Chinese nationals student at the University of Michigan were accused of lies to investigators and of plotting to remove photos after being confronted near the Grayling camp, a Michigan military training site which hosted exercises with Taiwanese forces in 2023, Detroit News reported.
A pro-China activist holds an effigy of US President Donald Trump during a demonstration before the American consulate in Hong Kong on May 30, 2020, in response to American President Donald Trump, on May 29, he would withdraw several of Hong Kong’s special privileges with the United States. (Photo by Isaac Lawrence / AFP) (Photo by Isaac Lawrence / AFP via Getty Images)
Students would have been in the United States thanks to a joint program between the University of Michigan and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. A member of the Utah National Guard would have spotted the group in approximately 15 feet of military equipment in a clearly marked limited area, and they would have fled shortly after being discovered. (Related: Federals charge Chinese students in connection with potential espionage incidents at the American base used to form Taiwanese troops)
Camp Grayling, located approximately 90 miles north of the American facilities planned for the battery company linked to China, Gosion, underlines the concerns concerning the links of the company with its Chinese parent, Gopth-Tech. Although Gosion previously said that the Chinese government was not involved in American society, its American subsidiary recently revealed Chinese state subsidies in Fara’s deposits.
Ji Chaoqun, a 31 -year -old Chinese national, was a student visa who had enlisted in the reserves of the American army thanks to a special recruitment program for foreign nationals with essential skills for the national interest. He was sentenced in September 2022 for acting as an agent for the Chinese government and lied to the US military, according to a press release from the USAO in the North Illinois district.
He was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2023 for having acted as an agent of China.
Chaoqun came to the United States in 2013 to study electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology, according to a 2018 press release.
Prosecutors said that Chaoqun was working under XU, deputy director of the Division for the Ministry of Security of States in Jiangsu Province (JSSD).
XU has already been found guilty by the Ministry of Justice (DOJ) in October 2018 for charges of spying after having pretended to fly to steal commercial secrets from large American and aerospace aerospace companies.
Chaoqun, Xu and another Chinese national, Shanlin Jin, were part of a group of people granted by the leniency by former president Joe Biden as part of an exchange of prisoners in November 2024 with China. The exchange followed years of diplomatic negotiations, according to a Reuters report.
Xiaolei Wu, a Chinese student and former student of Berklee College of Music, was arrested and charged after pretending to be threatened to cut the hands of the individual who posted a pro-democracy leaflet on the campus and reported the family of the individual to the Chinese authorities in October 2022.
(Photo of Isaac Lawrence / AFP via Getty Images)
A federal jury subsequently condemned Wu of cyberstalking, harassment and interstate transmission of threatening communications, according to a press release from the MJ.
A Chinese teacher from the University of Texas, Bo Mao, was accused of having stolen American technology from a Silicon Valley start-up and transmitting it to a Chinese company, according to a Reuters report in 2020. He pleaded guilty to a lesser accusation of making a false statement to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), reported the point of sale.
According to a 2019 report, Mao initially pleaded not guilty when he was accused of conspiracy in order to commit a wired fraud in conspiracy.
He is among several recent defendants in American affairs related to alleged Chinese espionage in the academic world. Above the same time, Charles Lieber, president of the Department of Chemistry and Harvard chemical biology, was accused of alleged ties with a Chinese recruitment program. The Doj did not say that Lieber was a Chinese national.
In addition, a student from the University of Boston and a Chinese national were accused of having hidden her role as lieutenant in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China, according to the Doj.
