Chinese students studying or planning to study in the United States are finding themselves in the crossfire between US President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration action and Beijing's firm pushback against US policies.
In the past few months, media reports have emerged of hundreds of international students from dozens of American universities having their visas revoked for no apparent reason. They may face deportation under Trump's aggressive push on illegal immigrants.
In a few cases, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducted raids at campuses across the country, arresting international students.
The atmosphere amid the tit-for-tat tariff war between Washington and Beijing has further declined as China's countermeasures extend beyond trade.
Chinese authorities last week issued warnings to people planning to travel or study in America "due to the deterioration of Sino-US economic and trade relations, and the domestic security situation in the US".
Since Trump started his second term, there has been apparent panic among Chinese parents who had planned to send their children abroad for education, with some changing their attitudes towards studying in the US, according to Shanghai-based study-abroad agent Yulin, who asked that only her given name be used.
She said the parents of applicants for overseas study had "clearly" stated that their children's "preparations should switch from Advanced Placement (AP) curriculum to International Baccalaureate (IB) or A-level".
The AP curriculum and exams are usually used for applying to universities in the United States, while the IB and A-level are used for Europe, including Britain.
On April 11, Yulin gave a talk at an international school in Shanghai where she said she noticed an "overwhelming" increase in the number of students opting to study in Britain.
Some American universities and law firms are already taking action against Trump's moves against international students.
For example, administrators at the University of Chicago have written letters asking students to contact advisers if their status or visa had been revoked, according to a Chinese woman studying visual arts.
On Monday, Harvard University publicly rebuffed the Trump administration - which had sought policy changes that included "international admissions reform" as well as changes to diversity practices - and was subsequently hit with a US$2.2 billion federal funding freeze.
Over the weekend, the Silicon Valley division of DeHeng Law Offices launched a lawsuit in California on behalf of four international students whose visas were revoked, accusing the federal government of being unconstitutional and seeking to restore the status of all students affected.
"Most of the students whose visas were revoked this time came from the mainland - it's an obvious discriminatory act," the law firm said in a statement. "If the US government could operate at will like this, then all international students are not safe."
The number of Chinese students in the US has been decreasing since the 2019-20 academic year, and last year the figure of 277,398 was surpassed by the number of Indian students for the first time in 15 years.
For some Chinese families planning to send children to the US, it is too late to change their plans and they are bracing for difficulties.
Jason, a man in Nanjing in eastern China's Jiangsu province, said his daughter had been accepted by an American university in April and it was too late to switch to an institution in the United Kingdom or Australia. They had been preparing to send her to US college since 2017 when she went to international school.
"We want our child to learn more. In Chinese universities, they have to spend half their energy learning Marxist philosophy and Chinese revolutionary history," he said.
He said he expected living expenses in the US to rise and he would have to save more for his daughter. He is also not sure whether some academic majors will be off limits to international students, or whether his daughter will have trouble staying in the US afterwards.
"We haven't thought about it all that much right now. Who knows what Trump will be like two years from now, or four years from now?" he said.