Swiss University Applies Stricter Measures to Chinese Students

(Bloomberg) — In October, ETH Zurich, Switzerland’s top technical university, tightened its admissions criteria for masters and PhD programs in certain science and technology fields. It justified the move as complying with Swiss laws to counter international espionage. 

The change will affect applicants from internationally sanctioned countries, including Iran, Afghanistan and Russia. Most impacted, however, will be Chinese nationals. According to ETH Zurich, it has enrolled more than 1,300 Chinese students since 2023 – twice as many as in 2018.

While the ETH is for now an outlier in Switzerland – the University of Zurich, whose main building is next to ETH’s, has not adopted comparable policies – the decision has shone a spotlight on how universities in the German-speaking world are attempting to balance national security concerns with academia’s imperative to pursue open scholarship and collaboration across borders.

Similar measures are already in place in other parts of the world. Shortly before leaving office in 2020, Donald Trump limited the number of Chinese graduate students in the sciences allowed to study in the US, citing national security concerns. Biden left those restrictions in place, and his government has put pressure on the Netherlands to reduce its number of Chinese students in light of the key role the country plays in the global chip supply chain. 

In Switzerland, the fact that the country’s most prestigious university has taken this step has raised questions over whether others in the region will follow suit.

Though the ETH is financed by the Swiss state, the university is free to determine how it complies with laws related to national security. The topic has been under discussion within the institution since at least last year, when the university released a study showing that its high number of foreign students and international orientation made it vulnerable to espionage.

The new screening procedures will affect students applying to fields that produce “dual use” technologies, which can have both civil and military applications. Those include applied chemistry and physics, telecommunications and information technology, engineering, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. 

Applicants will now be judged not only by their academic qualifications, but also by which universities they previously attended and any government scholarships they have been granted. Scholarships offered by the Chinese state are under particular scrutiny as media reports have suggested that recipients must sign loyalty pledges and abide by ideological rules.

On ETH’s campus, the new measures have not been well received by Chinese students and researchers. Graduate teaching fellow Weixin Zhou wrote on a university message board that they threatened to undermine the university’s reputation and stance against discrimination, while researcher Jinbo Huang described the policies as in conflict with Switzerland’s purported neutrality on geopolitical issues.

ETH’s decision also has some scholars wondering whether the measure may set a broader precedent. Almost 50,000 Chinese students were enrolled in German universities last year, with around 10 to 15 percent holding state-sponsored scholarships. 

When asked about the situation, a spokesperson for the German Rectors’ Conference said that “various” schools are discussing whether to establish review processes for students “in the context of risk management.” According to Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research, more academic institutions are setting up ethics committees and export control offices, which oversee research flows, to address national security risks related to foreign students.

In 2023, the German government released a paper outlining its position on universities working with Chinese students. While calling for international cooperation and making clear that Chinese students are welcome in Germany, it also raised concerns about how technological and research advances could be used to the benefit of the Chinese military, and exhorted universities to consider that risk.

Jeroen Groenewegen-Lau, a researcher at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin, dismissed such efforts as naive. The problem isn’t individual students, he said, “it’s the logic of the authoritarian Chinese system which makes it difficult for researchers to thrive if they’re not contributing to the country’s strategic goals.”

There are some indications that even if formal policies directed at Chinese students have not been enacted, a chilling effect may be setting in. According to the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), of the 220 Chinese students, doctoral candidates and researchers who were awarded scholarships through the organization in 2023, four had their visa applications rejected. Anecdotal reports suggest that an increasing number of visas are denied overall, according to a spokesperson for the organization, who suggested that tighter controls could be related to concern over illicit outflows of knowledge in sensitive fields.

Ammy Lin, a chemistry student at Humboldt University of Berlin, says that Chinese PhD candidates applying for German visas have been subjected to “unreasonable” and “overly stringent” checks in the last two years. According to her, waiting times have swelled to over six months for some visa applicants. Germany’s Federal Foreign Office said that processing times for visa applications vary greatly between individuals and are not recorded.

Mika Zhao, a transportation engineering student in Dresden, understood the developments, but also viewed them as indicative of a growing hostility in Europe towards China. “While I appreciate the security considerations,” he said, “I hope that the policies can be implemented in a way that does not unfairly disadvantage sincere learners.” 

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.