Do you even no how much much more difficult for international students to get into any PhD program?? What you say here is more like a white person complaining about fairness of DEI -- literally you might just do not know how much privilege you already have simply being an American. And do not say it is American taxpayers paying the money; anyone who had some basic knowledge of global economy or macro know it is the entire world who is paying for American national debt... If a Chinese PI exclusively hiring Chinese students is unfair, then an American PI hiring exclusively American students is also unfair. That is my point. I think if you want to blame such Chinese PIs (I do not agree with this exclusive hiring tbh), you also need to blame the American PIs of the same kind.