The Trump administration may expel thousands of Chinese graduate students enrolled at U.S. universities in the latest sign of tensions between Washington and Beijing that are raging over trade, the coronavirus pandemic, human rights and the status of Hong Kong.

Four administration officials say President Donald Trump is currently considering a months-old proposal to revoke the visas of Chinese students affiliated with educational institutions in China that are linked to the People’s Liberation Army or Chinese intelligence services.

The officials said Trump has not yet signed off on what would be a presidential proclamation to implement the rule, but he could do so as early as this week, as the most recent tensions flare over China’s move to assert full control over Hong Kong. The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Serious consideration of the proposal, first reported by The New York Times, has faced opposition from U.S. universities and scientific organizations who depend on tuition fees paid by Chinese students to offset other costs. In addition, those institutions fear possible reciprocal action from Beijing that could limit their students' and educators' access to China.

In a nod to those concerns, the officials said any restrictions would be narrowly tailored to affect only students who present a significant risk of engaging in espionage or intellectual property theft. The officials could not say how many people could ultimately be expelled, although they said it would be only a fraction of Chinese students in the country.

The proposal to revoke the visas of several thousand Chinese students is not directly related to the dispute over Hong Kong, nor is it tied to U.S. criticism of China for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak. Rather, it is connected to various elements of trade and human rights issues that have seen U.S. officials complain about Chinese industrial espionage and spying and harassment of dissidents and religious and ethnic minorities.

But the timing of a potential announcement could come at a time of increasingly heated rhetoric about the imposition of national security laws on the former British territory, which was supposed to have enjoyed 50 years of special status after it reverted to Chinese control in 1997.

The proposal first began to be discussed last year when the administration moved to require Chinese diplomats based in the United States to report their domestic U.S. travel and meetings with American scientists and academics. At the time, U.S. officials said it was a reciprocal measure to match restrictions that American diplomats face in China.

Those limits were followed by a requirement that Chinese state-run media in the U.S. register as “foreign diplomatic missions” and report their property holdings and employee rosters to the government. That was, in turn, followed by the limiting of the number of visas for Chinese journalists allowed to work in the United States.

China retaliated for the visa limitations by expelling several reporters from U.S. media outlets, including The Washington Post and New York Times.