And now Harvard is suing the administration.

Some commentators said Mr. Trump was accelerating China's ascent. They celebrated that American universities would lose both revenue and talent, some of which might flow to China instead. At least one university in Hong Kong has already said that it is willing to offer unconditional admission to any transfer students from Harvard.

Ren Yi, a high-profile blogger who goes by the pen name Chairman Rabbit and is himself a Harvard graduate, wrote that the United States government was "castrating" its own top university.

"This is a great change unseen in a century," he wrote, quoting China's leader, Xi Jinping, who has used the phrase to describe his confidence in China's rise. (Mr. Xi's own daughter also graduated from Harvard.)