Speaking at the University of Maryland, Yang Shuping said that coming to the United States had been a breath of "fresh air" after growing up in China.
"The air was so sweet and fresh and utterly luxurious," she said, in a video of the speech posted on YouTube.
"The moment I inhaled and exhaled outside the airport, I felt free," she continued, drawing a parallel between China's notorious air pollution and its similarly choking restrictions on political speech.
On Tuesday afternoon, posts related to the video on the Chinese micro blogging site Weibo had received over 56 million views.
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"People like this, with biased opinions and broken English, should never be allowed to speak publicly as a commencement speaker," said one remark posted under the YouTube video. The site is banned in China.
Commenters who said they hailed from Yang's hometown Kunming accused her of lying about the air quality in the major metropolis in the city's southwest, with many claiming it was as clean as Washington's, near her university's campus.
On Tuesday, air quality readings in Kunming were as high as 107, four times the World Health Organization's recommended maximum exposure for a 24-hour period. In Washington, they were at two.
Thinly veiled criticisms of the speech appeared in state-owned media Tuesday, quoting some of the vicious responses.
An article titled "Chinese student at University of Maryland slammed for biased commencement speech" was ranked as the most viewed story on the English-language website of the People's Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece.
In a statement responding to the uproar, the University of Maryland said "it is critical to hear different viewpoints, to embrace diversity, and demonstrate tolerance when faced with views with which we may disagree.
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