Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns.
The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone.
Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools.
Photo: AFP
Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see as diminishing economic opportunities and strained relations between Washington and Beijing.
Whatever the reason for the imbalance, US officials and academics bemoan the lost opportunities for young people to experience life in China and gain insight into a formidable US adversary.
Officials from both countries agree that more should be done to encourage the student exchanges, at a time when Beijing and Washington can hardly agree on anything else.
Photo: AP
“I do not believe the environment is as hospitable for educational exchange as it was in the past, and I think both sides are going to need to take steps,” US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said.
The US has advised its citizens to “reconsider travel” to China over concerns of arbitrary detentions and widened use of exit bans to bar Americans from leaving the country.
This has hindered the rebuilding of the exchanges and easing the advisory is under “active consideration,” Campbell said.
For its part, Beijing is rebuilding programs for international students that were shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has invited tens of thousands of US high-school students to visit.
The situation was far different after US President Barack Obama started the 100,000 Strong initiative in 2009 to drastically increase the number of US students studying in China.
By 2012, as many as 24,583 US students were studying in China, Chinese Ministry of Education data showed.
The Open Doors reports by the Institute of International Education, which only track students enrolled in US schools and studying in China for credit, show that the number peaked at 14,887 in the 2011-2012 school year. Ten years later, the number was down to only 211.
Late last year, the number of American students in China was 700, said US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, who adding that this was far too few in a country of such importance to the US.
“We need young Americans to learn Mandarin. We need young Americans to have an experience of China,” Burns said.
Without these US students, “in the next decade, we won’t be able to exercise savvy, knowledgeable diplomacy in China,” said David Moser, an American linguist who went to China in the 1980s and is now tasked with establishing a new master’s program for international students at Beijing’s Capital Normal University.
Moser recalled the years when American students found China fascinating and thought an education there could lead to an interesting career.
However, the days of bustling trade and money deals are gone, while American students and their parents are watching China and the US move away from each other, he said.
“So people think investment in China as a career is a dumb idea,” Moser said.
After 2012, the number of American students in China dipped, but held steady at more than 11,000 for several years, until the pandemic hit, when China closed its borders and kept most foreigners out, according to Open Doors.
Programs for overseas students that took years to build were shuttered, and staff were let go, Moser said.
Amy Gadsden, executive director of China Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, also attributed some of the declining interest to foreign businesses closing their offices in China.
Beijing’s draconian governing style, laid bare by its response to the pandemic, also has given American students a pause, she said.
Garrett, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) had lived in Hong Kong as a teenager and interned in mainland China.
He said he is still interested in traveling to China, but not anytime soon, citing the lack of access to information, restrictions on discussions of politically sensitive issues and China’s sweeping anti-spying law.
Some US students remain committed to studying in China, said Andrew Mertha, director of the China Global Research Center at SAIS.
“There are people who are interested in China for China’s sake,” he said. “I don’t think those numbers are affected at all.”
About 40 US students are studying at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center in the eastern Chinese city, and the number is expected to rise in the fall to approach the pre-pandemic level of 50 to 60 students, the center’s US codirector Adam Webb said.
Among them is Chris Hankin, 28, who said he believed time in China was irreplaceable because he could interact with ordinary people and travel to places outside the radar of international media.
“As the relationship becomes more intense, it’s important to have that color, to have that granularity,” said Hankin, a master’s student of international relations with a focus on energy and the environment.
Jonathan Zhang, a Chinese-American studying at the prestigious Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said it was more important than ever to be in China at a time of tense relations.
“It’s really hard to talk about China without being in China,” he said. “I think it’s truly a shame that so many people have never stepped foot in China.”
Zhang was met with concerns when he deferred an offer at a consulting firm to go Beijing.
“They’re like: ‘Oh, be safe,’ or like: ‘What do you mean, you’re going back to China?’” Zhang said. “I feel like the [Chinese] government is trying with an earnest effort, but I feel like a lot of this trust has been broken.”
Gadsden said that US universities need to do more to nudge students to consider China.
“We need to be more intentional about creating the opportunities and about encouraging students to do this deeper work on China, because it’s going to be interesting for them, and it’s going to be valuable for the US-China relationship and for the world,” she said.
In China, Jia Qingguo (賈慶國), a professor of international relations and a national political adviser, has suggested that Beijing clarify its laws involving foreign nationals, introduce a separate system for political reviews of foreign students’ dissertations, and make it easier for foreign graduates to find internships and jobs in Chinese companies.
Meanwhile, China is hosting US high-school students under a plan Xi unveiled in November last year to welcome 50,000 in the next five years.
In January, a group of 24 students from Iowa’s Muscatine High School became the first to travel to China. The all-expenses-paid, nine-day trip took them to the Beijing Zoo, Great Wall of China, Palace Museum, the Yu Garden and Shanghai Museum.
Sienna Stonking, one of the Muscatine students, said she wants to return to China to study.
“If I had the opportunity, I would love to go to college in China,” she told state-run China Global Television Network. “Honestly, I love it there.”
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