WASHINGTON — Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but at first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made that nearly impossible and now he has other concerns.
The cost is a deterrent, but Garrett is more concerned about the restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He’s not alone.
Today, only about 700 American students attend Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students in American schools.
Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see as declining economic opportunities and strained relations between Washington and Beijing.
Whatever the reason for the imbalance, U.S. officials and scholars lament the missed opportunities for young people to experience life in China and gain insight into a formidable American adversary.
And officials from both countries agree that more needs to be done to encourage student exchanges, at a time when Beijing and Washington can hardly agree on anything else.
“I don’t believe the environment is as hospitable to educational exchange as it has been in the past, and I think both sides will have to take steps,” said Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.
The US advised her. citizens should ‘reconsider’ travel to China amid concerns about arbitrary detentions and the broader use of exit bans to deter Americans from leaving the country. Campbell said this has hampered the rebuilding of the stock exchanges and that relaxing the advice is now being ‘actively considered’.
For its part, Beijing is rebuilding programs for international students that were closed during the pandemic, and Chinese President Xi Jinping has invited tens of thousands of American high school students to visit.
The situation was very different after President Barack Obama started the 100,000 Strong initiative in 2009 to dramatically increase the number of American students studying in China.
According to data from the Chinese Ministry of Education, there were as many as 24,583 American students in China in 2012. The Open Doors reports from the Institute of International Education, which tracks only students enrolled in U.S. schools and studying for credits in China, show that the number peaked at 14,887 in the 2011-2012 school year. But ten years later that number was only 211.
By the end of 2023, the number of U.S. students reached 700, according to Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China, who said this was far too few in a country so important to the United States.
“We need young Americans to learn Mandarin. We need young Americans who can experience China,” Burns said.
Without these American students, “we won’t be able to do smart, informed diplomacy in China in the next decade,” warned David Moser, an American linguist who went to China in the 1980s and is now tasked with founding a new master’s degree program. program for international students at Beijing Capital Normal University.
Moser recalled years when American students found China fascinating and thought an education there could lead to an interesting career. But he said the days of busy trade and monetary transactions are over as American students and their parents watch China and the United States part ways. “So people think investing in China as a career is a dumb idea,” Moser said.
After 2012, the number of American students in China fell, but remained stable at more than 11,000 for years, according to Open Doors, until the pandemic hit, when China closed its borders and kept most foreigners out. Programs for foreign students that took years to complete were closed and staff laid off, Moser said.
Amy Gadsden, executive director of China Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, also attributed some of the decline in interest to foreign companies closing their offices in China. Beijing’s draconian style of government, exposed by its response to the pandemic, has also given U.S. students pause, she said.
Garrett, a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, or 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 on politically sensitive issues and China’s sweeping anti-espionage law.
Some American 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 U.S. students are now studying at the Hopkins-Nanjing center in the eastern Chinese city, and that number is expected to rise in the fall to approach pre-pandemic levels of 50-60 students, Adam Webb said , the American leader of the center. co-director.
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 off the radar of the international media. “As the relationship intensifies, it’s important to have that color, to have that granularity,” said Hankin, a master’s student in international relations with a focus on energy and the environment.
Jonathan Zhang, a Chinese-American studying at the prestigious Schwarzman Scholars program at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, said it is more important than ever to be in China at a time of tense relations. “It’s very difficult to talk about China without being in China,” he said. “I really think it’s a shame that so many people have never set foot in China.”
Zhang encountered concerns when he postponed an offer from a consulting firm to go to Beijing. “They say, ‘Oh, be safe,’ or ‘what do you mean, you’re going back to China?'” Zhang said. “I feel like the (Chinese) government is doing the best it can, but I feel like a lot of this trust has been broken.”
Gadsden said U.S. universities must do more to encourage students to consider China. “We need to be more intentional about creating opportunities and encouraging students to do this deeper work on China, because it will be interesting to them, and it will be valuable for the US-China relationship and for the world. ” she said.
In China, Jia Qingguo, a professor of international relations and national political advisor, has suggested that Beijing clarify its laws regarding foreigners, introduce a separate system for political reviews of foreign students’ dissertations, and make it easier for foreign graduates to obtain internships to find. and jobs at Chinese companies.
Meanwhile, China is hosting American high school students under a plan Xi unveiled in November to welcome 50,000 students over the next five years.
In January, a group of 24 students from Muscatine High School in Iowa became the first to travel to China. The all-expenses-paid, nine-day trip took them to the Beijing Zoo, the Great Wall, the Palace Museum, the Yu Garden and the Shanghai Museum.
Sienna Stonking, one of the Muscatine students, now wants to return to China to study.
“If I had the chance, I would like to study in China,” she told Chinese state broadcaster CGTN. “Honestly, I love it there.”
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Kang reported from Beijing.