As the US-China Education Trust’s March report America’s China Talent Challenge: Investing in Deeper American Understanding of China shows, “the flow of American students undertaking deep dives into China and its archives has greatly diminished.” In the context of increasingly strained bilateral relations, fewer and fewer young Americans are able or willing to conduct research or participate in long-term exchanges in mainland China. This constitutes a serious policy crisis, the report warns, ultimately leaving the United States with a severe shortage of experts who genuinely understand China.
Rosie Levine, Executive Director of the US-China Education Trust (USCET), argues that many American students today worry that having been to China could negatively affect their future prospects of entering government service. Though not fully warranted, this anxiety has nevertheless produced a series of dampening effects. Concurrently, the academic environment in China contracted, funding for China studies programs at U.S. universities declined, programs were shut down, and exchange initiatives such as Fulbright stalled. Combined with visa barriers, heightened scrutiny, and broader geopolitical tensions, these developments have sharply reduced the number of students studying in China. This “educational decoupling” contributes not only to the erosion of cultural goodwill but also to a possible future in which misunderstanding and misperception are likely to grow.
Alice Liu: Your report shows that many students believe that studying in China could harm a future government career. Is that concern legitimate or a misconception?
Rosie Levine: Indeed, many students think that having time in China on their resume is going to impact their ability to get a job in government. Some are worried that it might be a concern in the security clearance process, and others are worried that, in a more general sense, time spent in China might be seen with suspicion by future employers. So, I don’t think that concern is completely right or completely wrong.
Unfortunately, the fact that students are concerned about it means that they’re already taking themselves out of the pipeline for studying in China. Whether it’s true or not, it’s already actually having a big displacement effect on the number of students choosing to study in China. What we’ve heard from stakeholders in the U.S. government is that having China experience doesn’t inherently cause problems, but it is more difficult to verify someone’s identity, place of work, businesses, and relationships in a country like China, where there are fewer ways to validate that information. It does slow down the process, and it might cause issues with verification, but time in China itself is not the only reason why someone might be disqualified from a job.
But as I said at the beginning, whether it’s true or not, it’s already having a very real impact on students. From our perspective of trying to get more Americans to China, we still see the challenges.
AL: What are the reasons for their worries? Have there been previous instances of Americans barred from governmental jobs for their China experience?
RL: No, a lot of people who serve in government have spent time in China, and their backgrounds reflect that. Many people who work at the State Department on China have spent time there, either before their government service or when they were on fellowship programs like Fulbright. The US government granted Non-Competitive Eligibility to alumni of these programs, so people who went through these programs had an easier time getting a job with the government. A lot of people who went to programs like Georgetown, Hopkins, and others are now doing research in government as well.
It’s not to say that time in China inherently means you can’t get a job, but it does certainly cause some delay in the process, and I think that is enough of a concern. People don’t know, right? If you don’t have a clearance, if you’re not in government, it’s hard to know whether these things are going to impact your career down the line. And so, people are choosing to avoid China based on that concern, whether valid or not.
AL: In the report, you also pointed out how joint institutions, such as NYU Shanghai, have historically played a consequential role in accommodating U.S. students, and they are now facing pressure to either downsize or close. I’m interested in hearing more about these institutions. What roles have they played?
RL: Those institutions have, especially currently when so few Americans are going to China, served as the primary pathway for Americans to get to China through U.S. programs. These small number of institutions that you mentioned, Duke Kunshan, Hopkins-Nanjing, and the Schwarzman Scholars program, make up the majority of the students who are there studying on the ground in China for a semester or longer.
These joint institutions have to manage their relationships in China to make sure that they are able to continue to host students and remain accredited. But they also have to manage pressures back on campus in the United States, as many of those schools are increasingly seeing pressure from their administrators at home to justify their existence, especially because there are so few Americans going to China at all.
It’s kind of a chicken-and-egg problem. If your students are only going to a few institutions, and those places are under pressure to close because they don’t see a strong pipeline of student demand, then it’s hard to justify their continued existence. In the report, we wanted to draw attention to the unique role that those organizations play as the main way Americans can go to China. In many cases, you can remain affiliated with your U.S. home institution, which is more challenging if you’re enrolling directly into a Chinese institution.
Places like Duke Kunshan have received a lot of attention. There was an article published last year from a student who had a bad experience on a Duke Kunshan trip to China that received congressional inquiry and pressure. So, university administrations in the United States must balance both the needs and the opportunities that these institutions provide for getting to China, but of course they also have to manage their own enrollment concerns and student demand first. In my mind, these institutions are facing a particularly acute type of pressure, and we would like to emphasize the role they play in connecting America to China.
AL: You said that studying China from afar isn’t just enough. What are the things that you can only understand by being in China?
RL: There’s so much that is happening on the ground in China every day that is really hard to understand from afar. I will say there is enormous value in studying China from overseas. Some things are easier and preferable to understand from outside of China, because it’s complicated to study within China. But the inverse is also true. There are some topics, some dynamics, some new developments that you’re not going to read about in the news; you’re not going to see on social media. You have to be there to see it unfold.
When I was living in China, it was right when the bike-sharing boom happened. All of a sudden, one day, you saw brightly rainbow-colored bikes taking up every street corner in Beijing. And it wasn’t in the New York Times, and it wasn’t even really on social media. It was something that unfolded right in front of you, and unless you were there, you wouldn’t really understand this trend that has shaped mobility and transit in China ever since. It was fun. First it was one or two companies, and then it was fifteen, and then it was thirty. It was really a unique thing. Nowhere else in the world had a trend like that.
There are so many things like that happening. It’s a dynamic place where topics, whether it’s a technology or an innovation, happen quickly and new trends develop very fast. There are also incredibly different experiences happening in China, whether in the urban core or in the rural countryside. And so when you’re there, you get to see the differences, the contrasts, how policies are implemented in some ways or not implemented in others, and the variety of ways in which individuals relate to new policies as they come out. A lot of these dynamics, nuanced and complicated, are best observed on the ground. A key recommendation in our report is not only that Americans should be going to China to study but also to emphasize the value of in-person exposure to our own understanding, whether it’s in academic, business, or government contexts. That in-person exposure is really what is most at risk right now.
AL: Relatedly, let’s talk about Taiwan. You said that many American students are now studying in Taiwan instead?
RL: Right, so during the pandemic, when access to China was heavily restricted, whether through quarantines or the outbreak of the virus in the later stages, a lot of U.S. programs shifted from being based in mainland China to moving to Taiwan. And of course, geopolitics and the downturn in U.S.–China relations played a big role in that as well.
We are currently seeing a huge uptick in Americans studying in Taiwan, and for the field of Taiwan studies, that’s fantastic. A lot more American students are going and getting firsthand exposure to Taiwan, the nuances of that society, its culture, and, of course, the Mandarin language. What we caution in this report is that although language learning in Taiwan is extremely valuable, it doesn’t give you an understanding of the contemporary PRC. It’s a very different society, very different culture, and very different dynamics. What we’re concerned about is conflating the two. People say, well, there is still a lot of understanding of China because people are studying in Taiwan. But that’s not the same thing.
AL: You also talked about how, domestically, American universities are pulling back. What are the reasons? Is it political overreaction, real security risks, or just funding issues?
RL: Yeah, unfortunately, it’s a little bit of everything. It’s all the above. There are certainly real risks in academic engagement with China these days. Academic freedom and openness in China have become more constrained on a lot of different topics, particularly those that touch on national security, military issues, or politically sensitive subjects. It has become much more difficult to study those topics and do that kind of work in China right now. So some of these dynamics stem from the academic conditions on the ground in China.
Another piece has to do with the geopolitical differences between the two countries. As the U.S.–China relationship has worsened at the national level, it has trickled down through both systems. University administrators and individuals now face more paperwork, approvals, and restrictions in order to collaborate with peers on the other side. Maybe a decade ago, it was more like you would say yes to a collaboration unless there was a reason to say no. Now we’ve seen a shift on campuses in both countries where the default response is to say no, and then you have to make an extra case to say yes. That has a dampening effect on people who might otherwise take up those opportunities.
And then lastly, from the U.S. side, a lot of funding for research and study of China has dried up. Centers have closed, funding has been cut, and for example, Title VI funding has been reduced. The Fulbright program has not been running in China since 2020. The Critical Language Scholarship program and other U.S. government funding sources that used to send students to China each year have also stopped sending students to mainland China.
In addition to campus-level constraints, there are fewer external opportunities as well, which makes it harder for researchers and students on the U.S. side to make the case to go. And then on top of all of that, the geopolitical climate has other impacts. People may just not be interested anymore. It used to be seen as fun and exciting to collaborate cross-culturally, and now it’s seen as more of a risk or a career liability.
In the report, we itemize a whole mix of constraints, which often feed each other. Say if someone has trouble getting a visa to China, that increases perceptions of risk. If grants are cut, it becomes harder to justify new funding. It becomes a mutually reinforcing cycle.
AL: Your report has been quite careful about China’s responsibilities, but you did just underscore visa denials, censorship, and restrictions on research. To what extent is China shaping this talent shortage?
RL: Well, I think China’s role here is an interesting one, because I will note that while we focused our recommendations in our report on U.S. policymakers—given that we are a panel of Americans who can probably make more of an impact on the U.S. side. But that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing that China can do to support the talent challenge as well.
On its side, China has promoted different mechanisms and campaigns to get more American young people to China, the most notable being Xi Jinping’s declaration that he wanted 50,000 American students to travel to China in five years. It was announced at APEC a few years back. China has been extremely active in recruiting and encouraging Americans to come, but often the Americans who do come are in very short-term programs. They come for a week or two weeks of education and tourism at the same time.
You can see the pandas and the Great Wall, but for our purposes, this doesn’t actually help to address the talent challenge. A week can be a wonderful introduction, but we are really looking at the pipeline for serious research, substantive study, and work on the ground, whether it’s fieldwork or survey work. Or maybe an internship in a company, getting real deep exposure to the country. You just can’t do that in a two-week program.
I think China’s role here can be to help encourage more long-term study and deeper programs. One thing would be to make it easier for American students to do internships. Currently, that’s a very complicated thing to do, impossible on a student visa. Creating ways for students to come for more business or practical study rather than just academic study. Our suggestions for China include encouraging more American students; making it clearer that the academic environment is welcoming, including helping to get programs off the ground with American partners; and recognizing that Americans might prefer to go through their home institution rather than directly through a Chinese institution.
And also not doing things like limiting visas, because even small instances of scholars who are denied a visa or, in more extreme cases, exit bans—these examples get amplified in the community and increase the perception that China is a risky place for students or academic work. So those are some areas where China can help to assuage fears from the American side.
AL: I know that you have ample work experience with young Americans traveling to China for study. What do you think is the biggest misconception they have now?
RL: Many Americans are seeing China through their phones in really striking ways. The city of Chongqing has become very viral on social media as a “4D city,” a really interesting place full of staircases and different levels and stuff. They are actually very impressed by the fact that China has experienced so much growth and development, high-speed trains, modern urban cores, lots of restaurants and walkability. But I think they might miss the fact that the experience of living in rural China is completely different.
There is still a huge divide between the lifestyle and daily practices of someone who lives in a city like Chongqing and someone who lives two or three hours away in the countryside or the nearby mountains. The fact that China has gone viral on social media is a wonderful point of exposure, but I hope that doesn’t make Americans think they’ve already experienced the country. When you’re there, you see the contradictions firsthand, the differences in people’s experiences, urban versus rural, more educated versus less educated, higher income versus lower income. China is full of nuances and contradictions, and that’s what makes it such an exciting place to study and understand.
AL: Historically, during the Cold War, the United States deliberately cultivated Sovietologists, namely, Soviet experts. Why hasn’t that been the case for China today? Is this a question of capacity or political will?
RL: It’s a really interesting question and something I’ve thought quite a lot about, and I don’t think I have a perfect answer. One thing I will say is that there’s a tendency to conflate the late Cold War with today. In the early years of the Cold War, I don’t think people really knew how to approach it. And that might be similar to where we are with China right now. We’re still in the early stages of determining what a new vision for this relationship will look like. It’s clearly not what it was before, but I don’t think we have a clear vision yet of what it will become in the future.
During the Cold War, there was an incredible effort to fund Soviet studies and Russian language programs, both in the United States and through carefully structured exchanges with the Soviet Union, to cultivate the next generation of leaders who had firsthand exposure. We haven’t seen that happen yet in the same way, but that doesn’t mean it won’t. I hope it does. It may be that we just haven’t built the systems we need for the next phase of the relationship.
Particularly in education, I think many people assumed (myself included) that the U.S.–China education relationship was stable, if not thriving, even if other areas were not. We might not agree on trade or geopolitics, but at least education seemed to be holding. But COVID blew a hole into that assumption.
We’ve seen the number of Chinese students in the United States decline since 2019, and while there are still many, the numbers have dropped. On the other side, we’ve seen a dramatic drop in Americans going to China. During COVID, there were around 300 Americans on the ground. Now it’s around 2,000, which is an improvement, but still very low. This moment of crisis might prompt more structured thinking about how to build a sustainable pipeline of talent for the future of the relationship, whether relations are good or bad. Because we’ve seen how fragile the educational relationship really is when it is tested in this way.
AL: You’ve made so many recommendations to U.S. policymakers and the government, but if the political conditions remain unchanged, which recommendation are you most concerned is least likely to be implemented?
RL: The recommendation that I think is the most important might also be the hardest to implement, which is the restoration of federal funding for programs that support the study of China and the creation of a new fellowship program to help get American students back to China. We recognize that this cuts across a difficult political issue right now, namely, federal funding overall. This is much bigger than just education funding for U.S.–China initiatives. There have been massive debates around funding all sorts of government programs, and we are clearly in the middle of a big reckoning about how the U.S. funds things and what it funds, whether it’s humanitarian assistance through USAID or defense spending. We’re having a national conversation about federal funding at large.
Whether recommending the restoration of federal funding is realistic comes into question. What we try to argue in our report is that the need is so acute that even if we have a limited budget, this is still a really important priority. That would require an attitude shift to think about education on China as essential. As we’ve outlined in the report, we believe that we will face a crisis of China talent in the next decade unless we make interventions now, so I hope we do see movement on this. But it does require a shift in how policymakers prioritize funding, because this has not been a top priority before.
AL: As a follow-up, is it true that the source of funding plays a huge role in determining whether students will go to China or not?
RL: Precisely. One thing we observed in over 50 consultations with institutions and individuals is that Americans prefer American funding to go to China. They are put in a very difficult position where there is very little U.S. funding available right now, given all the cuts and constraints. While there is a bountiful Chinese funding available, most American students and scholars are still reluctant to accept Chinese funding because they worry it could affect their future career prospects or influence how their research is perceived.
From a Washington policymaker’s perspective, there is also good logic to wanting Americans to go with American funding rather than foreign funding, because whoever controls the funding has some influence over its intended purposes and outcomes. So encouraging more U.S. funding aligns with that logic. But if U.S. funding is not available, then the only option left is Chinese funding, and we will have to deal with the consequences of that.
AL: You emphasized that mutual ignorance is dangerous and benefits neither side, but some policymakers might believe just the opposite. How do you respond to that?
RL: I think it goes back to the old saying that knowledge is power. The more you understand, and the more you can put yourself in the shoes of the person on the other side of the table, the more thoughtful and deliberate you can be in what you’re trying to get done. There is sometimes an assumption that knowledge leads to sympathy or alignment, but that’s not necessarily true. You can be extremely knowledgeable and still disagree strongly. But if you lack knowledge entirely, then you don’t even know what you’re missing, and you don’t know what questions you should be asking.
I worry that we are losing that foundation. Knowledge actually makes us more competitive, and that applies to both sides. If China understands the United States better, that strengthens its position, and the same is true in reverse. There is a mutual interest in maintaining that knowledge. Pulling back, decoupling, or losing those connections does not serve either side’s interests at the end of the day.
AL: Finally, suppose this trend of education decoupling continues. Ten years down the road, what is the worst-case scenario for U.S. policymaking?
RL: I think the worst-case scenario is that we are sitting in a bilateral meeting between the leaders of China and the United States, and the people around the table have no firsthand understanding of the other side. They haven’t been there, they don’t speak the language, and they don’t understand the cultural norms, history, or politics. You can read about these things, but without firsthand experience or without having engaged directly with people from the other country, we risk misperception or miscalculation that could lead to a crisis.
We have already seen significant strain in the bilateral relationship over the past decade. If we look ahead and see fewer exchanges, fewer people spending time in each other’s countries, and fewer people developing a deep understanding of each other’s societies, economies, and political systems, then we increase the risk of misunderstanding intentions in ways that could escalate into serious conflict.