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The US government has recently launched an initiative to boost the number of American students in China.
The 100,000-strong initiative hopes to better prepare the next generation of Americans to deal with an increasingly complex US-China relationship.
However, some practical constraints stand in the way.
The initiative was announced by US President Barack Obama in 2009, and launched by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the following year.
Given the strategic importance of US-China relations, the plan is to dramatically increase the number of American students studying in China.
Thomas Skipper, Minister Counselor for Public Affairs, US Embassy in Beijing, said: “We need a new generation of young people in the United States and in China who understand each other’s countries, each other’s languages, cultures and values, because there are so many things that the United States and China have to work on together… In the political realm, in the economic realm, regional security issues, climate change… the United States and China have got to be the key players for the foreseeable future.”
Donations come from the private sector, which are matched with American universities that have existing or plans to start study abroad programmes with China.
With over 14,000 American students currently studying in China, the plan is to increase that to 25,000 every year, and in four years time, to reach 100,000 students.
The American initiative has also been supported by the Chinese government, who had committed 20,000 scholarships for Americans to study in China, whether for short or long-term degree and language programmes.
For some American students already in China, many say they would have come even without the initiative.
Mariah Deters, an American undergraduate, said: “I just have an interest in China and Chinese… it’s really different, it’s really challenging and I like that about it. I’ve always found the culture fascinating from the first exposure I had to it.”
Paul Le Ster, another American undergraduate, said: “It’s a very marketable skill to understand China, to understand Chinese, to know the culture, to know what it’s like here.”
Some ethnic Chinese-Americans have chosen China to find out more about their heritage.
Huizhong Wu, an American undergraduate, said: “Everyone that I run into tells me that I need to learn, (that I) need to take more Chinese classes (and) really master the language… That’s what I plan to do.”
Right now, only 1 per cent of American college students choose to study overseas, and among them, less than 5 per cent choose to come to China, with many preferring European destinations.
Some have argued that cultural and institutional challenges stand in the way.
Holly Chang, founder, Project Pengyou, said: “The Stanford, and Chicago, the NYU… they are very international universities but what about the University of Kentucky and what about the University of Wisconsin? The very smart Americans and Americans who will grow to be very powerful in politics and in business, they also need to know how to manage the China relationship but their schools don’t necessarily have the avenues.”
More also needs to be done to increase the diversity of American students in China.
“The typical American who comes to China is an upper-middle class white female. If we really want more diverse representation of Americans to come to study in China, there’re not the only ones that should be or will be impacted by China in the future… We want more African-Americans, Latinos, Chinese-Americans and different kinds of Asian-Americans to come and study in China,” said Ms Chang.
Project Pengyou is a social platform that brings together Americans who’ve lived or studied in China and those who are interested in exchanges between US and China.
