Can Biden take the chance to promote youth exchanges?
Slam dunks are a big part for basketball matches. A player might be remembered for scoring a slam dunk, but a player will definitely be remembered for missing one. US President Joe Biden has his own slam-dunk opportunity available to him in 2024, but will he take it?
When Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco late last year, the two men showed a global audience that they were advancing several items that would improve the bilateral relationship. Increasing the number of people-to-people exchanges was one of those items. President Xi went a step further, announcing a program to invite 50,000 American students to China over the next five years.
To bolster that call and ensure that college-aged students were not the only ones who could be involved in such trips, China soon unveiled its Young Envoy Scholarship, designed to assist US elementary and secondary students in participating in short-term programs in China. China’s Ambassador to the US Xie Feng said he hoped the program would “welcome more young friends from the United States to see China with their own eyes, travel the expanse of the country with their own feet and become the new generation of envoys of friendship between our two countries.”
Only the most cynical of people would doubt the integrity being displayed by China in welcoming American students. When you recognize that there were only 211 American college students studying in China during the 2021-22 academic year (the last year for which data are available), getting more of the “new generation of envoys” to China seems critical.
There have been some notable student trips in recent months. Two-dozen students from an Iowa high school made a visit in February. About a month later, another twodozen students from Washington State traveled to China. One student reportedly said he wanted to “experience more about the culture and people” in what he called “a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
China is welcoming students, and the US should welcome them home. This is so simple, but one worries if a Cold War-era president and a defiant national narrative will lead to a missed opportunity.
President Biden would be wise to speak often and positively about American students – regardless of their age – traveling to China. He should also invite those students to the White House upon their return to the US, providing them with honorary ambassadorial papers and allowing them to talk publicly about what they learn during their trip to China.
American media would quickly report on their stories, and even the most cynical of journalists would embrace the words, photos and videos connected with these young Americans at the White House.
Do you remember that 211 figure mentioned above? In case you are wondering, roughly 290,000 Chinese college students are studying in the US. That means for every one American student in China, there are 1,374 Chinese students in the US.
If that does not open your eyes, perhaps this will: Nearly half of all international students in the US come from China. And that number remains strong despite the high-profile reports of the terrible treatment received by some of those students minutes after their flights landed at US airports. Interrogations, often lasting hours, which have reportedly included questions about whether the students or their families have connections to the government, are unacceptable. Not one American student entering China has ever been treated the same way. And none will ever be treated in the same way in the future.
Chinese students in the US will be the next generation of envoys, confidently discussing with people from all over the world what America is really like. It is a shame that there are far fewer American students able to take on the same role in talking about China. Biden and his team can do something about that. They couldn’t possibly be that stubborn that they would miss this slam-dunk opportunity, could they?