America Needs More China Experts
The absence of Americans studying in China will weaken the US’s ability to deal with its chief rival.
Rarities in Chengdu.
Photographer: Wang Lei/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images
One sign of the erosion of US-China relations has been a steep drop in Americans studying in China. Although it hasn’t grabbed headlines, this trend could prove detrimental to American interests, shrinking the pool of future business leaders and national-security experts with knowledge of Mandarin and firsthand experience in China. To strengthen the US’s ability to both compete and cooperate with China, Joe Biden’s administration should reinvigorate efforts to send more students there.
Just 211 Americans studied in China during the 2021-2022 academic year. That’s down from nearly 15,000 a decade earlier, when China was the most popular destination for US students outside of Europe. By comparison, more than 289,000 Chinese attended US colleges and universities last year, about 15% fewer than pre-pandemic levels but still the biggest cohort of international students in the country.