42 China The EconomistJuly 13th 2019
D
izzied by trumpianflip-flops and clashing policy announce-
ments, China’s ruling classes no longer know quite what to ex-
pect from America—with one exception. Chinese elites appear
sure that President Donald Trump’s America is willing to hurt their
children, as part of a racist scheme to keep China down.
Outsiders might think it odd to spend time fretting about the
roughly 360,000 Chinese youngsters studying in America, and
whether they face tougher visa rules or unfair scrutiny from fbi
agents hunting spies on college campuses. After all, tariffs worth
billions of dollars are at stake in the trade war. Depending on what
Mr Trump’s dealmaking gut tells him, America may or may not be
bent on crushing Huawei, the telecommunications giant key to
China’s hopes of becoming a technological superpower.
Yet when Chinese officials meet Westerners, America’s treat-
ment of Chinese students and scholars comes up time and again.
For many, the issue is personal: in China as elsewhere, few things
matter more to the elite than getting their offspring into Stanford.
Chaguan spent July 8th and 9th at the World Peace Forum, a confer-
ence attended by Chinese leaders and foreign grandees, hosted by
Tsinghua University in Beijing. In public debates and in private
corridor conversations, Americans were repeatedly scolded by
Chinese government ministers, professors and retired generals,
and even ambassadors from Western allies. The charge is that, in
the name of national security, America is treating Chinese stu-
dents and scholars as a new “Yellow Peril”, in a witch-hunt worthy
of Senator Joseph McCarthy.
In part, this is a useful propaganda line. Chinese state media
have been cranking out America-bashing commentaries ever
since trade talks broke down in May. It is especially potent to point
out ways in which rich-but-flawed, crime-ridden America is not
safe for Chinese youngsters. A hit television drama this summer,
“Over The Sea I Come To You”, depicts Chinese parents who accom-
pany children studying in a rather bleak America. In one episode a
Chinese father saves his son from a school shooting, heroically
dodging a bullet then punching the gunman to the ground before
an American swatteam eventually arrives.
Such horrors aside, it turns out to be just as potent to argue that
Chinese students are being singled out for discrimination byAmericanauthorities, as part of a vindictive campaign by an age-
ing superpower to hold China back. The vice foreign minister, Le
Yucheng, gave a speech at the peace forum arguing that America’s
many problems, from the bitter legacy of wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq, to yawning inequality and crumbling infrastructure, should
not be blamed on China’s rise. After the speech, the first question
to the minister came from a professor, lamenting visa delays for
“our students” who hold offers from American universities, as
well as cases in which Chinese scholars had seen ten-year Ameri-
can visas cancelled. Mr Le was sympathetic. China sends teenagers
to study in America without worrying if they will be brainwashed,
and then they are treated as spies, the minister tut-tutted. Chinese
scholars have been harassed in airports and hotels by American in-
telligence, and, he asserted, cancer researchers have lost jobs at
American institutions because of their Chinese ethnicity. How can
America be so lacking in confidence? These actions are based on
“blood lineage and race”, Mr Le charged. Chinese people find this
“hard to understand”.
In vain American participants at the forum noted that Western
scholars in China have endured harsh visa restrictions for years.
Chinese universities face ever-tougher state surveillance. It is not
unreasonable to charge Communist Party bosses with hypocrisy
for clamping down on academic debate at home, while the past
four Chinese leaders all sent a child to study in America (President
Xi Jinping’s daughter was at Harvard).
Still, it is a wrinkle of the human condition that hypocrisy and
sincere indignation can co-exist in the same breast. Since the first
Chinese students attended Yale and other universities in the 19th
century, an American education has stood for critical thinking, an
escape from rote learning and freedoms that are both invigorating
and alarming. The desire to give Chinese youngsters a horizon-
broadening education unites flintily ideological officials and aspi-
rational middle-class Chinese who care nothing for politics.
The key to their angst—and to this tense moment in Chinese-
American relations—lies in a particular sense that just as China is
poised to join the world on an equal footing, giving its young
chances of which their elders could only dream, a selfish, resentful
America is slamming shut its doors.If young Chinese are welcome, say so
America’s government has done little to explain its side. Visa poli-
cies are always rather secretive. There seems little doubt that
America’s rules have become tougher for Chinese applicants, no-
tably in science subjects, with more students languishing in “addi-
tional administrative processing” for so long that some must
abandon their studies. fbichiefs have repeatedly briefed Congress
about how China uses scholars to steal secrets. It would not hurt
the fbidirector to invite Chinese students to a speech to explain
how much espionage actually goes on in America, state that the
vast majority of Chinese are not under suspicion, then take lots of
questions. Chinese censors might keep news of such a speech
from parents and youngsters back home. (No speakers at the peace
forum either knew or were willing to acknowledge that Mr Trump
recently praised Chinese students as “tremendous assets”.)
America has a story worth telling. It is one about open societies,
and how openness to people and ideas, though it can be seen as a
vulnerability, represents their greatest strength. That America is
losing a propaganda war, unbeknown to most Americans, is an ex-
traordinary failure. Some day, China’s brightest youngsters may no
longer want to come. 7Chaguan A generational divide
Team Trump is losing a messaging war about the fate of Chinese students in America