A Chinese student said to his American classmates: “I want to study propaganda in the United States.”
“The United States does not promote such things,” the American student replied.
The Chinese student said: “By the way, you are exactly what I want to learn.”
This joke reflects the growing suspicion, criticism, and disappointment of the young Chinese towards American domestic and foreign affairs. In the past two years, Sino-U.S. relations have deteriorated drastically, and mutual suspicions, worries, and hostility have continued to increase. Dumping, propaganda wars, and conspiracy theories have emerged on both sides of the Pacific.
Nationalism and anti-American sentiment are particularly evident among young Chinese, including those who have studied or are currently studying in the United States. As Cornell University political scientist Jessica Chen Weiss recently observed, today’s young people in China are “stronger than the older generation in their foreign policy beliefs.”
China’s post-90s: a change in attitude towards the United States
The post-90s groups in the cities, especially those in their 20s, grow up in a wealthy society. It can be said that compared with their parents and grandfathers, young people in urban China are more similar to their peers in developed countries in terms of lifestyle, higher education (including opportunities to study abroad), and social interaction in the digital age.
Li Chunling is a well-known youth research scholar in China, and “Chinese Youth: Increasing Diversity in Persistent Inequality” is her latest book. According to her observation, young people in China are different from those born in the 60s and 70s who grew up in the “period of admiring foreigners and facilitating foreigners.” In the eyes of young Chinese who grew up during Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening-up period, the United States is the “beacon of freedom and democracy” and the “city on the hill” (the lighthouse country). The Tiananmen Movement in 1989 reflected this sentiment.
In 2018, Li Chunling conducted research on the issue of “national identity” and evaluated the national identity of more than 10,000 domestic respondents. The survey data shows that the younger the person, the weaker their sense of national identity. The educated post-90s respondents have the lowest sense of national identity, and there is a clear correlation between lower national identity and studying at prestigious universities. In 2017, another Chinese research team conducted a sample survey of 10,000 post-95 college students from 157 universities across the country, and found that most students lacked the motivation and enthusiasm to join the party.
As for the attitude of Chinese young people towards the United States, many polls of the Chinese public before 2018 show that the Chinese people have generally very positive views of the United States, although it is not uncommon for love and hate to be intertwined or ambivalent. My survey of “returnees” who have returned to Shanghai in the past 10 years also shows that most people have a favorable view of the United States. In 2009, the ratio was 90% and in 2014 it was 92%. My research also shows that compared with people studying in other countries and regions, people who have returned from studying in the United States have the highest affinity for the United States.
The influence of Washington’s hawks on China and its people
The worldview of Chinese young people, including their attitude towards the United States, has undergone profound changes in recent years. Of course, there are many factors at play. Washington’s concerns about Beijing’s excessive political control of the country and its aggressive foreign policy are understandable. From the perspective of the United States, the national security and intellectual property rights of the United States should be vigorously protected. However, the hard-line policies and speeches of some policymakers in Washington have had a serious negative impact on the Chinese public, especially Chinese students and scholars in the United States.
This wave of anti-American sentiment among young Chinese in recent years may be a reaction to the following hostile actions by Washington hawkish policymakers:
● Claiming that Beijing is “weaponizing” a large number of Chinese students studying in American universities, and that many of them have to act as spies or steal advanced technology because their families in China have been intimidated by the CCP authorities;
● In response to Chinese scientists and Chinese American scientists, the US Department of Justice (for the first time) launched a plan for specific countries and ethnic groups-the “China Action Plan”, and used the controversial new term “academic spy”;
● Use words such as “Chinese virus” and “Kung Flu” to trigger China-phobia and anti-Asian hate crimes;
● Restrict Chinese Communist Party members and their families (about 300 million people) from going to the United States;
● Insult China’s cultural heritage. For example, in a tweet in December 2020, Republican Senator Martha Blackburn stated that “China has a history of 5,000 years of fraud and theft, and some things will never change.”
Before these unfortunate events in recent years, patriotism (and xenophobia) among young Chinese people had already been on the rise. A survey conducted in China in 2018 found that 90% of post-90s generations were dissatisfied with the “prejudice” that Western countries have against China. That year, another survey of 10,000 Chinese young people born after 2000 found that 80% of people felt that “China is either at the best period in history, or it is getting better day by day.”
Beijing promotes the spirit of patriotism
For many years, the Chinese authorities have paid great attention to the worldview of young people and their understanding of the party. They realize that young people are often core participants in radical social movements around the world, such as the 2011 summer riots in London and the “Jasmine Revolution” that swept the Middle East and North Africa 10 years ago. From the perspective of the Chinese authorities, young people in the country, especially college students and young intellectuals, are the main targets for the infiltration of hostile forces.
Soon after becoming China’s top leader in 2012, Xi Jinping called for the strengthening of ideological education for Chinese youth, stating that “the value orientation of youth determines the value orientation of the entire society in the future.” Convinced that the anti-China forces headed by the United States are intended to subvert the rule of the Communist Party, in 2016 Xi Jinping asked the national education department to adhere to the “correct political direction” and “core socialist values.” In January 2019, at an important provincial and ministerial-level leadership meeting held by the Central Party School, Xi Jinping listed seven major risks facing China, of which the first two are mainly related to youth. The demonstrations in Hong Kong led by young people have also been learned by Xi.
According to another report, Xi Jinping also expressed his opinions on the investigation into the party membership of post-95 college students, calling for greater efforts to recruit post-95 students into the party. In the second year, the number of party members under the age of 35 reached 22 million, accounting for 24.4% of the total number of party members. In 2018 alone, the CCP absorbed 1.64 million party members under the age of 35, accounting for 80% of the total number of new party members.
A national survey of 17,000 college students in the spring of 2020 found that the tensions in Sino-U.S. relations (including the trade war and the Meng Wanzhou incident) in recent years have greatly increased Chinese college students’ interest in geopolitics and contributed to the increasing interest in geopolitics. Nationalist sentiment. There are still a large number of Chinese students choosing to study in the United States. In the summer of 2021, about 85,000 Chinese citizens have obtained student visas to study in the United States. However, before the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, the proportion of Chinese students in the United States had begun to decline.
More and more outstanding Chinese students choose China’s own top universities. According to a report released by Tsinghua University in September 2021, only about 14% of its graduates went abroad for further studies in the past 10 years. The report also found that as of April this year, more than half of Tsinghua alumni who went abroad from 2002 to 2011 had returned to work in China, and this proportion is still increasing. A recent article in the “New York Times” pointed out that if the United States no longer welcomes outstanding Chinese students and researchers, “Beijing will welcome them back with open arms.”
Washington loses influence to influence China’s future
One of the views of the United States’ China policy that has lasted for a century is: the important thing is to influence (or educate) the young people in China, because they will ultimately affect the development of the country. This view holds that education-based strategies are more effective than guns and warships in maintaining world peace. The eye-catching US-China educational exchange activities initiated by President Carter and Deng Xiaoping embodies the common ideals of the two countries.
But in Washington today, the post-Nixon era’s “engagement” policy towards China is labelled. The best evaluation is naive, and the worst evaluation is failure. In the view of some political leaders in the United States, on the whole, bilateral educational exchanges are no longer the hope of positive changes brought about by academic exchanges. On the contrary, people worry that young people in China, including Chinese students in American universities, are worried that most of them are brainwashed nationalists who are weapons used by the CCP to undermine American power and interests.
However, as an American who has studied Chinese young people for many years recently pointed out: “It is a very sad negligence to refuse to admit that they (Chinese young people) are individuals with their own ideas, dreams, fears and desires. “Similarly, Stephanie Studder, a reporter from The Economist in China, recently noted that “Chinese young people are both patriotic and progressive from a social perspective.” In supporting LGBT and women’s rights, as well as supporting consumer rights, distributive justice, environmental protection and other social freedom policies, they are more daring to speak up.
For Chinese students who have studied in the United States, the generosity of American educational and research institutions cannot be overstated, let alone the tremendous influence of American society on their views and values. At the same time, it is not difficult to understand that racial discrimination in certain corners of the United States has also greatly contributed to the support of Chinese students for the Chinese government and the party.
Policy makers in Washington need to ask whether the continued insensitivity and alienation of the United States from the vast number of young people in China will help advance or harm U.S. values and interests. Strategically speaking, if it alienates China’s young people, what influence can the United States expect to have on China’s future evolution?