Yung Wing graduated from Yale in the class of ’54...
...1854
He was the first Chinese student to receive a degree...
...from an American university...
...and went on to pioneer a scheme...
...to educate other Chinese students in the West
But it didn’t last long
Political mistrust between America and China...
...brought Yung Wing’s grand plans to an end
And the students were summoned home
Today’s Chinese students are experiencing similar pressures
The top concern for parents in China...
...is the safety of the student, of their children
The covid-19 pandemic has blocked borders and closed campuses...
...making it much harder for Chinese students to study in the West
For some universities it could cause financial ruin
But for the Chinese government...
...it’s an opportunity
Take almost any university in America, Australia and Britain...
...and it will most likely have students from China...
...lots of them
It’s a legacy of a bold decision...
...taken by the Chinese paramount leader in the late 1970s...
...to reform and open up Communist China
There’s a famous conversation where President Jimmy Carter...
...who established full diplomatic relations with China...
...sent his chief scientific adviser on a visit to China in 1978...
...to meet the paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping
And Deng said, I want you to speak to your president right now...
...because I want to send 5,000 Chinese students to study in America
And so Frank Press found himself phoning the White House...
...at 3:00 in the morning...
...and Jimmy Carter thought there’d been some absolute disaster...
...when he was told that it was Deng Xiaoping...
...wanting to send 5,000 students
Jimmy Carter said tell him, send 100,000...
...and then went back to sleep
By sending Chinese students to America...
...Deng Xiaoping was taking a gamble
Deng Xiaoping was not a liberal
He didn’t want them to stop thinking...
...that communism was the right system...
...of government for China
But he was willing to tolerate the risks...
...that they would be polluted with Western, liberal ideas...
...if they also learned...
...all the things that had made America so rich and successful
The gamble paid off
Knowledge gained in the West has helped China...
...become the economic superpower it is today
And the stream of students has risen...
...from under 5,000 in 1985, to over 650,000 in 2018
The main destinations are English-speaking countries
Britain and Australia have seen steady increases since the 2000s
But the biggest pull is America...
...where numbers have nearly quadrupled in the past ten years
Over 360,000 Chinese students were studying here in 2019
Chinese students now make up the biggest proportion...
...of international students in the world
Hi, my name is Ketong...
...and this is my third year studying a PhD in the UK
I think living abroad makes us more open minded...
...so open to new things
I think it’s not only I think the things that I can learn...
...but also the experiences that I will have...
...talking to people with different backgrounds
This is a plus on your CV and I think if I went back to China...
...I think I do have a competitive advantage compared to those students...
...who solely spend their time in China
For the universities...
...having students like Ketong, has been a financial boon
At the University of Cambridge, Britain’s top-ranked university...
...international students could pay up to six times more in fees...
...than students from Britain
Despite making up 5% of the student population in Britain...
...Chinese students contribute 10% of universities’ income from fees
In America, some universities are so reliant on Chinese tuition fees...
...they have insurance policies against Chinese students not coming
And they might be about to claim on those policies
Deteriorating relations between the West and China...
...had already made Chinese students think twice...
...about studying abroad
And then the pandemic hit
3,000 members of this university family, wondering what’s next
Great deal of concern on campus for our international students
You know, we got very nervous at the time
We got a stigmatisation towards the Chinese community...
...at the beginning of the pandemic
When the virus got controlled in China...
...many Chinese felt safer to go back to China
Now the chaotic handling of the pandemic is shaking the confidence...
...that Chinese families once had in Western countries
For those still keen to study overseas...
...it might prove impossible
America has blocked entry to visitors from China
Australia has pretty much closed its borders
In Britain most universities are confident their campuses will be open...
...but many overseas students will quarantine for two weeks...
...after arrival
At the moment, the chances are...
...that they may have to study online back in China
If you’re a Chinese family and you’re getting the bill...
...for the first semester of tuition and it’s online-only...
...that bill is going to be tens of thousands of dollars
That’s a lot of money to pay for something that you could get for free
Though it’s a dilemma for Chinese students...
...it’s a potential financial disaster for some Western universities
In Britain, some forecasts suggest...
...that there could be as many as 50% fewer...
...new international students starting their first year
A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies...
...a think-tank...
...predicts this could cost British universities...
...anywhere from £1.4bn to £4.3bn
The Chinese government has spotted an opportunity
They are very happy to use Chinese students as a form of leverage
So they understand that Chinese students...
...bring a tremendous amount of money...
...to Western campuses and they have been happy...
...when they’ve been having a diplomatic dispute to use that
In April, the Australian government annoyed China...
...by suggesting there should be an independent inquiry...
...into the origins of the pandemic
And one of the forms of what looks a lot like...
...kind of economic blackmail was suddenly the Chinese authorities...
...saying that they believed that Australia...
...was a dangerously racist country...
...and that it wasn’t safe for Chinese students to study there
It’s not the first time that China has used its leverage...
...over Western universities to bolster its soft power
Chinese officials and students...
...have been vocal in their criticism of universities...
...which have discussed thorny political issues relating to China
Free Tibet
In 2017, Chinese officials reportedly banned new state-funded scholars...
...from attending an American university that had hosted the Dalai Lama
Academics have raised concerns...
...about the way in which the Chinese Communist Party...
...exercises control over its students...
...which they suggest is often sinister
You’ve had congressional hearings in Washington...
...at which academics have given specific examples...
...of how a Chinese grad student in a small class...
...in an American campus...
...will say something critical of the Chinese Communist Party
And the next day, back in mainland China...
...the Chinese police hammer on the door of that student’s parents...
...and say your kid has been shooting his mouth off on American campus
That can only happen...
...because another Chinese student reported their classmate
And the pandemic will provide China...
...with only more opportunities...
...for political and ideological control
Take studying online
Many Western websites are blocked in China
A group of British universities has been testing...
...an internet link provided by Alibaba...
...a Chinese tech giant...
...which allows students to watch British lectures...
...and access approved research materials at their homes in China
But the problem with that is that as far as we can tell...
...those lectures and that streaming process...
...will be subject to Chinese law
And so, if you’re a history professor...
...and you want to talk about the Cultural Revolution...
...and you want to say that Mao caused the deaths...
...of tens of millions of Chinese...
...through his extremist policies, can you say that?
You certainly can’t say it legally here in China
The repercussions of this are unclear
But the danger is academics feel pressured to censor themselves
There are university administrators...
...who have been much too willing to sell out...
...their own academic freedoms and their own values
No amount of foreign-student revenue...
...can be worth betraying those core values
Western universities need to be more confident...
...in what they have to offer
If the Chinese government says, you know...
...we’ll stop Chinese students coming to your campuses...
...actually, they’re bluffing...
...because China gains a tremendous amount...
...from being able to send students overseas
But Western universities and governments...
...also need to make more of an effort...
...to welcome Chinese students
If Chinese students were to disappear...
...from Western universities...
...it would not only be a financial blow...
...but a geopolitical tragedy
The bond that Yung Wing tried to forge...
...almost two centuries ago, would be even more fractured
We are more interdependent and better connected...
...than we have been before
We’re trying something hard, which is to be open to a China...
...that looks more and more aggressive and scarier...
...and more competitive and more willing to use...
...its kind of economic leverage
And in some ways, less trustworthy
And so it’s hard to keep your campuses open to that China
If that China is hard to manage...
...would it be easier to manage a China...
...that knew nothing about the West...
...whose brightest young people had no idea...
...what a Western university was like?
And so, I think that we need to hold our nerve...
...and be confident that we do still have something to gain
The trend of Chinese students...
...start to study abroad, will not be stopped
Anyone who will be the president, who will be the prime minister...
...will encourage Chinese students to come...
...because it will be a very valuable asset...
...in the bilateral relationship
I’m David Rennie...
...The Economist’s Beijing bureau chief and Chaguan columnist
You can read more about ever increasing US-China tensions...
...by clicking the link opposite
Thanks for watching