China v America: why universities are on the front line

by Panzer
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