美中全球议题对话项目

If there’s one insight from the spring 2025 U.S.-China Student Dialogue trip worth highlighting the most, it is  Dr. Shao Yuqun of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies’ reminder of how important it is for U.S.-based policymakers and scholars to have 感觉 or a “real feel” for China. Currently, many so-called China experts in the United States lack on-the-ground experiences: as a result, they do not truly understand how Chinese people think, how Chinese politics works, and how Chinese society writ large functions because their perspectives are largely shaped by media narratives rather than first-hand observations.

Combined with previous observations, this once again convinced me how important academic and cultural exchange is between the two countries. We must understand one another better to find mutually beneficial areas of bilateral collaboration (for example, combating climate change), and parse out where strategic competition is most advantageous, economically and geopolitically speaking (for example, advanced semiconductor manufacturing). Without people-to-people dialogue, neither the United States nor China can engage in smart policymaking with regard to the other.

I’d already been a firm believer in people-to-people dialogue before the trip, but the experiences we had in Beijing and Shanghai only reinforced this conviction. We spent the first couple of days at Peking University conversing with students we first met virtually in the fall. The conversations were wide-ranging, from the new administration’s economic policies, to car culture in the United States, to the latest movies that had come out in the theaters (Wicked and Nezha 2), but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they were also far more candid and earnest than the ones we’d previously had online. In the process of hanging out in downtown Beijing, exchanging jokes over meals, and debating the latest pop culture trends in the two countries, we developed true bonds with one another, ones that I know will last for a long time.

I was most heartened by the new friendships we formed, but I also felt that our various site visits were extremely eye-opening. In addition to dipping our toes into the Chinese think tank world with the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, our group also visited the American Chamber of Commerce, electric car company NIO, and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. We learned about how American companies are thinking about trade in goods and services with China amidst the current geopolitical environment, the newest cutting edge auto technology available to Chinese consumers (battery swap!), and also how American diplomats stationed abroad coordinate policy with the State Department’s D.C. headquarters. Experiencing the multi-layered facets of Chinese society brought everything I’d mostly only encountered in textbooks before to life in ways that I never thought were possible.

It’s no coincidence that on the flight back, several of our cohort members expressed that they now felt like they had a fresh set of eyes on China because of everything they had newly experienced first hand. This kind of people-to-people exchange is vital, truly non-negotiable, and I’m incredibly grateful to have been a part of it with the absolute best group of people.

Sophia Lu (SFS’26) is a junior at Georgetown University studying science, technology, international affairs with minors in film and media studies and philosophy.