Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues

Aanika Veedon: From wherever you're listening in, welcome. My name is Aanika Veedon, and I'm a senior in Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) studying international politics.

Luke Hughes: And my name is Luke Hughes, I'm a third year in the SFS studying science, technology and international affairs.

Aanika Veedon: The two of us are the co-hosts of the Georgetown U.S.-China Student Dialogue Podcast, a student-run podcast through the Georgetown Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues.

Luke Hughes: After visiting Beijing and Hong Kong this past May with the rest of the spring 2025 cohort, Aanika and I felt compelled to continue the trans-Pacific dialogue we had the privilege of engaging in. We hope this podcast further demonstrates the importance of student voices in U.S.-China relations. We hope you enjoy.

We'll go ahead and get started. So like I said, Aanika and I were at Tsinghua University in May, and we were a part of Georgetown's Initiative on U.S.-China Student Dialogue on Global Issues. So we were talking about climate change, artificial intelligence, trade, and how the U.S. and China can cooperate. And after Aanika and I left China, we still wanted to continue these conversations, and we still wanted to learn how students can work together to continue these dialogues. So that's why we started this podcast, if you will, this little project.

Yue Ma: Okay, hello. I'm Yue Ma from Tsinghua University. I'm currently a Ph.D. student in Tsinghua University, the Department of Earth System Science. Just like you said, I also mentioned climate change and landscape and urban planning. I'm very interested in cross-cultural intersections and communications and I love making friends with others from around the world and from different cultures and different countries. That's my introduction.

Luke Hughes: It sounds like you have a lot going on. It sounds like you're studying many subjects at once.

Yue Ma: Yes, because in my career, I've just focused on the landscaping, urban planning, architecture designs, in the Department of Earth System Science, I just focused on the climate change, climate resilience, and how to use the urban ecology to solve these issues.

Aanika Veedon: That's awesome. And it's very timely, like, there's no better time to be studying what you're studying. We need more of that in the world.

Yue Ma: Yeah, exactly.

Luke Hughes: I think that's fascinating, how there's, you know, there's many cities that are growing, growing both in China and the United States, and they're facing wildfires and tsunamis and all these different natural disasters, so they have to learn how to build more, you know, sustainably, you know, still maintain their cities, still maintain their population, and face all these new threats. That's amazing.

Yue Ma: Yeah, yeah.

Luke Hughes: Very nice. Well, Aanika and I's first question for you is, why do you think it's important to engage in student dialogue such as this, between students in the US and China.

Yue Ma: How it’s important? Because I think China and United States just can make a big influence in the international communities. I think as a young generation, we think we are the future of our countries. We can through these open communications build the connections, make some communication with each other, know their culture, know what they are doing now. Not only climate change, but, you know, AI or other things, global issues, we can talk about that.

I think, you know, maybe we can build these deep connections between us in the future. Maybe we can for our school, for Tsinghua and Georgetown, maybe for China's and U.S. size, we can just communicate well, or just build deeper connections and interactions between these two countries. So I think it's very important.

Aanika Veedon: Yeah, that's a really great point on the importance of student exchange and the one that we shared in Beijing, which sort of brings us to our next question, which was, were you sort of surprised about anything with the Georgetown students on the trip, or, you know, meeting a group of American students, was there anything that you weren't expecting or that you did?

Yue Ma: Okay, what surprised me the most is the diversity, the cultural diversity from the Georgetown students. During our interactions, I met several, several friends, I guess, with ancient Asian background, maybe India, South Korea and Vietnam, or whose family, just originally from Guangdong Province in Guangzhou, and she could speak Cantonese. So that surprised me.

I think cultural exchange is everywhere, not only from two countries. For your group, you guys can make a culture exchange; your group represents the different cultural identities. So that's the big surprise for me. We also communicate with others - Daniel and other people - when we talk about the music that we listen to. I think it's very an impressive trip. I guess if we have more opportunity to conduct the joint program, I will just have to participate. That's what I want to express.

Luke Hughes: Yeah. I think you bring up great points about both Zifei, who I believe Aanika, her grandmother, still lives in Guangzhou. Is that right?

Aanika Veedon: Yeah, I think so.

Yue Ma: Okay, I don't [remember] her name, but I remember her. She lived in New York, I guess.

Luke Hughes: Yes, okay, that's it, and she actually stayed in China after we had all left to go. I think she was interning, or she was working in China this summer, and she spent a few weeks with her family. But I was also, I was shocked as well, because we went to go visit the NRDC and all the Chinese officials there were shocked when so many of the Georgetown students could speak Mandarin, or they were they were taking Mandarin classes, or they have Asian backgrounds, and I think it does just really reflect the diversity of our school and why it's important to maintain those connections with Tsinghua and other universities in China because of our shared backgrounds.

Yue Ma: Yeah, exactly.

Luke Hughes: Now, moving on to another question. So what do you think - we touched on this a little bit - but what do you think is the role of student dialogues in broader cooperation between the United States and China? We've talked about how it's important to maintain connections on the government level, so that politicians can speak to each other, that they can maintain those relationships. But why do you think it's important for students to be able to talk to other students, sort of in Zoom meetings like this, or in person? What do you think is really so special about the student interactions?

Yue Ma: In this era, I think we need to communicate with each other, because in China we have, we are in strong competition levels; I think it's the same in the U.S. So we also want to know the foreign students, what their daily life is like, how they study, what they do in their daily life. So I think you can communicate with their lives, study the foods and maybe the major, and academics.

Luke Hughes: So I was thinking of how you said that we do have lots in common when it comes to our daily lives. You know, especially students in the United States and China. I think a lot back to when we had lunch in the dining hall in the cafeteria on Tsinghua campus and how it was, I think, in that moment, once we had a meal shared together, and I was with Meredith and I want to say Isabella from Georgetown. And then from the Tsinghua side, we were with Jenny and Betty, I believe, and there was a small group of us, and we were trying all these different foods, and we were seeing how Chinese students go about their daily lives, how they're rushing from class to get to the cafeteria, to get on their bicycles and then go bike around campus.

And I think then is when I noticed there are so many similarities between our two campuses and between our two schools. And I think it shows the importance of being there in person and being able to go to a thing like a dining hall. I think that's so special.

Yue Ma: Yeah, exactly. I went to the Great Wall with you guys, not for the dinner with you, so I just get maybe three or four hours to talk with you guys. The time is very less, so I just get a few information -  add WeChat with some friends, just go through this dialogue - but maybe if we can continue or if this activity last for many days, maybe we'll connect with you guys for a long time, and we can communicate in a deeper way, and we will learn more about each other's information. Take the dinner with Tsinghua students and the Georgetown students in the dining hall - you will remember all that, some things that happened, or maybe things that impressed you.

In the journey, we divided into several groups - just three or four people went together. Several guys with Asian backgrounds were with me to communicate. Willis …I guess the leader in the Georgetown, he said…

Aanika Veedon: Wesley!

Yue Ma: Oh yeah, that's him. I talked to him and with Daniel and with the girl from Guangzhou and lives in New York. Yeah, so we talked to these guys. I'm not really remembering the things we talked about, but we talked about everything - like music, like NBA, like their lives in in Georgetown. We also used Cantonese to talk, that was amazing. That's the things that impress me, but I think, just as I said, more time to build the connections that will create more opportunities and more events that will impress us, that after a few years, maybe in the future, we will remember, “Oh, at that time! We just yeah, yeah, yeah,” like this.

Aanika Veedon: Definitely. And I'm so glad you had such a good time on the Great Wall trip, because it was probably one of my favorite parts about going to China, because I've read about the Great Wall my whole life and seeing photos, and I learned so much about it as a kid, and being there was surreal. So it was awesome that we had the Tsinghua students as the guides for the trip.

Yue Ma: Yeah, exactly. I remember you are from, originally from your heritage is from India.

Aanika Veedon: Yes, yeah, my parents were born in India.

Yue Ma: Okay, I remember the things maybe you or other people say you cannot eat spice or spicy food, is that you?

Aanika Veedon: I don't know if it was me, but I am not the best with spice, which is very embarrassing.

Yue Ma: Okay, I just remember some people told me that one student…maybe I can say his heritage is from India. He said, you know, he cannot try many foods, because that's dangerous for him. So I forgot. I just got this information.

Luke Hughes: Okay, okay, I will say it may have been me, because there was one day where I was wearing, I was dressed in a suit, so I was in a full-length shirt, dark pants and a dark coat, and we tried this spicy pork in the dining hall, and I didn't have any water, and I was, and it was, it was very hot outside. It was a very hot day in Beijing, and so then we had to walk around afterwards, and I remember being overwhelmed by the spice. It was still very good food, but there may have been me who couldn't tolerate the spice as much.

Yue Ma: Oh, that's fine. Yeah.

Luke Hughes: One, one more follow up question for you. So we saw the Forbidden City and we saw the Great Wall. If we had a few more days in Beijing or around Beijing, what else do you think we should go see? What are other sites around the city you would have taken us to ensure that we can fully immerse ourselves in Chinese culture?

Yue Ma: Yeah, you know, you just went to the famous places in Beijing that can represent Beijing and represent China, the Forbidden City. Because I'm just majoring in urban ecology, I will recommend, you know, some parks are very famous, like Beihai Park, like that's a landscape for Empire.

Aanika Veedon: Oh, we went there. I think we actually, we went to see the temple in Beihai Park.

Yue Ma: Oh, yeah, you went to the Beihai Park. Beihai Park is a famous park for the Empire, for the holidays, or for rest. I think that's the good place. Yonghe Temple is where we can pray for a job, pray for a career or if you want to make some achievement in your career, or if you want to just for your study career, or for your working career, you will go to the Yonghe Temple and pray for that.

Luke Hughes: Yeah, I wish we had a few more days to go explore Beijing and to go look around the city a little bit more. There seemed just to be so much to do and try more foods and experience more of the culture. It really looks amazing.

Yue Ma: If you get the chance to get to Beijing you can go with your foreign friends. Because [if] I wish my application will be successful, I will go to the temple and pray for it, and after that I work hard, and maybe it will come true, probably will come true. That's amazing things, if you just believe that, that way will come true.

Aanika Veedon: That's very relatable. Every time before I have a test, my mom always says, “make sure you pray.”

Yue Ma: Yeah, make sure you pray.

Luke Hughes: There we go. Annika, do you want to conclude us with the last question?

Aanika Veedon: Sounds good. So for the last question for our discussion today, we've talked a lot about how Georgetown and Tsinghua have worked together now a couple times and how it's so important to continue the student exchange. So, do you have maybe any ideas about how Tsinghua and Georgetown can keep working together and to keep making sure that there's cooperation in the trans-Pacific level?

Yue Ma: Okay, I think that’s a great question for future planning. And I cannot come up with some big ideas, but for me, I'm just trying to say, you know, some college or university, like Tsinghua and Georgetown to strengthen their collaborations by organizing more programs, like [joint] programs, research projects, and exchange visits. Two colleges can, you know, jointly train some graduate students - two years in Tsinghua, two years in Georgetown. And maybe for doctoral student, PhD student. Maybe we can spend half the time in Tsinghua, half the time in Georgetown, with one made for the same majors.

So I think we can organize such programs to continue our collaborations. And we can create more opportunities for students to work together, just like workshops and other things, innovation projects. We can participate in some international contest for climate change or AI. That's great, you know, yeah, we are just majoring in climate change but other students in Tsinghua, for the AI, I think they do it well. So we can let them to go to Georgetown. We can communicate or just participate in your contest for AI. So I think that's a good idea for building lasting relationships.

Aanika Veedon: I really appreciate how optimistic it is about the future. I feel like we don't have enough of that. So thank you so much.

Yue Ma: Yeah.

Luke Hughes: Thank you so much for those answers. I think your answer speaks to why we're here right now is because we want to continue those conversations. We want to continue those exchange programs we want to see. We would love to facilitate more of those exchanges, things such as that. And I also think important - you said a few minutes ago how, who knows, maybe 10 years down the line, we'll find ourselves at the same company, working in the same area, in the same city, and we'll interact again. And it's because of these initial conversations and these initial meetings like these, that will be able to form those relationships that'll help us down the line, and that'll help make real progress when it comes to climate change and artificial intelligence. So thank you. Thank you so much for those answers. Those are incredible.

Yue Ma: Yeah exactly, thank you. That's great.

Luke Hughes: Well, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Yue Ma: Also thank you.

Luke Hughes: Take care. Thanks so much for listening in.

Aanika Veedon: We will see you next time.