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

Growing up across three cultures, I have always felt the importance of language and communication in how you form relationships with new people. The words you use, the way you say them, the choices you make about how to express yourself to someone - they all shape the other person’s perception of you and what type of relationship you might be able to form with one another. I felt this dynamic exemplified during our trip to China. Throughout our virtual dialogues, I had been consistently grateful to our counterparts at Peking University (PKU) for engaging with us in English. I could not imagine discussing such difficult topics with such nuance in Chinese, and yet, there they were, ready to engage in a language that was not their own.

Once in China, I felt even more strongly how much language could impact your perception of a place or people. Of course, knowing Chinese would have been helpful in getting my Alipay to work, but it was more profound than that. I came to China hoping to better understand the country that is so hotly debated in every corner of America, but I found myself unable to immerse myself fully. How could I when I couldn’t read street signs or ask someone how they were doing? Indeed, as our PKU peers showed us around, broke bread with us, and laughed with us, I kept wondering how I could fully connect with my new friends if I couldn’t joke around with them or convey complexity back to them in their native tongue. And yet, we still formed a bond.  We commiserated over the woes of final exams, expressed delight when we discovered we liked the same music, and laughed as we all slipped in the fresh snow that fell on Beijing during our first day. Even if we didn’t have all the right words in the right language, we found common ground. Of course, there were still some fundamental differences – we may not have agreed on how to stop a tariff war or what to do about critical mineral disputes, but we formed enough of a connection to see each other as real people just trying to grapple with hard questions about our shared future.

Upon reflection, it seems that these experiences are a metaphor for the broader relationship between our two countries. How can we expect to understand each other’s point of view if we cannot communicate properly? The trip and our final projects taught me that our countries have more opportunities to collaborate than we think – but how can we take advantage of them if we’re not able to communicate clearly about those shared goals? Diplomacy is not an easy task, and certainly not between the U.S. and China, but perhaps the formality and procedure obfuscate the messages we are both trying to get across. Maybe we don’t need all the right words at the outset to start making progress on difficult subjects.

Our trip made me hopeful that future leaders in both countries across all parts of society will be able to communicate better about the issues facing our nations. Until we find ways across that barrier, building the trust and mutual understanding necessary to move forward will be difficult, if not impossible.

Ritika Saligram (G’28) is a first-year graduate student in the dual degree Master of Science in Foreign Service/Master of Business Administration program at Georgetown studying global politics and security.