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

Landing in Shanghai, I couldn’t help but ask myself the question I’d been asking all semester: “What’s the catch?”

After nearly 18 hours of air travel we were finally in China, and I was still in disbelief in how we’d gotten there. After just four short zooms of getting to know Peking University (PKU) students and discussing global issues that interested us – pretty much what I do every day at lunch – we’d flown to the other side of the world. Like, woah. I kept expecting there to be something: a pop quiz, some laborious task, or a hidden complication that would act as an offering for this otherwise unbelievable experience. And yet, nothing. All we had to do was show up with our thoughts, our questions, and ourselves. Not too bad.

Having just spent a semester abroad, my initial thought was how different China was from Europe, and how advanced it seemed in comparison with all other cities I’d been to. Robots shined the floors and cashiers scanned AliPay barcodes in place of physical payment. One of my peers put it best: Europe is like visiting the past; China is like visiting the future.

Of course, much of Western China remains underdeveloped – we were only getting two snapshots of two of its largest cities – but I couldn’t help thinking how developed it seemed. The framework of China as a strictly developing nation felt incomplete. In fact, there was hardly any framework that I’d been taught to explain the nuance I was seeing.

Perhaps most surprising to me, however, was our impact on the PKU students. For us, it was a novel experience to not only speak with them but to see a new city and try new foods. But they lived there, and all we were offered was ourselves, our thoughts, and some American candy. And yet, they were sad to see us go. Our counterparts were keen on getting a group photo and surprised us with gifts on our last night.

I’m happy to share that while we’ve left China, that connection hasn’t ended. In fact, the moment that has stuck with me the most from the dialogue actually happened afterwards. One of the young women in our group messaged me that as a result of our dialogue, she would be applying to Master’s Programs in the United States. I was touched that our visit had meant so much and struck that something as simple as a few conversations over a couple of days could impact how our new friend envisioned her future.

Put this moment into context, and it's even more remarkable. As our plane touched down in Shanghai, we’d learned that the war had once again broken out in the Middle East, with the United States and China seemingly on opposing sides. And yet, here were students from both nations exchanging candies and taking selfies.

Hillary Clinton has taken a lot of heat for talking about what she calls ‘radical empathy,’ or to try and see the world through the eyes of those who come from vastly different backgrounds, even amid deep disagreement. I don’t know if what we did was all that radical, but our dialogue was an important reminder that for there to be any cooperation, we’ve first got to understand where the other side is coming from.

Michael Scime (C'27) is a student at Georgetown University studying American studies and minoring in journalism.