In Shanghai, our tour guide had hosted only one other U.S. school team and expected to have just one more this year — a marked drop from the 30-plus he shut down each year before the pandemic. In Guilin, where the iconic mountains, a UNESCO World Heritage site, were previously among the most visited places on Earth, we were reportedly the first American group to visit since early 2020. Only two more are expected this year. One hopes that these are low estimates and that there are more to come. But there is no doubt that the number of Americans who traveled to China, which plummeted during the pandemic, was slow to recover.
This sharp decline comes at a time when US-China relations have reached their lowest point since President Richard Nixon visited Chairman Mao Zedong in 1972. Public discourse in both countries has become almost exclusively about competition. zero-sum, if not outright hostility. While American politicians and commentators from across the political spectrum portray China as the economic and geopolitical threat, the Chinese media insist that American democracy is false and that the US is unfairly limiting China’s growth and development.
As most news coverage in both countries focuses on macroeconomic and geopolitical issues, little attention is paid to the lives and perspectives of ordinary people. Opportunities to create empathy are rare and the results are becoming more and more apparent. In US polls, only 15 percent of respondents treated China favorably in 2023, from 53 percent in 2018 and from 72 percent in 1989.
Some concerns are valid. In 2018, Americans and Canadians were shocked by China’s three-year detention two Canadas NGO workers in retaliation for the relatively mild house arrest of Meng Wanzhou, a Huawei executive accused of helping her company evade sanctions in Iran. Then came China’s pandemic lockdowns, which prompted most Americans to leave the country.
While entirely understandable, the mass exodus of Americans and other expatriates has further limited the flow of information and interpersonal exchanges between businesses and NGOs in the two countries. Add the fact that the activities of Western journalists are extremely limited in China, and it’s easy to see why the country feels so foreign and opaque to many foreigners. The exciting economic opportunities and fun travel stories of just a few years ago have given way to anxiety and uncertainty.
But has China changed radically since 2019? Do the Chinese no longer believe in the potential of markets? Do they hate Americans?
My class saw as much of the country as possible in just two weeks. We visited three cities and saw many Chinese and American companies—some thriving, others struggling for survival. Students also ran around cities and suburbs on their own to carry out independent projects.
On our last day, when I asked them what stood out the most, perspectives varied. Some were impressed by China’s transportation infrastructure and cleanliness, as well as the complexity of its economy. Others noted the apparent poverty amid the glamor and glitz of Shanghai and Hong Kong, and many noted the constant presence of government surveillance. But all were pleasantly surprised by their personal encounters and encounters with Chinese people from all walks of life—from people on the street to heirs to billion-dollar family businesses. They found the Chinese people warm and even humble.
Students who were wary or suspicious were excited by the experience. One had previously helped draft anti-China legislation while working in government, and another had experienced a heated US-China standoff in the South China Sea. A US State Department travel advice had left many students worried but wanting to know more about the country than what they had read in the headlines.
The joy and sense of relief was mutual. The Chinese children and their parents laughed when one of my students picked up a small child and threw him in the air. Women selling bowls of noodles for six renminbi (less than a dollar) made sure that students who could not read Chinese received the same discounts offered to Chinese customers. Everywhere we went, people told me that my students were a breath of fresh air — just as fun and open as they remembered the Americans. They laughed with them, took pictures and were happy to show them their work. They had missed those Americans. After years of isolation and negative press, they had begun to worry that Americans had changed.
Of course, not all Chinese and Americans got along, and the trip didn’t suddenly turn my students into China superfans. But it helped them appreciate the complexities of the world’s second most populous country. They saw firsthand that the Chinese people—almost completely absent from US news coverage—are not the same as the Chinese government or what US news headlines might suggest.
The US and China have many differences to deal with, which will not happen overnight. In the meantime, it is important to maintain interpersonal interactions. Chinese and Americans must not lose sight of their common humanity. The greater the tension between their governments, the more important this becomes.
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This article originally appeared on Project Syndicate.
