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OCR for page 15
2
The Context for Academic Exchange
Although this study focuses primarily on American academic
exchanges with China in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it analyzes
those exchanges in a comparative and historical context. Both China
and the United States have scientific, technical, and educational rela-
tions that span the globe, and each country's present interaction with
the other must be seen against the entire backdrop of those relations.
For example, in academic year 1983-1984, 21,960 students from Tai-
wan were studying in the United States, more than from anywhere else.
In that same year, the People's Republic of China was not among the
top 10 in numbers of students studying in the United States, while
strikingly smaller societies such as Malaysia, Korea, Japan, and Hong
Kong were (this probably will change soon, as discussed in Chapter 3) . ~
Placing America's academic relations with China in a comparative per-
spective helps distinguish the unique aspects of the relationship from the
characteristics common to U.S. academic ties with Third World coun-
tries generally. Similarly, examining China's handling of its educational
exchanges with Japan and the Soviet Union helps put the Sino-
American relationship in perspective.
The Sino-American academic exchanges of the 1970s and 1980s were
preceded by more than eight decades—from the 1870s to 1950 of
educational and scientific interaction. The links between the two eras
are strong. Personal connections, lessons learned, and patterns of inter-
action from the earlier period influenced the character of present activi-
ties; numerous characteristics of earlier exchanges endure today. In
15
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16
A RELATIONSHIP RESTORED
many respects, the Sino-American educational relationship resumed in
the 1~970s and 1980s where it had left off in the early 1950s.
PRE-1950 S~No-AMr:~ucAN ACADEMIC RELATIONS
Chinese academic relations with the United States have been closely
linked to basic sociopolitical trencis in China ant] the West since the
mid-nineteenth century. For China, the question of how to relate to
American and Western education and science has been tied to more
fundamental questions: Can China change economically and still pre-
serve valued elements of its culture? Which elites should dominate the
Chinese polity? What values should its leaders embrace? How much
economic growth should be sacrificed for equality? How dependent on
the external world should China be? Will scientific and educational
interaction with America and the West foster independence or depen-
dence? As these questions suggest, Chinese political leaders and intellec-
tuals have been, and will continue to be' ambivalent about ties to the
West.
Americans, too, have viewed academic ties to China through the
lenses of their own priorities and values. Educational relations with
China have always served many purposes for many groups. For some,
educational ties developed from missionary impulses, either secular or
religious, for others, these links have served economic, political, or
strategic interests; and for still others, China has represented a scientific
and intellectual frontier important to the advancement of global knowl-
edge.
Motivating all of these groups, however, has been the belief that
China was malleable and that if they did not leave their imprint first,
someone else would. The potential of educational ties with China has
always sparked the imaginations of leaders and interest groups
American universities have been particularly responsive to Chinese stu-
dents and scholars. At the same time, scientific, technological, and
educational relationships have often served the aspirations of those who
hope to impart their cultural and political values to the Chinese.
Edmund ]. James, president of the University of Illinois, summarized
this notion early in this century:
Thing ic Plan the array r`f ~ r"~^liltinn
'_11111a. LO LI}JVll L11~ V~1~ V1 ~ A~VVl"LlVll.... Every great nation in the world
will inevitably be drawn into more or less intimate relations with this gigantic
development.... The United States ought not to hesitate.... The nation
which succeeds in educating the young Chinese of the present generation will
be the nation which for a given expenditure of effort will reap the largest
possible returns in moral, intellectual, and commercial influence.... We may
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THE CONTEXT FOR ACADEMIC EXCHANGE
17
not admit the Chinese laborer, but we can treat the Chinese student decently,
and extend to him the facilities of our institutions of learning
Americans were not the only ones to see educational and scientific
links to China as avenues of influence; on occasion, our friends and
competitors both have worried about the consequences of America's
presumed influence. For example, in 1921, The Daily Mail of London
carried an article that voiced concern about the long-term effect of
Tsinghua (Qinghua) College's program to send students to the United
States.
Educated under the American system, constantly reminded of the happy associ-
ations of their school days through the influential alumni organization, aware
that they owe their scholarships to American justice, and saturated with Ameri-
can sentiment by five to eight years' residence in the country, they will look to
the United States solely for cooperation in the troublous years to comely
For both Chinese and Americans, such dynamics and expectations
have made disillusionment an ever-present threat. That threat has
materialized on many occasions. The Chinese government often
expected more of returned scholars than they could deliver, and the
returned scholars themselves did not always have the impact they antic-
ipated or receive the treatment they felt was their due.4 For Americans,
China has been less malleable and results have been slower in coming
than was hoped. If one lesson has emerged from the pre-1950 experi-
ence, it is that both sides must moderate their expectation that academic
exchanges veils produce immediate change. Both sides can anticipate
ups and downs in their relationship.
Many of the patterns, trends, and issues that characterized Sino-
American educational ties persisted throughout the pre-1950 era despite
the almost continual political ant! social turbulence that China experi-
enced since the 1870s. A number of these patterns are equally apparent
today. (See Tables A-1 and A-2.)
Perhaps the most fundamental trend was China's continual interest
in sending its students to study in the West. This was an enduring
feature of Chinese educational policy throughout the late Qing
Dynasty, the early Republic, the warlord era of 1915 to 1927, and the
IGuomindang years. In each period, the Chinese state had slightly dif-
ferent objectives in sending students abroad, but the practice was
always motivated by a belief that China needed Western science, tech-
nology, and learning in its national effort to remain independent,
improve its economic welfare, and enhance its power in the world.
Training in the West, particularly in the United States and Great
Britain, conferred high status on the returned student. This bred resent-
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18 A RELATIONSHIP RESTORED
ment among graduates of less prestigious institutions in China, inflated
the expectations of the select few who studied abroad, and produced in
them what many Chinese considered arrogant behavior.5
In contrast to their government-sponsored counterparts, Chinese stu-
dents able to pay their own expenses were variously encouraged and
discouraged from going abroad by their political leaders; they fre-
quently felt that their own government discriminated against them,
both while they were abroad and after they returned, if they returned.
This discrimination is an equally relevant issue in the 1980s, as evi-
denced in the open discussion of the problem of reabsorbing returned
students and scholars in the official Chinese press today.
Most of the Chinese students who pursued long-term study leading to
the completion of advanced degrees did so in the United States. In the
pre-1950 era, approximately 30,000 Chinese students came to America,
and at least 10 times as many studied in Japan, for reasons of proximity,
cost, and cultural affinity. But during that time, Chinese students
earned 20 times as many Ph.D.s in the United States as in Japan.6
Although this~reflects the different degree-granting structures in Japan
and the United States, its practical effects were to concentrate academic
status among graduates of American institutions. These American-
trained Chinese have played a crucial role in promoting Western science
in China and in reestablishing scholarly ties with the West in the 1970s
and 1980s.
Chinese reformers, like Zhang Zhidong (Chang Chih-tung), long ago
realized that simply sending younger students abroad to study was not
enough to institutionalize change. It also was important to send more
senior persons abroad. In Chang's words, "Much more benefit can be
derived from study abroad by older and experienced men than by the
young, by high mandarins rather than by petty officials."7 Today's "vis-
iting scholars," then, had their antecedents.8
Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, women consti-
tuted a fluctuating fraction of the Chinese students coming to the
United States. In 1914, 11 percent of Chinese students in America were
women, and by 1925, this percentage had risen to 39, a rather high level
considering the era and China's prevailing traditions with respect to the
education of women.9 In 1983, 23 percent of PRC Chinese students and
scholars in the United States were women. There are several possible
reasons for the comparatively high proportion of women sent abroad in
the pre-1949 era, including the greater percentage of undergraduates
sent abroad by China at that time, the greater emphasis on social sci-
ences and humanities, and the impact of missionary education in pre-
Communist China.
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THE CONTEXT FOR ACADEMIC EXCHANGE
19
Despite continual debate over the fields that Chinese students should
pursue abroad, engineering remained the centerpiece of each pre-1950
regime's program in the United States. Almost without exception, Chi-
nese regimes placed agricultural science at the bottom of the priority
list. Natural sciences received continual heavy emphasis, and the
humanities and social sciences were subject to fluctuating attention.
Within the social sciences, economics generally held the most attrac-
tion. A (See Table A-2.)
_ . .. .. .
In the past, as now, field "selection" reflected American funding
priorities as well as the conscious choices of the Chinese state or of
individual students. Because American funding was relatively plentiful
for the natural sciences, Chinese students abroad were more frequently
able to complete degree programs in these fields. In all fields, financial
considerations continually intruded into the educational relationship.
The Chinese often expressed astonishment at the cost of a foreign educa-
tion, while Americans sometimes felt that China sent students abroad
without adequate financial support, as is the case today (see Chapter
5~.
When central power was relatively weak, China's provinces took the
lead in supporting students abroad. In such periods, each province tried
to increase its own competitive position, which included building for-
eign ties and intellectual resources. In the early part of this century,
provincial authorities aggressively promoted foreign study. More than
half the Chinese students in Japan in 1906 held Chinese government
scholarships, most from provincial governments. A similar dynamic
emerged with the renewal of Sino-American educational ties in the late
1970s and mid-1980s, when Chinese provinces were being given more
responsibilities and power.
Despite the keen interest of many provinces in foreign study, approxi-
mately three-quarters of the Chinese students who went abroad
between 1909 and 1945 came from five eastern provinces: Guangdong
(Kwangtung),~]iangsu (Kiangsu), Zhejiang (Chekiang), Fujian (Fu-
kien), and Hebei (Hopeh)~3 (see Table A-l). The actual geographic
range was likely to be even narrower; the students were probably from
the major metropolitan areas within these five provinces. This
imbalance existed both because intellectual and economic resources
were concentrated in the lower Yangzi Delta area and because many
Chinese immigrated to the United States from southeastern China.
Hence, this trend was further reinforced by the earlier groups of Chi-
nese whose immigration to the United States from China's coastal areas
gave subsequent travelers relatives in the United States from whom to
draw support. As a result of these trends, China's heartland was effec-
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20
A RELATIONSHIP RESTORED
tively left out of this aspect of the educational interaction. The question
remains: Did the United States build a relationship with China or only
with the relatively cosmopolitan and urbanized coastal elite?
Although the Chinese expected students and scholars to return with
Western knowledge, they did not want the travelers westernized in
other ways. In the pre-1950 era, the Chinese authorities felt responsible
for supervising the moral and political development of their students
abroad and for assuring that students remained rooted in Chinese cul-
ture.~4 This provoked some problems. In 1944, for example, a major
controversy erupted among American academics, the U.S. government,
and the Chinese government over the Chinese Ministry of Education's
assertion that "all the thoughts and deeds of self-supporting students
residing abroad must absolutely be subject to the direction and control
of the Superintendent of Students of the Embassy."is
In 1948 and 1949, the United States' new Fulbright Agreement with
China provided access to China for U.S. scholars in all fields, albeit
under the conditions of hyperinflation and civil war. The program was
designed to include American graduate students in Chinese area studies,
and grants were available to American researchers in all disciplines to
do field projects. ~6 During this two-year period, a few Americans taught
in China, concentrating on language, American literature, and history.
Alumni of the Fulbright Program (e.g., Derk Bodde, Arthur Steiner,
W. Theodore de Bary, Harriet Mills, and Frederick Mote) contributed
substantially to Chinese studies in the United States subsequently.
The global context, the economic and political circumstances in each
society, and the leaders on both sides have changed, but many of the
problems and objectives outlined above persist today. The Sino-
American educational exchange programs of the 1970s and 1980s are
more a renewal than a beginning.
SINO-SOVIET EXCHANGES, 1950 - 1960
Although the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 did
not alter the fundamental goals and priorities of China's educational
exchange policies, the decisive political realignment did produce signifi-
cant changes in the destination of Chinese students going abroad and in
the origin of foreign students entering China. The new Communist
leadership swiftly centralized control over all levels of education
throughout the country and moved to eliminate the "bourgeois" orien-
tation of urban intellectuals. These developments, along with the
Korean War and the Cold War, eliminated the United States as a poten-
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THE CONTEXT FOR ACADEMIC EXCHANGE
21
tial destination for students and scholars. At the same time, China
established exchange programs with the Soviet Union, which grew
throughout the 1950s.
Estimates of the total number of Chinese trained in the USSR from
1950 to 1960 vary substantially. One source places the number of stu-
dents at about 13,500 for the entire decade. Another source asserts that
approximately 38,000 Chinese received training in the USSR between
1950 and 1967: 1,300 scientists, 1,200 instructors,-8,000 technicians,
20,000 workers, and 7,500 students.~7 By 1958, UNESCO statistics indi-
cate that the Chinese comprised by far the largest concentration (nearly
5,000) of foreign students in the Soviet Union, although during Chi-
na's First Five-Year Plan (1953-1957), perhaps half the number planned
actually went to the Soviet Union.~9 More than 3,200 students were still
in the Soviet Union in 1960.2°
Although China's strategic and political alignment changed greatly
in 1950, many aspects of its foreign-study efforts showed considerable
continuity with earlier programs. The Communists had the same objec-
tives in sending students abroad, targeted many of the same fields for
emphasis, and maintained the same role for the state in managing stu-
dents abroad. Foreign students in China, too, showed the same dissatis-
factions under the new regime. Like their earlier counterparts, Chinese
students in the Soviet Union were supervised by the PRC embassy in
Moscow and were assigned to educational institutions and academic
disciplines according to Beijing's priorities. During China's First Five-
Year Plan, about 70 percent of the Chinese students in the Soviet Union
devoted themselves to scientific and engineering fields, while the small
minority studying in other nations (principally in Eastern Europe) con-
centrated more on languages, history, literature, and the arts. In this
respect, the Communist regime significantly narrowed China's educa-
tional objectives during the 1950s. Although China consistently empha-
sized engineering and science in its academic exchanges from the 1870s
to the 1950s, business, social sciences, and humanities received much
greater emphasis during those years than they did in the l9S0s.
Once in the Soviet Union, most Chinese students stayed from three to
six years. As in the pre-Communist period, students returned from
studying abroad with advantages that made them arrogant in the eyes
of their peers and bred resentment among those who had been educated
solely in China. In 1957, for example, the deputy director of the Insti-
tute of Mechanical Sciences said, "The stock of the student who has
been to Russia rises sky high on his return. He gets a cushy job and a
princely salary and enjoys all sorts of privileges, including meals, special
messes, without having to prove his worthiness."22 Upon returning,
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22
A RELATIONSHIP RESTORED
many of these foreign-trained Chinese worked in the many enterprises
constructed with Russian assistance during the First Five-Year Plan.
As with Chinese study in the USSR, considerable uncertainty sur-
rounds the number of Soviet students and scholars who went to China
during the 1950s. One estimate puts the number of economic, cultural,
educational, and technical experts who went to China during this
period at more than 10,000.23 Evidence points to relatively modest
numbers of students. A first-hand report by Rene Goldman, a Polish
student who studied in Beijing from 1953 to 1958, indicates that
although his university traditionally had hosted many foreign students,
he encountered no Soviet students until 1957, when two groups totaling
more than 100 arrived.24 Further evidence that the flow of Soviets to
China was modest appeared in a 1957 Chinese news article that stated
that an arriving group of 50 Russian students represented the largest
group in the history of the exchange relationship up to that time.25
Almost all the Soviet and Eastern European students were confined to
Beijing,26 while Korean and Vietnamese scholars apparently were
spread more evenly across China.27
The presence of Soviet and Eastern European students in China did
cause some friction. Some of the problems arose in the late 1950s as
China tried to carve out an independent domestic development and
foreign policy line during the Great Leap Forward. Other frictions
reflected China's longstanding system for dealing with foreigners,
which isolated them from the Chinese. All foreign students, including
those from the Communist Bloc, lived in separate dormitories, ate dif-
ferent food, felt closely supervised and constrained in their choice of
friends, and had generally rocky relations with the foreign affairs
offices (wad ban) responsible for looking after them.28 Indeed, with the
modest resumption of educational exchange between China and the
USSR in the 1980s, these frictions quickly reemerged.29
In 1958, Beijing's leaders issued revised guidelines for foreign students
who wished to enter the People's Republic of China. Thereafter,
according to Rene Goldman, China would admit only one or two stu-
dents from any one nation who would "come for one or two years of
study of the Chinese language."30 By the early 1960s, following China's
split with the USSR, virtually all of the Soviet and European students
had been replaced by students of Asian, African, or Latin American
origin,3~ a change that reflected a fundamental shift in Chinese foreign
policy in the wake of the rift with Moscow.
As the United States expands ties with China, the earlier Sino-Soviet
collaboration provides perspective on today's relations in two ways.
First, the PRC's current interest in American and Western educational
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THE CONTEXT FOR ACADEMIC EXCHANGE
23
and scientific institutions stems, in part, from the rigidities of the
Soviet-style educational institutions created in the 1950s. Thus, China is
reacting against the separation of teaching from research, the noncom-
petitive allocation of research resources, the separation of technical
training from broader social science and humanistic concerns, the
Reemphasis of management, and the overcentralization of university
and research institute administration. Second, the Soviet experience
suggests that a Western country enthusiastically exporting its experience
to a China looking for a model can produce disillusionment in the
Chinese. It is important that Americans be forthright with the Chinese
and with themselves about the limitations on the applicability of our
experience to their situation.
GLOBAL SETTING OF CURRENT S~No-AMr:~ucAN EXCHANGES
The flow of students and scholars between China and the United
States must be viewed in the context of each country's global scholarly
connections. America and Asia are becoming increasingly interdepen-
clent, both in economic and academic terms. In 1982, America's trans-
Pacific trade exceeded the flow across the Atlantic for the first time.32 In
academic year 1983-1984, Asia (including India) had 132,270 students
in the United States, more than twice the number from the Middle East,
which ranked second. Even more important, the rate of growth in the
number of foreign students from Asia in America between academic
years 1982-1983 and 1983-1984 (10.5 percent) was higher than for any
world region.33
Taiwan (with 21,960 students), Malaysia (18,1503, Korea (13,860),
India (13,730), Japan (13,010), and Hong Kong (9,420) all had more
students in the United States than did China (8,140) in academic year
1983-1984.34 Note, however, that about one-third of the PRC Chinese
who have come to the United States thus far have been nonmatriculated
"visiting scholars" who are not counted in the figure just cited.
Although PRC students and scholars currently comprise a modest
percentage of foreign students in the United States, China has made
sending students here a major priority in its total exchange effort.
According to imprecise Chinese statistics, since 1978 (presumably
through 1983), 26,000 officially sponsored "students" (almost certainly
including "visiting scholars") and an additional 7,000 self-paying stu-
dents have studied in other countries. Already, this is probably double
the number of Chinese sent abroad for study during the entire 1950-
1977 period.35 Of the total number of PRC students and scholars who
have studied abroad since 1978, between 50 and 60 percent have come
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24
A RELATIONSHIP RESTORED
to the United States. Other partial data from the Chinese Ministry of
Education confirm that the United States is a major target of the PRC's
academic exchange plan. For example, between September 1982 and
April 1984, 60 percent of the Chinese faculty from 28 key universities
who were selected by the Chinese Ministry of Education to study
abroad under the World Bank's University Development Project (see
Chapter 4) have gone or will go to the United States (see Table Am.
Statistics from the United States reflect the same trend. Between 1979
and 1983, 19,872 American student/scholar visas were issued to citizens
of the PRC (see Table 3-1 in the next chapter). Although this figure
probably includes slight double-counting (because the same individual
could have received more than one visa in the period), it is 60 percent of
the total Chinese students and scholars reported to have gone abroad.
Japan, in contrast, received less than 10 percent of the students and
scholars that China sent abroad from 1979 to mid-1983. During that
period, 1,439 PRC "government-sponsored" students and scholars went
to Japan, as did an additional 805 privately sponsored (or "self-paying")
students, for a total of 2,244 (see Table A 4~.36 A similar pattern emerges
from the World Bank data cited above. Of the Chinese faculty selected
to study abroad under the University Development Project, only 6 per-
cent have gone or will go to Japan. In mid-1984, Chinese State Council-
lor Fang Yi was paraphrased by China Daily as having said, "Though
some progress has been made in recent years, Sino-Japanese scientific
cooperation and exchange remains a 'weak link' compared with the
close ties between the two nations in finance, trade, and culture."37
Comparisons of the general foreign student population in the United
States to the PRC Chinese who have come here reveal several differ-
ences that are examined in greater detail in Chapter 3. Among all
foreign students here in academic year 1983-1984, 30 percent were
women,38 though in calendar year 1983, 23 percent of the Chinese
students and scholars issued visas to travel to the United States were
women (see Table Add.
In other respects as well field of study, visa status, and rate of
growth China displays patterns that are distinct from those of other
countries. Although 8 percent of all foreign students in the United States
studied physical and life sciences in academic year 1983-1984, 34 per-
cent of Chinese officially sponsored students and scholars did so in
calendar year 1983. Four percent of all foreign students in the United
States studied in the health sciences during academic year 1983-1984,
while 10 percent of officially sponsored Chinese students and scholars
were in the health sciences in the United States during 1983.39
A dramatic difference exists between the visa status of Chinese stu-
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THE CONTEXT FOR ACADEMIC EXCHANGE
25
dents and scholars in the United States and that of all foreign students.
In academic year 1982-1983, 84 percent of all foreign students here had
F visas and thus were neither sponsored by their home government nor
subject to America's requirement that they leave the United States for
two years prior to any possible application for a change of residency
status (see "two-year rule" in the Glossary).40 In 1982, only 26 percent
of Chinese students and scholars entering the United States had F-visa
status. A full 74 percent of Chinese students and scholars issued visas in
1982 held ~ visas and more than 80 percent of them were subject to the
two-year rule. Similar percentages held for Chinese students and
scholars in 1983 (see Table 3-1~. Thus, Chinese students and scholars
probably are more likely to return to their homeland than are foreign
students in general. Furthermore, the Chinese government assumes a
potentially larger financial liability per given number of students and
scholars in the United States and therefore has more incentive to push its
"officially sponsored" students to find financial support abroad. As dis-
cussed later, this pressure has been considerable.
Finally, while the overall number of foreign students in the United
States grew by less than 1 percent in academic year 1983-1984 and the
number of South and East Asian students grew by 10.5 percent, the
number of students from China increased by 30.7 percent between the
academic years 1982-1983 and 1983-1984 from 6,230 PRC students
in 1982-1983 to 8,140 PRC students in 1983-1984.4~ Such a high growth
rate is not unusual for a new program starting with few students. The
question is how rapidly that number will continue to expand.
Some evidence suggests that the swift growth will continue. In late
1984, Chinese State Councillor Zhang Jingfu announced that in 1985
China intended to boost by one-third the number of officially sponsored
students and scholars sent abroad.42 Finally, in January 1985, China's
State Council issued "Draft Regulations on Self-Supported Study
Abroad," which encourage any interested Chinese citizen to apply for
permission to study abroad at his or her own expense, regardless of that
person's academic qualifications, age, or employment status in China.43
Although the impact of these regulations remains to be seen, it appears
likely that many more students holding F visas will come to the United
States from China.
In sum, China currently has identified the United States as the princi-
pal site abroad for educating its students and scholars. The rate of
increase in the number of PRC students in America has been compara-
tively high and is likely to remain so in the near future, although the
number of PRC students here is still small relative both to other foreign
student populations in the United States and to China's size.
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26
A RELATIONSHIP RESTORED
POLICIES, PERCEPTIONS, AND THE DYNAMICS OF ACADEMIC EXCHANGE
IN THE 1970S AND 1980S
The nature of the Sino-American academic exchange relationship
since the 1970S has been decisively influenced by changing policies and
perceptions in both China and America. Beijing's domestic and foreign
policies have increasingly emphasized applied science, the role of uni-
versities as both teaching and research institutions, the training of youn-
ger persons, the utility of peer review, the competitive allocation of
resources, and the importance of the management sciences. In some
cases, these policy alterations in Beijing have been followed by changes
in the kind and number of persons coming to the United States and in
their fields of study. As mentioned above, in late 1984 and early 1985,
Beijing decided to permit more persons to study abroad. Finally, in the
spring of 1985, the government announced far-reaching reforms of the
science, technology, and education systems, which were aimed at
decentralizing the management and financing of these sectors and forg-
ing closer links between the economy and research activities.
The education reforms adopted in May and June 1985, which
brought multiple changes for higher education, are already affecting
Sino-American academic exchange and increasingly will influence it in
the future. The reforms are designed to give Beijing enhanced control
over general education policy by folding the former Ministry of Educa-
tion into a new, higher-level State Education Commission with repre-
sentation from other commissions and ministries.44 At the same time,
Beijing has given individual institutions of higher education more
decision-making power over finance, personnel, curricula, teaching
materials, and use of locally raised funds. Individual schools were
authorized to admit students at the request of employers (who would
pay tuition and costs) and admit "a small number" of self-paying stu-
dents. These two new categories of student are in addition to those
admitted under the central enrollment plan. In effect, schools are being
given incentives to increase facility utilization and revenues by admit-
ting paying students. Finally, institutions of higher education are being
encouraged to establish economic relationships with business enterprises
to link research more closely to production and to raise revenue for the
institutions.45
These changes are likely to produce several effects on academic
exchanges; indeed, some already are apparent. First, American univer-
sities and exchange organizations will be dealing more with leaders of
individual institutions of higher education in China who are empow-
ered to make decisions. Second, these leaders now have greater incen-
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THE CONTEXT FOR ACADEMIC EXCHANGE
27
tive to assess exchange arrangements from an economic perspective. If
receiving a foreign scholar or sponsoring a relationship with a foreign
entity does not appear economically beneficial to that institution, the
institution will be less receptive than in the past when Beijing in effect
covered local financial losses. Conversely, individual academic and
research institutions in China may be more receptive to foreign research
and cooperation (including field research) if they can see an economic
advantage. Already foreign researchers are facing new (and frequently
high) fees on a broad range of items and services. Third, because effec-
tively implemented reforms will give individual Chinese institutions
more autonomy, it may become harder for national exchange organiza-
tions in America to gain access to a broad range of individual institu-
tions in China simply by dealing with central authorities in Beijing,
unless Beijing underwrites the costs for individual institutions. All that
can be said with certainty in early 1986 is that these reforms will affect
academic exchanges in many ways.
No less important, American perceptions of ant] policies toward the
People's Republic of China have changed since the 197Qs. These shifts
also have affected Sino-American academic exchanges. In the 1970s,
U.S. policymakers viewed China primarily in strategic terms and saw it
as a Marxist-Leninist state with no real inclination to reform and a
fundamental ideological conflict with the West. But by the mid-1980s,
Americans were impressed with China's apparent commitment to sys-
tem reform and began to view China's problems and behavior as very
substantially the products of its status as a Third World developing
country. As perceptions have changed in the United States, policy con-
cerning technology transfer has been liberalized and there has been
increased involvement in economic development projects. This study
now turns to the quantitative ant] qualitative manifestations of these
changes in the realm of academic exchange.
NOTES
1. "IIE Survey Reports 338,894 Foreign Students in 1984 Academic Year," Institute of
International Education (IIE) News Release, Sept. 5, 1984.
2. Edmund I. James, "Memorandum Concerning the Sending of an Educational Com-
mission to China," quoted in full in Arthur N. Smith, China and America Today (New
York: Fleming H. Revell, 1907), pp. 213-218, and cited in Mary Brown Bullock,
"Scientific and Educational Relations Between the United States and the People's
Republic of China: An Historical Perspective" (Colloquium Paper, Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., March 20, 1984), p. 7.
3. Barry Keenan, The Dewey Experiment in China: Educational Reform and Political
Power in the Early Republic (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies,
Harvard University, 1977), p. 18.
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28
A RELATIONSHIP RESTORED
4. Y. C. Wang, Chinese Intellectuals and the West, 1872-1949 (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 1966), pp. 50 and 90-93.
5. Ibid., pp. 88-91.
6. Bullock, "An Historical Perspective," pp. 20-21.
7. Wang, Chinese Intellectuals, pp. 52-53.
8. Wilma Fairbank, America's Cultural Experiment in China, 1942-1949, Cultural
Relations Programs of the U.S. Department of State, Historical Studies: Number 1
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural
Affairs, June 1976), pp. 100 and 119.
9. Wang, Chinese Intellectuals, p. 73.
10. Ibid., App. B. pp. 510-511.
11. Fairbank, America's Cultural Experiment, pp. 131-133.
12. Wang, Chinese Intellectuals, p. 55.
13. Ibid., p. 158.
14. Ibid., pp. 44-45.
15. Fairbank, America's Cultural Experiment, p. 125.
16. Ibid., p. 167.
17. A total of 40,000 Chinese went abroad for study in that same period. Stewart E.
Fraser, "China's International, Cultural, and Educational Relations: With Selected
Bibliography," in Hu Chtang-tu, ea., Aspects of Chinese Education, a joint publica-
tion of the Center for Education in Asia, the Institute of International Studies, Teach-
ers College, Columbia University, and the East Asian Institute, Columbia University
(New York: Teachers College Press, 1969), p. 66.
18. Josef Mestenhauser, "Foreign Students in the Soviet Union and East European Coun-
tries," in Stewart E. Fraser, ea., Governmental Policy and International Education
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1965), p. 149.
19. Stewart Fraser, "Sing-Soviet Educational Cooperation: 1950-1960," in Fraser, Gov-
ernmental Policy and International Education, pp. 199-200.
20. Ibid., p. 201.
21. Theodore H. E. Chen, "Governmental Encouragement and Control of International
Education in Communist China," in Fraser, Governmental Policy and International
Education, pp. 112-113; and Fraser, "Sing-Soviet Educational Cooperation," p. 200.
22. Fraser, "Sing-Soviet Educational Cooperation," p. 200.
23. Ibid., p. 201.
24. Rene Goldman, "The Experience of Foreign Students in China," in Fraser, Govern-
mental Policy and International Education, p. 135.
25. Chen, "Governmental Control of International Education," pp. 115-116.
26. Ibid.
27. Goldman, "Foreign Students in China," p. 136.
28. Ibid., pp. 138-139; and Chen, "Governmental Control of International Education,"
pp. 117-118.
29. Daniel Southerland, "Exchange Program Ends: First Soviet Students in Peking Since
'60s Trash Dorms, Abandon Studies," The Washington Post, Aug. 20, 1985, p. A-8:
"The first Soviet students to study in Peking in more than two decades left here in an
angry mood this summer after a frenzy of smashing beer bottles and dormitory win-
dows, according to other foreign students.... Trained as China specialists and fluent
in Chinese, the Soviets told others that their access to information here was limited
and that their Chinese academic advisors at Peking University were useless."
30. Quoted in Chen, "Governmental Control of International Education," p. 119.
31. Goldman, "Foreign Students in China," pp. 135-140.
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THE CONTEXT FOR ACADEMIC EXCHANGE
29
32. Jay Mathews, "Gateway to America Now Faces the Orient," The Washington Post,
July 1, 1984, p. A-1.
33. IIE News Release, Sept. 5, 1984.
34. Mary Ellen Adams, Alfred C. Julian, and Krista Van Laan, eds., Open Doors: 1983/
84, Report on International Educational Exchange (New York: Institute of Interna-
tional Education, 1984), p. 18.
35. "Renmin Ribao Reports on Chinese Studying Abroad," in Daily Report: China, Nov.
28, 1984, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (hereafter referred to as FBIS)
(Springfield, Va.: National Technical Information Service, U.S. Department of Com-
merce), p. K23, from Xinhua.
36. Hiroshi Abe, "Chinese Students and Scholars in Japan " (Tokyo: National Institute for
Educational Research, July 15, 1984), pp. 3-4.
37. "Fang Yi Views Technology Ties with Japan, U.S.," FBIS, May 4, 1984, p. Al, from
China Daily.
38. IIE News Release, Sept. 5, 1984.
39. Ibid.
40. Douglas R. Boyan, Alfred C. Julian, and Krista Van Laan, eds., Open Doors: 1982/
83, Report on International Educational Exchange (New York: Institute of Interna-
tional Education, 1983), p. 43.
41. Open Doors, 1983/84 (New York: Institute of International Education, 1984), pp. 14
and 19.
42. "China Will Send More Students Overseas," China Daily, Nov. 30, 1984.
43. "State Council Rules on Self-Supported Study Abroad," FBIS, Jan. 15, 1985, pp. K12-
K14, from Xinhua.
44. FBIS, June 14, 1985, pp. K6-K7, from Zhongguo Xinwen She; FBIS, June 18, 1985,
pp. K1-K2, from Xinhua.
45. FBIS, May 30, 1985, pp. Kl-Kll, from Xinhua; FBIS, May 20, 1985, pp. K1-K7,
from Xinhua; JPRS Joint Publications Research Service), CPS-85-035 (April 15,
1985), pp. 75-80, from Liaowang f Outlook].
Representative terms from entire chapter:
foreign students
