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A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984 (1986)

Chapter: 2 The Context for Academic Exchange

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Suggested Citation:"2 The Context for Academic Exchange." National Research Council. 1986. A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/899.
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Suggested Citation:"2 The Context for Academic Exchange." National Research Council. 1986. A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/899.
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Suggested Citation:"2 The Context for Academic Exchange." National Research Council. 1986. A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/899.
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Suggested Citation:"2 The Context for Academic Exchange." National Research Council. 1986. A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/899.
×
Page 18
Suggested Citation:"2 The Context for Academic Exchange." National Research Council. 1986. A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/899.
×
Page 19
Suggested Citation:"2 The Context for Academic Exchange." National Research Council. 1986. A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/899.
×
Page 20
Suggested Citation:"2 The Context for Academic Exchange." National Research Council. 1986. A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/899.
×
Page 21
Suggested Citation:"2 The Context for Academic Exchange." National Research Council. 1986. A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/899.
×
Page 22
Suggested Citation:"2 The Context for Academic Exchange." National Research Council. 1986. A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/899.
×
Page 23
Suggested Citation:"2 The Context for Academic Exchange." National Research Council. 1986. A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/899.
×
Page 24
Suggested Citation:"2 The Context for Academic Exchange." National Research Council. 1986. A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/899.
×
Page 25
Suggested Citation:"2 The Context for Academic Exchange." National Research Council. 1986. A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/899.
×
Page 26
Suggested Citation:"2 The Context for Academic Exchange." National Research Council. 1986. A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/899.
×
Page 27
Suggested Citation:"2 The Context for Academic Exchange." National Research Council. 1986. A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/899.
×
Page 28
Suggested Citation:"2 The Context for Academic Exchange." National Research Council. 1986. A Relationship Restored: Trends in U.S.-China Educational Exchanges, 1978-1984. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/899.
×
Page 29

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

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

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

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-

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.

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-

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-

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,

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

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

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-

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.

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-

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.

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.

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].

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In what The Wall Street Journal calls "the first comprehensive analysis of Sino-American educational exchanges," this volume provides information on the numbers and attributes of American and Chinese students and scholars who have moved between China and the United States since 1978. This book not only supplies quantitative data on their fields of study, length of stay, and financial resources, but also discusses such qualitative issues as the problems students and scholars have encountered in carrying out their work, the adequacy of their preparation, the "reabsorption" process that students and scholars from China face upon their return home, and the impact of the exchange process on fields of study in both countries.

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