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Essay on China

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China is a geographical region in East Asia. It holds over one-fifth of the world’s population. Most of it is now known as the People’s Republic of China, but the name of the region refers to one of the world’s longest standing civilizations, which dates back almost 5,000 years. Because the length of China’s history, it has been characterized by repeated overthrowings and reestablishments of the government, and many civil wars. China was governed as an empire until 1912, when the Republic Of China, or the ROC, was established under Sun Yat-sen. China was the world’s technological leader for centuries, credited with the invention of paper, rockets, and other things. However, by the 19th and 20th centuries, China was losing political and economical power. Japan and the Western Powers were gaining influence, which eventually led to the evolution of the PRC, or the Peoples Republic of China. China has the world’s fastest growing economy, but it’s an unstable state underneath. It has the biggest rich/poor urban/rural divide, which means that the farmers are poor, and the people who have city jobs are rich. China is also hugely overpopulated, so as a population control method families can have only one child. Because of traditional honor, everybody wants male children instead of female ones so that they can carry on the family name. This has led to an imbalance between genders in China, so the government has established a program to compensate families for having female children. China has been working to reform its economy from a centrally planned economy to a market oriented economy. A centrally planned economy is where decisions about production, consumption, and allocation of goods is managed by a central power. This basically means that the government has complete control over what’s made, where it goes, how it’s made, and how it’s used.

The Positive Effects Of Deng Xiaoping's Impact On China

Careful strategic moves made by Deng allowed other countries to invest in China’s economy, and the government gave people more control over their land and education. He also reduced the power of the government, moving away from Communism and towards democracy. Deng Xiaoping had a positive influence on China because he opened China up to the global markets and increased the quality of life for millions of people. Mao Zedong left China in a deep recession, but Deng Xiaoping was able to lift China out of it by creating special economic zones and removing government involvement in private corporations. China is often referred to as an emerging superpower because of its booming economy, which was carefully developed by Deng.

Economic and Political Strategies of China versus Japan

China was one of the most politically and economically strong countries during 1500 – 1800. The state was identified as family. It brought unity and integration. The political system was an expanded role of Confucianism. From 1500 – 1800, China was the most highly commercialized non-industrial society in the world. China had what is known as the perfected late imperial system. The two Dynasties that ruled China during this time period were Ming (1368 – 1644) and Ch’ing (1644 – 1911). They both had the same type of government, good familial and good educational system. The emperor was stronger than ever during Ming - Ch’ing. It made all-important and UN-important decisions. Below him were the Grand Secretaries. They made all decisions the Emperor did not want to make. The Ming and Ch’ing had an organization of offices, at the top was the military, censorate, and administrative branch, below them were six ministries. They ran a Confucianism political system. These were also Chinas last Dynasties.

China Boy Essay

Gus Lee, who was born in San Francisco in 1946, a pace about his childhood. He wrote a novel named China Boy in 1991 and did a great job in describing a boy who was grow up in San Francisco and the hardships that the little Chinese boy experienced. Based on the history, the push factors that brought the Chinese to America are unemployment, poverty, famine, overpopulation, and political persecution. In another way, the pull factors are the United States has plenty of work opportunities, the idea of the gold mountain, steamboat ads and the illusion of equality. Gus Lee describes Kai Ting as a representative Chinese boy and growing up in the United Sates, and how he overcomes the difficulties that he faced in the United States. The novel shows

The One Child Policy in China

In 1979, China decided to establish a one child policy which states that couples are only allowed to have one child, unless they meet certain exceptions[1].In order to understand what social impacts the one child policy has created in China it important to evaluate the history of this law. China’s decision to implement a Child policy has caused possible corruption, an abuse of women’s rights, has led to high rates of female feticide, has created a gender ratio problem for China, and has led to specific problems associated with both the elderly and younger generation. Finally, an assessment of why China’s one child policy is important to the United States allows for a full evaluation of the policy.

Social Injustice In China Essay

China is the story of a County that tried to contain their citizens from the outside world, tried to make the people work for basically no pay, set up inhuman laws, and other terrible deeds. But the scary thing is that they got away with it. The government is too powerful to be questioned and it will stay that until people find out about these . That is the only way China will be a fair and just country.

Imperialism In China Essay

The political and economic events caused by foreign imperialism in China led to drastic political, economic and social changes in the Qing Dynasty. Foreign imperialism during the 1800s caused internal struggles within the country and international struggles like the Opium Wars, which resulted in changes that deeply impacted Qing China.

Westernization In China Essay

China and Japan both had very relatable experiences from the 1800s to present times, as they both have had to completely or partially abandon prior political polies that were deemed no longer applicable. For example, in 1978 Chinese Chairman Deng Xiaoping abandoned a vast majority of the policies that Chairman Mao Zedong had implemented during his reign. Though Mao considered them all fundamental to communist China, they often did not work or caused more harm than good. For the Japanese, they initially attempted to resist the outside influence of the Americans in the early 1800s, however they were no match against them and implemented Westernization to become a better nation.

Women in Chinses History

Since as early as the 7th century BC, gender inequality in China has been an on going problem from before the birth of a child until after its death. The "We want a boy" mentality still exists today in Chinese thinking when it comes to young couples planning to start a family. What's even worse is that it is reinforced by nonsensical family traditions in a nation where filial piety often dictates family decisions. Parents usually desired sons in order to make familial propagation, sec...

The Effect of China's One Child Policy

In a little more than a decade China will be losing its title as the world’s most populous country. More importantly China’s demographic have been changing due to unpredictable population changes. The need for a male heir and the One Child Policy has caused china’s gender ratio to be imbalanced. Reason being men are usually the main income-earners because they are more employable and earn higher wages for the same work. Since male babies have a greater income potential, they are less likely to be killed. The average male to female sex ratio was 118:100 in 2010. In rural areas if their first-born is a daughter or suffers from a physical or mental illness families can apply to try again. Families that apply to try again are subject to birth spacing or waiting 3 or 4 years to try again. Additional children will result in large fines up to ten times the average income. Families violating the policy are required to pay monetary penalties and may also lose their employm...

Causes of Chinese Communism

China, along with most every country in history, has long had conflicts which caused new governments to take power. However, China’s civil war of the 1940’s was the first that caused a non-dynastic government to come to power in China. The Communist and Nationalist parties struggled over who would finally take control of the fledgling government. The Nationalist party represented more traditional Confucian values, as well as (oddly enough) democracy. In contrast, the Communists wished to dismantle the traditional social hierarchies and establish a socialist state. The Nationalist army was less trained for war than the Communists after they avoided battle in the recent Japan-China War. Perhaps the most important cause of this conflict, millions of peasants became disillusioned with the system that had caused their crushing poverty, and wanted the control of their own fates that Communists promised. They would not take control easily.

China And Canada Essay

China-Canada relations are clearly improving, due the fact that the two-way trade between Canada and China has sharply increased about eight times in the last 10 years alone. This increase in trade has massively increased the improvement of visas and the amount of visitors which come to Canada from China, not to mention the $55 billion that is now gained. “If China had a runny nose, the world will have a cold,” said China’s Consul General in Toronto, Fang Li, referring to the sturdy foothold China has on the global economy. This is undoubtedly true, however China needs Canada’s co-operation in regards to clean technology, environmental technology, food processing and health fields. Fang Li continues to point out that there are “1.5 million Chinese Nationals” living and studying in Canada compared to the 4000 Canadian students that study in China. This has caused China’s government to put in place a policy “where it will pick up the tuition of the student.” The Western criticisms of China’s human rights are partly to blame for this; however, China-Canada relations have started to “progress China into a more democratic society” and change the country as a whole. The result is clear: Canada’s global connections toward China are beneficial to all Canadians.

Chinese Culture Vs American Culture Essay

Today marriage is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as the relationship between a husband and a wife or a similar relationship between people of the same sex. For the purposes of this paper, it will focus on marriage between a man and a woman and how marriage is differently defined between the American and Chinese cultures. This paper will discuss the cultural differences found between the American and Chinese culture with emphasis on age and mate-selection. The cultural differences between American and Chinese culture related to marriage practices shows that Americans value individualism and Chinese historically value collectivism.

Essay On Chinese Immigration

“The Chinese are upon us, How can we get rid of them? The Chinese are coming. How can we stop them?” (Lee 23). America was not the most welcoming nation to the Chinese immigrants who centered mainly around California, Oregon and Washington. Those who decided to immigrate to America, during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, went through many difficulties such as legal discrimination, physical intimidation and violence, trying to live the supposed “American Dream”.

China: Violation of Human Rights

Women of China have their own opinions when it comes to their families, being under a controlled government and being told how many children they can have only makes it harder if them. Also China’s Health Ministry estimates that in the four decades since the imposition of the one-child policy more than 336 million abortions have taken place in the nation. Nora...

China's Development

China's development is praised by the whole world. Its developments are not only in the economic aspect, but also in its foreign affairs. Compared to other developed countries, China is a relatively young country. It began constructing itself in 1949. After 30 years of growth, company ownership has experienced unprecedented changes.

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Related topics.

• People's Republic of China
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Essay on China

Students are often asked to write an essay on China in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on China

Geography of china.

China, located in East Asia, is the world’s third-largest country. It has diverse landscapes, including mountains, deserts, and rivers. The highest point is Mount Everest.

Population and Culture

China has the largest population globally. Its culture is rich and diverse, with a long history that includes inventions like paper and compass.

Chinese Economy

China is a global economic powerhouse, known for manufacturing and exporting goods. It also has a growing technology industry.

Chinese Cuisine

Chinese food is popular worldwide. It varies by region, with famous dishes like Peking Duck and Dim Sum.

Chinese Festivals

China is known for its colorful festivals, such as Chinese New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival, both filled with traditional customs and celebrations.

Also check:

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250 Words Essay on China

Introduction.

China, officially known as the People’s Republic of China, is the world’s most populous country, with a rich history that stretches back thousands of years. It has a unique blend of ancient traditions and modern innovation, shaping its global influence.

Historical Significance

China’s history is marked by dynastic rule, beginning with the semi-mythical Xia around 2100 BCE. The Great Wall, Terracotta Army, and the Forbidden City testify to the grandeur of these eras. The last dynasty, the Qing, gave way to a republic in 1912, marking a significant shift in China’s political landscape.

Modern China

Modern China is characterized by its rapid economic growth since the late 20th century. China’s economic reforms have transformed it into the world’s second-largest economy. This economic boom has brought significant changes in its socio-economic structure and global standing.

Global Influence

China’s global influence is undeniable. It’s a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a significant player in global trade. However, its rise has also sparked debates on issues such as human rights, territorial claims, and trade practices.

China’s journey from an ancient civilization to a modern powerhouse is a testament to its resilience and adaptability. Despite challenges, it continues to shape the world stage, making it a fascinating subject of study. Understanding China’s past and present is crucial for deciphering its future trajectory.

500 Words Essay on China

China, officially known as the People’s Republic of China, is a country located in East Asia. It is the world’s most populous country, boasting a population of over 1.4 billion. China’s rich history, diverse culture, and rapid economic growth have made it a global powerhouse.

Historical Overview

China’s history spans over five millennia, making it one of the world’s oldest civilizations. The country has seen the rise and fall of powerful dynasties, each leaving an indelible mark on its culture and society. China’s last imperial dynasty, the Qing, ended in 1911, paving the way for the Republic of China. However, civil unrest and power struggles culminated in the Chinese Communist Party’s victory in 1949, establishing the People’s Republic of China.

Economic Growth

China’s economic transformation in recent decades is nothing short of remarkable. The country has transitioned from a centrally planned economy to a more market-oriented one. China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown at an unprecedented rate, lifting millions out of poverty and turning China into the world’s second-largest economy. This economic boom is largely attributed to the “Reform and Opening-up” policy initiated by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s.

Culture and Society

Chinese culture is a fusion of numerous ethnic traditions, deeply influenced by Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. The Chinese language, cuisine, martial arts, and traditional Chinese medicine are significant cultural exports. China’s societal structure has evolved over time, with the traditional emphasis on collectivism giving way to an increasing individualism, particularly among the younger generation.

Political System

China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants. The Chinese Communist Party holds the ultimate authority, with the President serving as the state head. The political structure has been criticized for its lack of transparency and suppression of dissent, posing challenges for human rights.

China’s Global Influence

China’s rapid growth has significantly increased its global influence, both economically and politically. It is a major player in international trade, technology, and infrastructure development. However, its assertive foreign policy, territorial disputes, and alleged human rights abuses have generated controversy and tension with other nations.

China’s journey from an ancient civilization to a modern global superpower is truly fascinating. Its complex history, dynamic economy, rich culture, and evolving political landscape make it a critical player in shaping the 21st century. As China continues to evolve, it will undoubtedly remain a significant entity on the global stage, presenting both opportunities and challenges for the international community.

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Stretching 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) from east to west and 3,400 miles (5,500 kilometers) from north to south, China is a large country with widely varying landscapes.

Stretching 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) from east to west and 3,400 miles (5,500 kilometers) from north to south, China is a large country with widely varying landscapes. Its territory includes mountains, high plateaus, sandy deserts, and dense forests.

One-third of China's land area is made up of mountains. The tallest mountain on Earth, Mount Everest, sits on the border between China and Nepal .

China has thousands of rivers. The Yangtze and the Yellow Rivers are the most important. At 3,915 miles (6,300 kilometers) long, the Yangtze is the world's third largest river.

Map created by National Geographic Maps

PEOPLE & CULTURE

With a population of 1.4 billion, China has more people than any other country on Earth. About a third of the population lives in cities. The rest of the people live in the country.

Arts and crafts have a long history in China. Thousands of years ago the Chinese were some of the first people to use silk, jade, bronze, wood, and paper to make art. The artistic writing called calligraphy was invented in China.

Much of China's modern beliefs and philosophies are based on the teachings of a government official who lived nearly 3,000 years ago. Kongfuzi, also known as Confucius, taught people the value of such things as morality, kindness, and education.

China's diverse habitats are home to hundreds of species of animals and plants. More than 3,800 species of fish and hundreds of amphibians and reptile species live in the rivers, lakes, and coastal waters.

China's forest wildlife is threatened by logging and clear-cutting (clearing the land of all trees) for farmland. Expanding deserts in the north also shrink animal habitats. The Chinese government has created more than 1,200 reserves to protect plant and animal species.

The giant panda lives in the misty mountains of southwest China and nowhere else on Earth. They eat bamboo and usually live near stands of the woody evergreen plant. Pandas have been hunted and only about 1,600 remain in the wild.

GOVERNMENT & ECONOMY

China is an authoritarian state ruled by a very powerful central government. A huge workforce and lots of natural resources have driven economic change. This has forced the communist government to permit more economic and personal freedoms, but it has come at a huge cost to the environment.

Many experts predict that the 21st century will be the "Chinese century." Whether or not that proves to be true, there is no doubt that what happens in China will affect many other nations.

China is the home of one of the world's oldest civilizations, but it has only recently become a "modern" nation. In the last 20 years, China has changed faster than any other country in the world.

Chinese history is divided into dynasties, each of which marks the period when a line of emperors ruled. The first empire was the Qin dynasty and began in 221 B.C. The last emperor was overthrown in 1912, and China became a republic. The communist government began its rule in 1949 following a civil war with the Chinese Nationalists.

Ancient China was a land of invention. For centuries, China was way ahead of most other countries in science and technology, astronomy, and math. The Chinese invented paper, the magnetic compass, printing, porcelain, silk, and gunpowder, among other things.

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Essays on China

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A giant portrait of President Xi Jinping looms over a celebration in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, 2019.  Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

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10 Things You Need to Know About China, Part 2

What does China’s rise mean for the U.S. and the rest of the world?

Jim McMahon

China is an increasingly powerful player on the world stage and a critical nation for Americans to understand.

Part 1 of “10 Things You Need to Know About China” ( Upfront, Sept. 18, 2023) covered such questions as whether China should be considered a superpower, whether it’s still a Communist country, and the extent to which its people have freedom.

In Part 2, we look at five more key issues: the environment, population, education, human rights, and the prospects for U.S.-Chinese cooperation in the future.

Part 1 of “10 Things You Need to Know About China” ( Upfront , Sept. 18, 2023) covered such questions as whether China should be considered a superpower, whether it’s still a Communist country, and the extent to which its people have freedom.

Sam McNeil/AP Images

China burns more coal than the rest of the world combined; a coal-fired power plant in Shanxi Province.

6. What is China’s environmental record?

China is the world’s dominant maker and user of solar panels and wind turbines. It produces the most energy from hydroelectric dams. Its national tree planting campaign is the largest such effort anywhere. The country’s two biggest cities, Beijing and Shanghai, have taken steps to improve their air pollution problem and have built lots of new, walkable green spaces.

But China also burns more coal than the rest of the world combined and has accelerated coal mining and the construction of coal-fired power plants. Coal is the most polluting of fossil fuels because it emits toxins like mercury, lead, and sulfur dioxide in addition to carbon. In part because of its continued reliance on coal, China emits nearly a third of all human-made greenhouse gases—more than the U.S., Europe, and Japan combined.

China is the world’s dominant maker and user of solar panels and wind turbines. It produces the most energy from hydroelectric dams. Its national tree planting campaign is the largest such effort anywhere. The country’s two biggest cities, Beijing and Shanghai, have taken steps to improve their air pollution problem. The cities have built lots of new, walkable green spaces.

But China also burns more coal than the rest of the world combined. It has also accelerated coal mining and the construction of coal-fired power plants. Coal is the most polluting of fossil fuels. Coal emits toxins like mercury, lead, and sulfur dioxide in addition to carbon. In part because of its continued reliance on coal, China emits nearly a third of all human-made greenhouse gases. That is more than the U.S., Europe, and Japan combined.

China’s environmental record is a ‘basket of contradictions.’

In 2014, China launched a “war against pollution,” and that’s made a big difference, experts say. But despite this progress, China remains among the top 10 most-polluted countries in the world in terms of air quality, according to University of Chicago rankings.

In short, says Scott Kennedy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., China’s environmental record is “a basket of contradictions.”

And without its cooperation, the world won’t be able to address climate change.

“What China does environmentally,” says Minxin Pei, a professor at Claremont McKenna College in California, “determines the world’s future.”

In 2014, China launched a “war against pollution.” That’s made a big difference, experts say. But despite this progress, China remains among the top 10 most-polluted countries in the world in terms of air quality, according to University of Chicago rankings.

sawayasu Tsuji/Alamy Stock Photo

China is aging fast. By 2050, almost 40 percent of its people will be older than 60.

7. Does China have a population problem?

In the late 1970s, China faced a predicament: The population was growing so quickly that it was strangling the country. To pull China out of poverty, its leaders decided they had to control population growth. Their solution was an extremely restrictive policy, adopted in 1980, limiting families to one child each.

Thanks to the one-child policy, China’s population has leveled off at 1.4 billion, and India has surpassed it as the world’s most populous country. Reducing the number of births has enabled China to feed its people, improve access to education and health care, and pull millions into the middle class.

n the late 1970s, China faced a predicament. The population was growing so quickly that it was strangling the country. To pull China out of poverty, its leaders decided they had to control population growth. Their solution was an extremely restrictive policy, adopted in 1980, limiting families to one child each.

Thanks to the one-child policy, China’s population has leveled off at 1.4 billion. India has now surpassed it as the world’s most populous country. Reducing the number of births has enabled China to feed its people. It has also resulted in better access to education and health care. It pulled millions into the middle class.

34.9 million

NUMBER  of “extra” men in China in 2020.

Source: BBC

But the policy also has created some major demographic problems, including a huge gender imbalance. Because boys are traditionally favored over girls, many couples aborted female fetuses so they could try again for a boy. After decades of this, there are almost 35 million “extra” men who will be unable to find wives.

And now the population has begun to decline. By 2100, China’s population is expected to drop below 800 million—about half what it is now.

“China now confronts a population challenge, not by growth, but by the population slowly diminishing,” says Orville Schell of the Asia Society, a think tank based in New York. “It means there are fewer young people to work to support a vast number of older people.”

China ended the one-child policy in 2015, and officials encourage families to have more children. But the birth rate continues to fall.

“The fundamental problem is not that people cannot have children,” says Lu Yi, a 26-year-old nurse in Sichuan, “but that they cannot afford it.”

But the policy also has created some major demographic problems. Now there is a huge gender imbalance. Because boys are traditionally favored over girls, many couples aborted female fetuses so they could try again for a boy. After decades of this, there are almost 35 million “extra” men who will be unable to find wives.

And now the population has begun to decline. By 2100, China’s population is expected to drop below 800 million. This is about half what it is now.

China ended the one-child policy in 2015. Officials now encourage families to have more children. But the birth rate continues to fall.

FeatureChina via AP Images

High school students in Wuhan; China has more than 291 million students.

8. Why do students in China have to study so much?

Chinese students face a tremendous amount of pressure. The ultimate symbol of China’s academic pressure cooker is the gaokao , the national college-entrance exam. A student’s score on this single nine-hour test is the only thing that matters for admission to Chinese universities. And for students from poor families, college is a ticket to the middle class—and out of a life working in fields or factories. So students spend years cramming for the test.

This dedication to education is nothing new.

“Culturally, an emphasis on education is baked into China,” says Schell. “Scholars are at the top of the social food chain. Historically, wealth wasn’t what was respected; it was education that was most important.”

Historically, education has been very important in China.

China has invested heavily in education over the past few decades, spending about $550 billion in 2022 alone. It has the largest state-run education system in the world, with 291 million students and 18 million teachers in more than 529,000 schools. Chinese colleges graduated 11.6 million students in June—820,000 more than the year before.

All of those new graduates are entering the Chinese labor market at a time when more than 20 percent of young people between the ages of 16 and 24 are unable to find jobs. (This high youth unemployment rate is one of several signs that China’s post-pandemic economic recovery seems to be sputtering.)

China has invested heavily in education over the past few decades, spending about $550 billion in 2022 alone. It has the largest state-run education system in the world. There are 291 million students and 18 million teachers in more than 529,000 schools. Chinese colleges graduated 11.6 million students in June. That is 820,000 more than the year before.

11.6 million

NUMBER of Chinese students who graduated from college in June 2023.

Source:  The New York Times

Another issue plaguing China’s education system is inequity. There is a huge gap between the quality of schools in urban and rural areas.

“Urbanites have quite a bit more educational opportunity, and urban schools are much better funded,” Kennedy says. “But rural Chinese are still almost half the population.”

Xinjiang Bureau of Justice WeChat Account

Uighur detainees at a “political education camp” in Xinjiang Province

9. How bad are human rights in China?

A recent report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights concludes that China’s treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang Province is so egregious that it may qualify as “crimes against humanity.”

China has wrongfully detained as many as 1 million people in Xinjiang in various camps, according to Human Rights Watch. Beyond the detentions, the government has set up a vast surveillance system that tracks residents’ every move and subjected many Uighurs to forced labor, forced sterilizations, and religious restrictions.

“It should shock the conscience of humanity that massive numbers of people have been subjected to brainwashing, torture, and other degrading treatment in internment camps, while millions more live in fear amid a vast surveillance apparatus,” says Agnès Callamard of Amnesty International, a human rights group.

China has wrongfully detained as many as 1 million people in Xinjiang in various camps, according to Human Rights Watch. Beyond the detentions, the government has set up a vast surveillance system that tracks residents’ every move. It also subjected many Uighurs to forced labor, forced sterilizations, and religious restrictions.

The government has become increasingly repressive.

The Chinese government denies accusations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang and says the camps are meant to teach Mandarin (since most Uighurs are Turkic-speaking) and to prevent terrorism.

While Xinjiang is the most glaring human rights problem, it’s not the only one experts point to.

The government has become increasingly repressive in many areas. Internet censors are cracking down more and more on anything that might be perceived as criticism. In Hong Kong, once a bastion of free expression, a new law has virtually wiped out freedom of the press and people’s ability to protest.

And across the country last year, the government’s severe Covid lockdowns meant that entire cities were effectively held prisoners in their homes, sometimes unable to access food or medical help.

“We continue to see backsliding in human rights conditions,” says U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The Chinese government denies accusations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang. It says the camps are meant to teach Mandarin (since most Uighurs are Turkic-speaking) and to prevent terrorism.

The government has become increasingly repressive in many areas. Internet censors are cracking down more and more on anything that might be perceived as criticism. In Hong Kong, a new law has virtually wiped out freedom of the press and people’s ability to protest.

Across the country last year, the government’s severe Covid lockdowns meant that entire cities were effectively held prisoners in their homes. People were sometimes unable to access food or medical help.

10. Are there ways the U.S. and China can cooperate?

The U.S. and China are tightly bound together: Annual trade between the two nations adds up to more than $690 billion. Some 290,000 Chinese students study in the U.S. Americans rely on iPhones and other gadgets assembled mostly in China. And no country buys more American agricultural products than China.

Despite this, the two nations often clash politically. As the U.S. has tried to isolate Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, China has welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing and continued buying Russian oil. In February, the U.S. shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon that was floating across the continental U.S. And the two countries are increasingly wary of each other.

“There’s a lack of good faith on both sides,” says Ian Johnson of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “Each side believes the other is trying to pull a fast one.”

Still, there are areas, such as climate change, in which it’s clearly in both countries’ interests to work together, and American officials are trying to use those common interests to start talks.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says the U.S.-China relationship isn’t a zero-sum game “where one must fall for the other to rise.”

“We believe,” she says, “that the world is big enough for both of us.”

Despite this, the two nations often clash politically. As the U.S. has tried to isolate Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, China has welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing. China has continued buying Russian oil. In February, the U.S. shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon that was floating across the continental U.S. The two countries are increasingly wary of each other.

Still, there are areas, such as climate change, in which it’s clearly in both countries’ interests to work together. American officials are trying to use those common interests to start talks.

Judy Bellah/Alamy Stock Photo

Celebrating Chinese New Year in San Francisco

With reporting by Claire Fu, Nicole Hong, Zixu Wang, and Ana Swanson of The New York Times.

With reporting by Claire Fu, Nicole Hong, Zixu Wang, and Ana Swanson of  The New York Times.

Read Part 1 on China's economy, political system, freedom of speech, and more 

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What the West Gets Wrong About China

• Rana Mitter
• Elsbeth Johnson

Many people have wrongly assumed that political freedom would follow new economic freedoms in China and that its economic growth would have to be built on the same foundations as in the West. The authors suggest that those assumptions are rooted in three essentially false beliefs about modern China: (1) Economics and democracy are two sides of the same coin; (2) authoritarian political systems can’t be legitimate; and (3) the Chinese live, work, and invest like Westerners. But at every point since 1949 the Chinese Communist Party—central to the institutions, society, and daily experiences that shape all Chinese people—has stressed the importance of Chinese history and of Marxist-Leninist doctrine. Until Western companies and politicians understand this and revise their views, they will continue to get China wrong.

The complete Spotlight package is available in a single reprint.

Three fundamental misconceptions

Idea in Brief

The problem.

Politicians and business leaders continue to misread China’s strategy and politics.

Why It Happens

They make three plausible but false assumptions: Democracy is an inevitable consequence of economic development; authoritarian regimes are never seen as legitimate; and the Chinese think, behave, and invest much like anyone in the West.

The Solution

Accept that economic development in China will not inevitably lead to democracy; acknowledge that the Chinese regard their government as both legitimate and effective; and recognize that while Chinese consumers have short-term horizons, their rulers are focused on the country’s long-term security.

When we first traveled to China, in the early 1990s, it was very different from what we see today. Even in Beijing many people wore Mao suits and cycled everywhere; only senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials used cars. In the countryside life retained many of its traditional elements. But over the next 30 years, thanks to policies aimed at developing the economy and increasing capital investment, China emerged as a global power, with the second-largest economy in the world and a burgeoning middle class eager to spend.

Navigating your company’s future in China

• RM Rana Mitter is a professor of the history and politics of modern China at Oxford. His most recent book is China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism (Harvard University Press, 2020).
• EJ Elsbeth Johnson , formerly the strategy director for Prudential PLC’s Asian business, is a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and the founder of SystemShift, a consulting firm.

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Chinese Culture

China is one of the Four Ancient Civilizations (alongside Babylon, India and Egypt), according to Chinese scholar Liang Qichao (1900). It boasts a vast and varied geographic expanse, 3,600 years of written history, as well as a rich and profound culture. Chinese culture is diverse and unique, yet harmoniously blended — an invaluable asset to the world.

Our China culture guide contains information divided into Traditions, Heritage, Arts, Festivals, Language, and Symbols. Topics include Chinese food, World Heritage sites, China's Spring Festival, Kungfu, and Beijing opera.

China's Traditions

China's heritage.

China's national heritage is both tangible and intangible, with natural wonders and historic sites, as well as ethnic songs and festivals included.

As of 2018, 53 noteworthy Chinese sites were inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List: 36 Cultural Heritage, 13 Natural Heritage, and 4 Cultural and Natural Heritage .

China's Performing Arts

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Arts and Crafts

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China's Festivals

China has several traditional festivals that are celebrated all over the country (in different ways). The most important is Chinese New Year, then Mid-Autumn Festival. China, with its "55 Ethnic Minorities", also has many ethnic festivals. From Tibet to Manchuria to China's tropical south, different tribes celebrate their new year, harvest, and other things, in various ways.

Learning Chinese

Chinese is reckoned to be the most difficult language in the world to learn, but that also must make it the most interesting. It's the world's only remaining pictographic language in common use, with thousands of characters making up the written language. Its pronunciation is generally one syllable per character, in one of five tones. China's rich literary culture includes many pithy sayings and beautiful poems.

Symbols of China

Every nation has its symbols, but what should you think of when it comes to China? You might conjure up images of long coiling dragons, the red flag, pandas, the Great Wall… table tennis, the list goes on…

Top Recommended Chinese Culture Tours

• China's classic sights
• A silent night on the Great Wall
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• China's past, present, and future
• The Terracotta Amy coming alive
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• Feed a lovely giant panda
• Explore China's classic sights
• Relax on a Yangtze River cruise
• Walk on the the Great Wall.
• Make a mini warrior with a local family.
• Pay your respects at the pilgrim's holy palace.
• 11-Day China Classic Tour
• 3-Week Must-See Places China Tour Including Holy Tibet
• 8-Day Beijing–Xi'an–Shanghai Private Tour
• How to Plan Your First Trip to China 2024/2025 — 7 Easy Steps
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• Essay on Transportation

China: An Overview Essays Example

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Transportation , Business , China , Politics , Commerce , Products , Trade , Infrastructure

Words: 2500

Published: 03/16/2020

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- What are the rough dimensions of the country in miles? China is situated in the eastern part of the Asian continent. Its area in miles is around 3,696,000 square miles). Country is surrounded by other countries i.e. Nepal, Pakistan, North Korea, Bhutan, Tajikistan, Vietnam, Russia Afghanistan, Burma, India etc. according to area China is considered third largest country in the world after Russia and Canada. - What is the population? What percentage lives in the 3 largest cities? China is considered world’s largest country according to the size of its population. In 2014 it has been estimated that its population is 1,393,783,836. Around 20% of the population of the world belongs to China. Shanghai is largest city according to population which is having around 23,000,000 inhabitants. After shanghai Beijing is considered seconded most populated city of the country. 18,079,000 inhabitants of the China belong to Beijing. Guangzhou is third most populated city of the China after shanghai and Beijing. 12,385,000 people are living in the city. Over all these countries are used to have around 5% of the total population of the country. - What is the predominant language? How widely used is English in business? In China official language is Standard Mandarin. This is language of Chinese and it is widely spoken by the people of China. This is main language which is used by the government of China, their media and in their education system for the instructions. Standard Mandarin has got the status of official Chinese language long ago. After English it is considered most famous business language all across the world. As for English is concerned, it is not getting much attention in China because; government is trying to protect their language from the foreign impact. - What are the principle cities and political divisions which would have an impact on transportation? Major cities i.e. Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin etc and 23 different provinces of the country all are having their impact on the transportation system overall. Similarly, autonomous administrative regions and special administrative regions all have their own importance on the transportation system. - What are the principle products for the country (top 3-5 in each of the following categories)? *Overall (produced in the country) *Exported to the world *Exported to the US *Imported from the world *Imported from the US China is becoming one of the major economies of the world and it is producing the products in every field. The products which are produced by the China include; machinery, electrical equipments and vehicles etc. country is generating lots of revenue with the help of its exports. Major products which are exported by the China contains Electronic equipment making around 25% of the total exports, Machinery is making around 18% of the exports and furniture’s, lights and signs etc which is making aroun4 % of the total exports of the country. Along with exports China also have to import many products and usually it imports crude oil, integrated circuits soybeans and LCDs. China is used to import cars, computer and broadcasting equipment from the United States. - In the last three years have there been any instances of political instability? Political instability is low in the China as compared to other markets in the region. This is one of the major reasons of development of strong economy of the China. Even for the foreign investor political stability of the China is one of the charming factors which are helping them to start exploring a new marker. In last few years China didn’t witness any major political instability. - What is the currency? What is the exchange rate to US dollars? How has it changed in the past two years? Currency of the China is Renminbi Yuan. 1 Yuan is equal to 0.16 of US dollar. In last two years exchange rate has faced changes but those changes were not significant. Rate of US dollar has increased over the time. - What time zones exist in this country? What time is it in the capital when it is noon in Cambridge, MA? Time Zone is UTC+ 8:00. In capital city of China time will be 4:00 am when it will be noon in the Cambridge MA. Beijing is capital of China and its time will be 4:00 am at noon in the Cambridge. - What unique requirements exist for products sold in this country? (E.g. testing, packaging, language, safety, etc.) Products used to need the certificate of inspection which is given by relevant authority to the products. Once company receives certificate of inspection only then it can sell its products in the market. This is very important requirement of the selling goods in China. This is used to link with the safety of the buyers. - What regulations or limitations exist regarding freight transport? Freight transport is system of transport which is used to transport the goods among different parts of the country it used to involve rails and roads etc. freight transport has increased over the period of time. It has been divided into two sections general and special freight transport. Those who are managing the freight transport business they must have certificate from the government for their working. - Are there saltwater ports which can handle large ships? How far are the major population centers from those ports? Saltwater ports are considered important for the trade of products to international community. China has number of ports for the trade and it has 12 out of 20 most busy ports of the world. Rizhao Port, Tangshan port, Qinhuangdao ports, Shanghai port and Tianjin port etc. these areas are also falling under the category of most populated area of the country. For instance, shanghai and Tianjin is considered most populated areas of the China. - What business terms and financial instruments are typically used for import commercial transactions? International terms and conditions are applicable for the business in China and for the imports and commercial transactions etc.FOB (Free on Board), CIF (Cost insurance and freight) along with the other major terms and conditions businessmen are used to have Letter of credit to do their business. For the transactions etc USD is valid currency in the China. Imports are largely regulated by the government and need of the country. - How large is a typical supermarket or retail food store (square feet or meters)? There are lots of super markets and retail stores in the China in order to cater the needs of world most populated country. Usually there are supermarkets and retail stores which vary in their size from 500 to 2000 square meters. Now there are many stores and super markets which are exceeding this usual size of the market. - Do any of the large US discount retailers (Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Toys ‘R Us) have stores in this country? Discount retailers are not appreciated by the Chinese government. Only Wal-Mart is performing its functions in the China. In the form of joint venture Wal-Mart enter into Chinese market and now it is having major stake in the joint venture. Other retailers didn’t enter into Chinese market up till now. - Describe the highway and rail infrastructure. Are they: extensive, moderate, or primitive nationwide? China has got the status of a strong economy in the world so; it is encompassing a good infrastructure. Up till now country is stands second in terms of its rails and highway infrastructure. China is having wide and extensive system of roads and railways throughout the country to connect the different parts of the country with each other. Eastern part of the country is more densely populated and have more advanced infrastructure but now government is trying to expand its working towards the west side deliberately. - How bad is the traffic congestion in the major cities? In major cities of the country traffic congestion problem is emerging and getting a serious status with the passage of time. As mentioned above, traffic population of China is increasing it is creating the issue of traffic congestion in major cities i.e. Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin. Infrastructure of highways and railroads is becoming insufficient for the people. - Which countries are the primary trading partners? For each partner, in which direction is the balance of trade (import or export)? Trade of Chinese goods is throughout the world but with some countries China is having more strong business ties. Primary trading partners of the China in terms of exports are United States of America, South Asian countries, European countries, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong. In terms of imports major trade partners of the China are Japan, Russia, South Korea and Taiwan. These countries are considered major trading partners of the China. - Is security an issue in logistics? Why? Security is not a major issue in the China. For instance, freight through air and sea ports is very easy as compared to transportation of goods on ground. In distant part of the country cargo products are used to have insecurity of robbery and theft. Overall the security level of the country is good and it is not an issue for the traders because they can do their business easily. - How reliable is the phone system? How long for a consumer to get a phone line installed? How extensive is the mobile phone network? Telecommunication of the China is reliable because major state owned companies are operating the telecommunication sector in China. They are providing quality services to the people although they are charging high prices from the people. Time for the telephone connection varies according to the size of the country usually it takes 1 week for the functional telephone connection. Cellular phones are being manufactured in the China and it is becoming one of the largest markets for this product. This network of cellular phone is increasing with the passage of time. - How many people have Internet access? Internet access for the people is increasing with the passage of time. Although government is regulating the internet service and censor the content. According to one report in 2013 about internet users suggests that “China ended last year with 618 million Internet users and 500 million mobile Internet use”. This means that numbers of users of internet are increasing with each passing day. Access to internet through mobile is also increasing. - What is the price of regular gasoline, $ per gallon? Rate of gasoline in the China recently is $1.17 as compared to international price of $ 1.25. - What trade restrictions exist? What are the highest import duties – which products and countries of origin? What embargoes exist, if any? In terms of trade now businessmen are not facing problem because now according to the requirements of the World trade organization government of the China is reducing its duties level in China. Before government was used to put heavy duties on imported products especially vehicles etc. but now government is following the terms and conditions suggested by the WTO. In terms of imports media equipment, weapons and any material which is illegal can’t be imported. Likewise, major business ideas, genes of precious species and animals etc are not exported to other countries. - What customs documents are required for an import shipment? For export? Traders are used to have LC (letter of credit), certificate of inspection shipping slips and documents along with the certificates from the country origin when they are importing products to China. Traders are used to have same documents when they are intended to export the products to the other countries. - How common is “bribery” (US definition) in trade transactions? (Normal, infrequent, very rare). What are the legal ramifications? China is trying to increase the control over the issue of bribery in the different sectors and after becoming the member of WTO legal system for the business is getting stronger. Regardless of all these efforts still many sectors are facing problem of bribery so China still need improvement in its legal system. - How strong are the unions? In what industries are they an important factor? Are they predominantly national or local? What impact do they have on logistics? Unions in all government sectors are very frequent and they are having symbiotic relationship with the government because they are helping the government in performing their functions. Unions are formulated by the government and one ministry is used to take care of activities and issues of these unions. As these unions are not by the industries so; they are having no impact on the logistic system. - Be sure to include any current news articles or other current factors that might impact supply chain management now and in the future in your assigned country. In his article Michael Zakkour notes that domestic consumption is increasing in the China and this increased demand of the products will have its impact on the supply Chain in the Chinese market. China is needed to “reassess their supply chain infrastructure in China for both selling and making goods”. This means that trends are changing in the Chinese market which must be assessed by the government of the China. Business industry in the China needs to revamp itself in order to make the system and industry more efficient. For instance, Steven H. Ganster in his article suggested that Chinese business enterprises should reduce their costs to make the supply chain more efficient and enhance the value of the business in international market otherwise industry will face major issues in the future. As he notes that “The downturn is driving companies all along the supply chain to cut costs. Lower demand for goods and intense competition are forcing companies to reevaluate their operations, with some leaving China altogether”. This means that in order to be sustaining the long term presence in the market there is strong need for the reassessment of the operations and costs of companies .

atlas.media.mit.ed. atlas.media.mit.ed. 19 november 2014 <http://atlas.media.mit.edu/profile/country/usa/>. China.org.cn. China.org.cn. 20 november 2014 <http://www.China.org.cn/top10/2011-11/09/content_23856103_8.htm>. Chinadaily.com. Chinadaily.com. 20 November 2014 <http://www.Chinadaily.com.cn/bizChina/2014-02/19/content_17290565.htm>. Ganster, Steven H. "Supply Chain Actions to Improve China Sourcing." China Business Review 1 November 2009. globalpetrolprices.com. globalpetrolprices.com. 20 november 2014 <http://www.globalpetrolprices.com/China/gasoline_prices/>. HONG, KAYLENE. "China’s Internet population hit 618 million at the end of 2013, with 81% connecting via mobile." The Next Web 16 January 2014. infoplease.com. infoplease. 19 november 2014 <http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934666.html>. Lauerman, John. "Mandarin Chinese Most Useful Business Language After English." Bloomberg News 31 August 2011. Nationsonline.org. Nationsonline. 19 november 2014 <http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/China_cities.htm>. oanda.com. oanda.com. 20 november 2014 <http://www.oanda.com/currency/historical-rates/>. Zakkour, Michael. "Supply Chain Key to Success in China - Outlook 2014." Forbes 2 june 2014. Zheng, Ben, et al. "Specialized Aspects of International Logistics." International Logistics (n.d.).

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Standing up to China on Human Rights: The Case of the Uyghurs

Vanessa Frangville , Hacer Z. Gonul , Julius Maximilian Rogenhofer

This essay is part of the series “All About China”—a journey into the history and diverse culture of China through essays that shed light on the lasting imprint of China’s past encounters with the Islamic world as well as an exploration of the increasingly vibrant and complex dynamics of contemporary Sino-Middle Eastern relations.  Read more  ...

Over the past decade, China has firmly established itself as a pivotal strategic actor within the global economy, not least because of its $900 bn. Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). [1]  The construction of ports, roads, and railways across the entire Eurasian continental landmass intersects with the People Republic of China’s “Made in China 2025” initiative [2] and the launch of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) [3]  in 2016. Together these projects allow China to set commercial standards as well as creating a parallel institutional structure to the Bretton Woods Institutions established at the end of the Second World War. [4]

International scrutiny of China’s political endeavours has largely focused on disputes over islands and freedom of navigation in the South- and East China Seas [5]  as well as China’s growing military presence in Africa. [6]  Beyond exerting its own political interests more boldly, China’s Communist Party (CCP) is seen to engage with governments that America and its European allies consider beyond the pale, often because of the human rights violations committed by such governments. Prime examples of such engagement include Xi Jinping’s warm relations with Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, [7]  who is wanted by an international arrest warrant, and the CCP’s close ties to the political and military leadership of Zimbabwe. [8]

What is becoming increasingly clear, however, is that China is now also emerging as a key normative actor in the global political sphere. As such, the CCP seeks to redefine the boundaries of legitimate state actions in its own interest. While China’s interests may align with most Western liberal democracies with respect to environmental issues and climate change, [9]  the CCP’s quest for normative leadership is a grave threat to the notion of universal human rights. The Chinese state’s severe violations of its own citizens’ human rights are exemplified by its crackdown on its Uyghur Muslim minority, primarily resident in the Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang. In a time where American commitments to universalism and human rights are already fragile, the CCP’s crackdown is not just a human catastrophe for the more than ten million Uyghurs living in China, it is a threat to the survival of the principle of universal human rights.

The Police State in Xinjiang

Beijing has turned Xinjiang into a security state that is extreme even by Chinese standards. Repression has been rife in Xinjiang for years, but has worsened in the past year. Such repression primarily targets Uyghurs and Kazakhs, who have linguistic and cultural ties to Turkey and the Middle East and are considered by Beijing to be a hindrance to the development of a ‘harmonious society.’ In addition to traditional coercive policing measures and a disproportionate military presence in the region, the police began to leverage digital surveillance technology to monitor almost all public and private activity. [10]  The commencement of such measures follows shortly after the installation in August 2016 of the hard-line Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, previously in charge of Tibet, in Xinjiang.

Beijing puts extreme efforts to ensure ‘stability’ in Xinjiang by using a sophisticated high-tech surveillance system. Technology is used to scan the collected photos and videos in order to identify “dangerous” or “overtly religious” conduct. [11]  Moreover, the CCP is piloting a new ‘spy birds’ surveillance drone program in the Xinjiang region. [12]  The police also has access to the personal data of Uyghurs and Kazakhs through targeted monitoring of their mobile phones.  The data is collated in an ‘integrated joint operations platform’ that stores data ranging from consumer habits to banking activity, health status and DNA profiles of all inhabitants of Xinjiang. [13]  These programs can, for example, match faces caught on surveillance cameras to a watch-list of suspects. They are the work of a state-run defence contractor that is developing software designed to help predict terrorist attacks before they occur. [14]

Even more devastating than the abovementioned surveillance policies is the construction and large-scale use of internment camps. [15]  Around one million people suspected of being ‘politically unreliable are sent for ‘re-education.’ Ostensibly, the detention camps promise ‘transformation through education’ or ‘counter-extremism education.’ However, witness testimonies suggest the prevalence of torture inside the camps. [16]  In addition, Muslims are forced to renounce Islam, drinking alcohol and eating pork. [17]  The detainees are kept at the facilities indefinitely, without any indictment, due process, or fair hearing.

The CCP argues such measures are necessary given repeated eruptions of violence, [18]  which authorities blame on Islamic extremists and Middle Eastern influence but which activists believe are driven by the repression of the Uyghurs. Even those Uyghurs who have so far avoided detention are afraid of being outside. As Bernand Zand describes, the city of Kashgar in westernmost China feels like Baghdad after the war. [19]

The International Response to the Crackdown

The construction of a police state in the region since Chen Quanguo’s appointment drew little international attention until recently. While the international academic community made continuing efforts over the past few months to raise awareness of the on-going abuses in Xinjiang, media coverage of the plight of the Uyghurs significantly intensified after the UN voiced alarm over Chinese political camps last August, marking a welcome change. China’s mass detention of Uyghurs subsequently moved from a few timid lines to the front pages of major media all around the world.

The information blockade by the Chinese State, however, still hinders international experts to report on the concrete situation in Xinjiang, as the CCP first denied the existence of such camps, and later, only acknowledged the existence of “re-education programs” in “vocational schools.” Meanwhile, journalist Megha Rajagopalan, famous for her extensive reporting on repression in Xinjiang, was compelled to leave China after Beijing refused to renew her visa, a situation also experienced by French correspondent Ursula Gauthier in late 2015 after she denounced the Chinese state’s treatment of its Muslim minorities.

Reports have revealed that the Chinese state has extended the crackdown beyond its borders, using coercion and threats to silence the Uyghur diaspora. China notably refused to renew the passports of Uyghurs living overseas, and signed cooperation agreements with countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia to arrest and deport recalcitrant Uyghurs. [20]  After Malaysia sent back eleven Uyghurs fleeing China via Thailand a few months ago, its new Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamed openly criticized China for its repressive policies. Fearing economic retaliation, Muslim countries involved in the BRI have been deafeningly silent over China’s crackdown on its Turkic Muslim community. [21]  Turkey also failed to address the issue, blocking media reports critical of China’s policies in Xinjiang. [22]  Protests have emerged in Pakistan and Kazakhstan, but overall the Uyghur crisis remains too contentious for many Muslim states unwilling to jeopardize their economic ties with China. [23]

Reactions from liberal democracies, on the other hand, were rather slow. A number of states raised the Xinjiang issue and asked for the end of illegal detentions at the UN Human Rights Council held in September. Most attention is henceforth directed toward Geneva where China will undergo its third Universal Periodic Review in November.

An Appeal to Principled Unity

Such public criticism of the human right abuses perpetrated by the Chinese state is, of course, commendable and important. Recognising and speaking out against human rights violations is one significant way in which the notion of universal human rights is maintained. However, because of their disparate nature, it is doubtful that these criticisms will have an appreciable impact on CCP decision-making. This likelihood of CCP indifference to criticism is amplified by the fact that beyond the Middle East and Central Asia many of the most significant countries, from a geopolitical and economic perspective, are either keen recipients of Chinese investment [24]  or eager to export their own products to China’s more than 1.4 billion consumers. 25]

While such economic incentives tempt even the world’s most resilient economies, the immediate benefits of Chinese foreign direct investment or market access often cloud the long term downsides of these arrangements, whether in the form of technology transfer to Chinese enterprises or dependency on Chinese capital. More importantly, by looking the other way when the Chinese state commits severe human rights abuses, China’s trading partners themselves contribute to the erosion of the  de facto  significance of universal rights.   

The world’s liberal democracies must unite in taking a principled approach against the mass observation and incarceration of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. If liberal democracies are serious about protecting the principle of universal human rights, they must factor human rights considerations into their trading arrangements with China. The authors of this article recognise the difficulties of implementing such policies, but submit that these steps are a price worth paying to protect one of the most important aspects of the post-World War Two consensus. A concrete step in this direction could take the form of targeted sanctions and travel restrictions on the individual CCP members involved in the autocracies. In fact, such sanctions are already being contemplated by the United States Congress under the Global Magnitsky Act. [26]

[1]  Tom Hancock, “China encircles the world with One Belt, One Road strategy,”  The Financial Times , May 4, 2017,  https://www.ft.com/content/0714074a-0334-11e7-aa5b-6bb07f5c8e12 .

[2]  Scott Kennedy, “Made in China 2025,”June 1, 2015,  Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) ,  https://www.csis.org/analysis/made-china-2025 .

[3]  Salvatore Babones, “China's AIIB Expected To Lend $10-15B A Year, But Has Only Managed $4.4B In 2 Years,”  Forbes , January 16, 2018,  https://www.forbes.com/sites/salvatorebabones/2018/01/16/chinas-aiib-expected-to-lend-10-15b-a-year-but-has-only-managed-4-4b-in-2-years/#7aa129c837f1 .

[4]  See About the Bretton Woods Institutions,  http://www.brettonwoods.org/page/about-the-bretton-woods-institutions .

[5] See Global Conflict Tracker,  https://www.cfr.org/interactives/global-conflict-tracker#!/conflict/territorial-disputes-in-the-south-china-sea .

[6]  Lina Benabdallah, “China-Africa military ties have deepened. Here are 4 things to know,” July 6, 2018,  The Washington Post ,  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/07/06/china-africa-military-ties-have-deepened-here-are-4-things-to-know/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9dee40eaeaca .

[7]  Jake Rashbass, “Sudan's Bashir to visit China despite international arrest warrant,”  Reuters , August 30, 2015,  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sudan-bashir-china/sudans-bashir-to-visit-china-despite-international-arrest-warrant-idUSKCN0QZ0P220150830 .

[8]  Vasabjit Banerjee and Timothy S. Rich, “Diamonds and the Crocodile: China’s Role in the Zimbabwe Coup,”  The Diplomat , November 22, 2017,  https://thediplomat.com/2017/11/diamonds-and-the-crocodile-chinas-role-in-the-zimbabwe-coup/ .

[9]  Edward Wong, “China Is a Climate Leader but Still Isn’t Doing Enough on Emissions, Report Says,”  The New York Times,  July 19, 2018,  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/world/asia/china-climate-change-report.html .

[10]   Keith Zhai and Edwin Chan, “China Uses Facial Recognition to Fence In Villagers in Far West,”  Bloomberg News , January 17, 2018,  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-17/china-said-to-test-facial recognition-fence-in-muslim-heavy-area .

[11]  Sarah Cook, “China’s Ever-Expanding Surveillance State,”  The Diplomat,  April 25, 2018,  https://thediplomat.com/2018/04/chinas-ever-expanding-surveillance-state/ .

[12]  Stephen Chen, “China takes surveillance to new heights with flock of robotic Doves, but do they come in peace?”  South China Morning Post,  June 24, 2018,  https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2152027/china-takes-surveillance-new-heights-flock-robotic-doves-do-they .

[13]  Matthew Brown, “China sparks human rights outcry by ramping up DNA testing in Muslim-dominated region,”  The Independent,  May 17,  2017,   https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-expands-dna-testing-xinjiang-muslims-security-crackdown-human-rights-watch-a7739791.html .

[14]  Tom Philips, “China testing facial-recognition surveillance system in Xinjiang – report,” The Guardian,  June 18, 2018,  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/18/china-testing-facial-recognition-surveillance-system-in-xinjiang-report .

[15]  Rian Thun, “China’s Mass Internment Camps Have No Clear End in Sight,”  Foreign Policy , August 22, 2018,  https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/22/chinas-mass-internment-camps-have-no-clear-end-in-sight/ .

[16]  Lucas Niewenhuis, “Re- Education Camps in China’s ‘No-Rights Zone’ for Muslims: What Everyone Needs to Know,”  SupChina , August 22, 2018,  https://supchina.com/2018/08/22/xinjiang-explainer-chinas-reeducation-camps-for-a-million-muslims/ .

[17]  Greey Shik and Dake Kang, “Muslim Forced To Drink Alcohol And Eat Pork In China’s ‘Re-Education’ Camps, For Met Inmate Claims,”  The Independent,  May 18, 2018,  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-re-education-muslims-ramadan-xinjiang-eat-pork-alcohol-communist-xi-jinping-a8357966.html .

[18]  “Xinjiang attack: four ‘terrorists’ and one bystander killed, says China,” Reuters in Beijing, reported in  The Guardian , December 29, 2016,  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/29/xinjiang-attack-four-terrorists-and-one-bystander-killed-says-china .

[19]  Bernhard Zand, “A Surveillance State Unlike Any the World Has Ever Seen,”  Spiegel Online,  July 26, 2018,  http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/china-s-xinjiang-province-a-surveillance-state-unlike-any-the-world-has-ever-seen-a-1220174.html .

[20]  Linah Alsaafin, “Uyghurs Arrested in Egypt Face Unknown Fate,”  Al Jazeera , July 27, 2017,  https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/07/uighurs-arrested-egypt-face-unknown-fate-170721101113091.html .

[21]   Samuel Ramani , “Iran’s Careful Approach to China’s Uyghur Crackdown,”  The Diplomat,  September 18, 2018,  https://thediplomat.com/2018/09/irans-careful-approach-to-chinas-uyghur-crackdown/ .

[22]  Tugrul Keskin, “Uyghur Diaspora in Turkey, Current Conditions and Future Projections,”  China and the Middle East Blog , January 5, 2017,  http://chinaandthemiddleeast.blogspot.com/2017/01/a-new-article-uyghur-diaspora-in-turkey.html .

[23]  Alexandra Ma, “Why the Muslim World isn’t Saying Anything about China’s Repression and ‘Cultural Cleansing’ of its Downtrodden Muslim Minority,”  Business Insider , August 27, 2018,  https://www.businessinsider.com/why-muslim-countries-arent-criticizing-china-uighur-repression-2018-8 .

[24]  Phillippe Le Corre, “Brexit: What’s Next for the China-UK Relationship?”  Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,  February 19, 2018,  https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/02/19/brexit-what-s-next-for-china-uk-relationship-pub-75633 .

[25]  Helen Reid, “China Remains Germany’s Biggest Trading Partner in 2017,”  Reuters,  February 21, 2018,  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-economy-trade/china-remains-germanys-biggest-trading-partner-in-2017-idUSKCN1G5213 .

[26]  Shannon Tiezzi, “US Congress Members Want Sanctions on China Over Xinjiang Crackdown,”  The Diplomat,  August 30, 2018,  https://thediplomat.com/2018/08/us-congress-members-want-sanctions-on-china-over-xinjiang-crackdown/ .

The Middle East Institute (MEI) is an independent, non-partisan, non-for-profit, educational organization. It does not engage in advocacy and its scholars’ opinions are their own. MEI welcomes financial donations, but retains sole editorial control over its work and its publications reflect only the authors’ views. For a listing of MEI donors, please click her e .

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How Chinese Students Experience America

By Peter Hessler

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In my composition class at Sichuan University, in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu, the first assignment was a personal essay. I gave some prompts in case students had trouble coming up with topics. One suggestion was to describe an incident in which the writer had felt excluded from a group. Another was to tell how he or she had responded when some endeavor went unexpectedly wrong. For the third prompt, I wrote:

Have you ever been involved in a situation that was extremely threatening, or dangerous, or somehow dramatic? Tell the story, along with what you learned.

It was September, 2019, and the class consisted of engineering majors who were in their first month at university. Like virtually all Chinese undergraduates, they had been admitted solely on the basis of scores on the gaokao , the national college-entrance examination. The gaokao is notorious for pressure, and most of my students chose to write about some aspect of their high-school experience. One girl described a cruel math instructor: “He is the person whose office you enter happily and exit with pain and inferiority.” Edith, a student from northern Sichuan Province, wrote about feeling excluded from her graduation banquet, because her father and his male work colleagues hijacked the event by giving long-winded speeches that praised one another. “That’s what I hate, being hypocritical as some adults,” she wrote.

Few students chose the third prompt. Some remarked that nothing dangerous or dramatic had ever happened, because they had spent so much of their short lives studying. But one boy, whom I’ll call Vincent, submitted an essay titled “A Day Trip to the Police Station.”

The story began with a policeman calling Vincent’s mother. The officer said that the police needed to see her son, but he wouldn’t explain why. After the call, Vincent tried to figure out if he had committed some crime. He was the only student who wrote his essay in the third person, as if this distance made it easier to describe his mind-set:

He was tracing the memory from birth to now, including but not limited to [the time] he broke a kid’s head in kindergarten, he used V.P.N. to browse YouTube to see some videos, and talked with his friends abroad in Facebook and so on. Suddenly he thought of the most possible thing that happened two years ago. In the summer vacation in 2017, he bought an airsoft gun in the Internet, which is illegal in mainland China but legal in most countries or regions. Although it had been two years since then, he left his private information such as the address and his phone number. In modern society, it is possible to trace every information in the Internet and [especially] easy for police.

Vincent’s parents both worked tizhinei , within the government system. The boy approached his father for advice, and the older man didn’t lecture his son about following the rules. Vincent described their exchange:

“If you are asked about this matter,” dad said, “you just tell him that the seller mailed a toy gun and you were cheated. And then you felt unhappy and threw it away.” Sure enough, two policemen came to his home the next day.

Vincent stood about six feet tall, a handsome boy with close-cropped hair. He always sat in the front of the class, and he enjoyed speaking up, unlike many of the other engineers, who tended to be shy. On the first day of the term, I asked students to list their favorite authors, and Vincent chose Wang Xiaobo, a Beijing novelist who wrote irreverent, sexually explicit fiction.

As with many of his classmates, Vincent hoped to complete his undergraduate degree in the United States. I was teaching at the Sichuan University–Pittsburgh Institute, or SCUPI . All SCUPI classes were in English, and after two or three years at Sichuan University students could transfer to the University of Pittsburgh or another foreign institution. SCUPI was one of many programs and exchanges designed to direct more Chinese students to the U.S. In the 2019-20 academic year, Chinese enrollment at American institutions reached an all-time high of 372,532.

Nobody in Vincent’s section had previously studied in the U.S. Almost all of them were middle class, and they often said that their goal was to complete their bachelor’s degree in America, stay on for a master’s or a Ph.D., and then come back to work in China. A generation earlier, the vast majority of Chinese students at American universities had stayed in the country, but the pattern changed dramatically with China’s new prosperity. In 2022, the Chinese Ministry of Education reported that, in the past decade, more than eighty per cent of Chinese students returned after completing their studies abroad.

Vincent also intended to make a career in China, but he had specific plans for his time in the U.S. Once, during a class discussion, he remarked that someday he would purchase both a car and a real firearm. The illegal airsoft pistol that he had acquired in high school shot only plastic pellets. In 2017, when Vincent ordered the gun, it had been delivered to his home at the bottom of a rice cooker, as camouflage. At the time, such subterfuges were still possible, but the government had since cracked down, as part of a general tightening under Xi Jinping.

In Vincent’s essay, he was surprised that the two policemen who arrived at his home didn’t mention the forbidden gun. Instead, they accused him of a much more shocking crime: spreading terrorist messages.

“That’s ridiculous,” Vincent said. “I have never browsed such videos, not to mention posted them in the Internet. You must be joking.” “Maybe you didn’t post it by yourself,” the policeman said. “But the app may back up the video automatically.”

Vincent admitted that once, in a WeChat group, he had come across a terrorist video. The police instructed him to get his I.D. card and accompany them to the station. After they arrived, they entered a room labelled “Cybersecurity Police,” where Vincent was impressed by the officers’ politeness. (“It’s not scary at all, no handcuffs and no cage.”) The police informed him that they had found a host of sensitive and banned material on his cloud storage:

“But how interesting it is!” the policeman said. “They sent pornographic videos, traffic accident videos, [breaking news] videos, and funny videos.” “Yes,” he said helplessly, “so I am innocent.” “Yes, we believe you,” the policeman said. “But you have to [sign] the record because it is the fact that you posted the terrorism video in the Internet, which is illegal.”

On one level, the essay was terrifying—Chinese can be imprisoned for such crimes. But the calm tone created a strange sense of normalcy. The basic narrative was universal: a teen-ager makes a mistake, finds himself gently corrected, and gains new maturity. Along the way, he connects with the elders who love him. Part of this connection comes from what they share: the parents, rather than representing authority, are also powerless in the face of the larger system. The essay ended with the father giving advice that could be viewed as cynical, or heartwarming, or defeatist, or wise, or all these things at once:

“That’s why I always like to browse news [but] never comment on the Internet,” father said. “Because the Internet police really exist. And we have no private information, we can be easily investigated however you try to disguise yourself. So take care whatever you send on the Internet, my boy!” From this matter, Vincent really gained some experience. First, take care about your account in the Internet, and focus on some basic setting like automatic backup. Besides, don’t send some words, videos, or photos freely. In China, there is Internet police focus on WeChat, QQ, Weibo, and other software. As it is said in 1984 , “Big Brother is watching you.”

More than twenty years earlier, I had taught English at a small teachers’ college in a city called Fuling, less than three hundred miles east of Chengdu. The Fuling college was relatively low in the hierarchy of Chinese universities, but even such a place was highly selective. In 1996, the year that I started, only one out of twelve college-age Chinese was able to enter a tertiary educational institution. Almost all my students had grown up on farms, like the vast majority of citizens at that time.

In two years, I taught more than two hundred people, not one of whom went on to live abroad or attend a foreign graduate school. Most of them accepted government-assigned jobs in public middle schools or high schools, where they taught English, as part of China’s effort to improve education and engage with the outside world. Meanwhile, the government was expanding universities with remarkable speed. In less than ten years, the Fuling college grew from two thousand undergraduates to more than twenty thousand, a rate of increase that wasn’t unusual for Chinese institutions at that time. By 2019, the year that I returned, China’s enrollment rate of college-age citizens had risen, in the span of a single generation, from eight per cent to 51.6 per cent.

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When I had first arrived, in the nineties, I believed that improved education was bound to result in a more open society and political system. But in Fuling I began to understand that college in China might work differently than it did in the West. Students were indoctrinated by mandatory political classes, and Communist Party officials strictly controlled teaching materials. They were also skilled at identifying talent. In “River Town,” a book that I wrote about teaching in Fuling, I described my realization that the kind of young people I once imagined would become dissidents were in fact the most likely to be co-opted by the system: “The ones who were charismatic, intelligent, farsighted, and brave—those were the ones who had been recruited long ago as Party Members.”

This strategy long predated the Communists. China’s imperial examination system, the ancestor of the gaokao , was instituted in the seventh century and lasted for about thirteen hundred years. Through these centuries, education was closely aligned with political authority, because virtually all schooling was intended to prepare men for government service. That emphasis stood in sharp contrast with the West, where higher learning in pre-modern times often came out of religious institutions. Elizabeth J. Perry, a historian at Harvard, has described the ancient Chinese system as being effective at producing “educated acquiescence.” Perry used this phrase as the title for a 2019 paper that explores how today’s Party has built on the ancient tradition. “One might have expected,” she writes, “that opening China’s ivory tower to an infusion of scholars and dollars from around the world would work to liberalize the intellectual climate on Chinese campuses. Yet Chinese universities remain oases of political compliance.”

At Sichuan University, which is among the country’s top forty or so institutions, I recognized some tools of indoctrination that I remembered from the nineties. Political courses now included the ideas of Xi Jinping along with Marxism, and an elaborate system of Party-controlled fudaoyuan , or counsellors, advised and monitored students. But today’s undergraduates were much more skilled at getting their own information, and it seemed that most young people in my classes used V.P.N.s. They also impressed me as less inclined to join the Party. In 2017, a nationwide survey of university students showed decreased interest in Party membership. I noticed that many of my most talented and charismatic students, like Vincent, had no interest in joining.

But they weren’t necessarily progressive. In class, students debated the death penalty after reading George Orwell’s essay “A Hanging,” and Vincent was among the majority, which supported capital punishment. He described it as a human right—in his opinion, if a murderer is not properly punished, other citizens lose their right to a safe society. Another day, when I asked if political leaders should be directly elected, Vincent and most of his classmates said no. Once, I asked two questions: Does the Chinese education system do a good job of preparing people for life? Should the education system be significantly changed? Vincent and several others had the same answer to both: no.

The students rarely exhibited the kind of idealism that a Westerner associates with youth. They seemed to accept that the world is a flawed place, and they were prepared to make compromises. Even when Vincent wrote about his encounter with the Internet police, he never criticized the monitoring; instead, his point was that a Chinese citizen needs to be careful. In another essay, Vincent described learning to control himself after a rebellious phase in middle school and high school. “Now, I seem to know more about the world,” he wrote. “It’s too impractical to change a lot of things like the education system, the government policies.”

Vincent took another class with me the following fall, in 2020. That year, China had a series of vastly different responses to COVID . Early on, Party officials in Wuhan covered up reports of the virus, which spread unchecked in the city, killing thousands. By February, the national leadership had started to implement policies—strict quarantines, extensive testing, and abundant contact tracing—that proved highly effective in the pre-vaccination era. There wasn’t a single reported case at Sichuan University that year, and we conducted our fall classes without masks or social distancing. Our final session was on December 31st, and I asked students to write about how they characterized 2020. Vincent, like more than seventy per cent of his peers, wrote that it had been a good year. He described how his thinking had evolved after observing the initial mistakes in Wuhan:

Most people held negative attitudes to the government’s reaction, including me. Meanwhile, our freedom of expression was not protected and the supervision department did a lot to delete negative news, critical comments, and so on. I felt so sad about the Party and the country at that time. But after things got better and seeing other countries’ worse behaviors, I feel so fortunate now and change my idea [about] China and the Party. Although I know there are still too many existing problems in China, I am convinced that the socialist system is more advanced especially in emergency cases.

In 2021, after suspending visa services for Chinese students during the pandemic, the U.S. resumed them. Throughout the spring, I fielded anxious questions from undergraduates who were thinking about going to America. One engineer itemized his concerns in an e-mail:

1. How to feel or deal with the discrimination when the two countries’ relationship [is] very nervous? 2. What are the root causes [in] America to cause today’s situation (drugs; distrust of the government, unemployment, and the most important, racial problem)?

They generally worried most about COVID , although guns, anti-Asian violence, and U.S.-China tensions were all prominent issues. One student who eventually went to America told me that in his home town, in northeastern China, ideas about the U.S. had changed dramatically since his childhood. “When people in the community went to America, the family was proud of them,” he said. “But this time, before I went, some family members came and they said, ‘You are going to the U.S.—it’s so dangerous!’ ”

Vincent’s mother was on a WeChat group for SCUPI parents, and that spring somebody posted an advisory from the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.:

Since the COVID pandemic, there have been successive incidents of discrimination and violent crimes against Asians in some cities in the United States. . . . On March 16, three shooting incidents occurred in Atlanta and surrounding areas, killing 8 people, of whom 6 were Asian women, including 1 Chinese and 1 Chinese citizen. . . . When encountering such a situation, you must remain calm, deal with it properly, try to avoid quarrels and physical conflicts, and ensure your own safety.

That month, Vincent told me that he planned to buy a .38 revolver after arriving in Pittsburgh. He had already researched how to acquire a hunting license and a firearm-safety certificate. In July, a month before he was scheduled to leave, I had dinner with his mother. She said that she worried about gun violence and racial prejudice. “Lots of people say that now in America you can’t rise to the highest level if you are Chinese,” she said.

Vincent’s mother was born in 1974, the same year as many of the people I had taught in Fuling. Like them, she had benefitted from a stable government job during the era of China’s economic boom. She and her husband weren’t rich, but they were prepared to direct virtually all their resources toward Vincent’s education, a common pattern. Edith, the girl who wrote about her graduation banquet, told me that her parents were selling their downtown apartment and moving to the suburbs in order to pay her tuition at Pittsburgh—more than forty thousand dollars a year. Like Vincent, and like nearly ninety per cent of the people I taught, Edith was an only child. Her mother had majored in English in the nineties, when it was still hard to go overseas. After reading “Gone with the Wind” in college, she had dreamed of going abroad, and now she wanted her daughter to have the opportunity.

At dinner with Vincent’s mother, I asked how his generation was different from hers.

“They have more thoughts of their own,” she said. “They’re more creative. But they don’t have our experience of chiku , eating bitterness.”

Even so, she described Vincent as hardworking and unafraid of challenges. I saw these qualities in many students, which in some ways seemed counterintuitive. As only children from comfortable backgrounds who had spent high school in a bubble of gaokao preparation, they could have come across as sheltered or spoiled. But the exam is so difficult, and a modern Chinese childhood is so pressured, that even prosperous young people have experienced their own form of chiku .

They often seemed eager for a change of environment. In my classes, I required off-campus reporting projects, which aren’t common at Chinese universities. Some students clearly relished the opportunity to visit places that otherwise may have seemed illicit or inappropriate: Christian churches, gay bars, tattoo parlors. Occasionally, they travelled far afield. One boy in Vincent’s year who called himself Bruce, after Bruce Lee, rode a motorcycle several hundred miles into the Hengduan Mountains, at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, to research a road that had been constructed as part of China’s supply chain during the Second World War.

Vincent liked interacting with people from different backgrounds, and he researched a massage parlor, a seedy pool hall, and an outdoor marriage market in Chengdu’s People’s Park. At the marriage market, singles tried to find partners, often with the help of parents and various middlemen. In Vincent’s opinion, Chinese parents were too controlling, and young people had spent so much time studying that they had no dating experience. He wrote:

Because of one-child policy and traditional ideology, many parents consider their children as their treasure which belongs to the parents instead of the children themselves. . . . I hope the future Chinese children can have genuine liberty.

Vincent’s mother told me that she and her husband had made a point of allowing their son to decide for himself whether to go to America. But many parents were nervous, including Bruce’s father, who didn’t want his son to go to the U.S. because of the political tensions with China. In the end, Bruce decided to take a gap year before leaving. The delay was probably fortunate, because while researching the highway in the mountains he drove his motorcycle around a blind curve and was hit by a thirteen-ton dump truck. Bruce and the motorcycle slid beneath the truck; by some miracle, the vehicle came to a halt before killing the boy. I didn’t hear about the accident from the police, or the hospital, or anybody at the university. It was characteristic of these hardworking students that the news arrived in the form of an e-mailed request for an extension:

Dear Prof. Hessler, I had an accident on my way to the Lexi Highway. I was turning a corner when I was hit by a truck. Now I have a fracture in my left hand and a piece of flesh has been grinded off my left hand. Then the ligaments and nerves were damaged, and the whole left hand was immobile. My left foot was also injured. It was badly bruised. The whole foot was swollen and couldn’t move. I’m in hospital now. I’ll have to stay in the hospital for a while before I can come back. So I may not be able to write the article about the Lexi Highway. I don’t know what to do now. Can I write the article at a later date? Because I can’t do my research right now. And it’s really hard for me to type with one hand. Best wishes, Bruce

The first time I saw Vincent in Pittsburgh, in October, 2021, he had lived in America for only eighty-two days, but already he had acquired a used Lexus sedan, a twelve-gauge Winchester shotgun, a Savage Axis XP 6.5 Creedmoor bolt-action rifle, and a Glock 19 handgun. “It’s the Toyota Camry of guns,” he said, explaining that the Glock was simple and reliable.

Vincent had studied the gun laws in Pennsylvania, learning that an applicant for a concealed-carry permit must be at least twenty-one, so he applied on his birthday. The permit cost twenty dollars and featured a photograph of Vincent standing in front of an American flag. He had also researched issues of jurisdiction. “I can use it in Ohio,” he said. “But not in California. I don’t like California.” One reason he disliked California was that state law follows the Castle Doctrine, which, in Vincent’s opinion, provides inadequate protection for gun owners. “Pennsylvania has Stand Your Ground,” he said, referring to a law that allows people to defend themselves with deadly force in public spaces. “They made some adjustments to the Castle Doctrine.”

Vincent was thriving in his engineering classes, and he said that some of the math was easier than what he had studied in high school in China. His views about his home country were changing, in part because of the pandemic. Vaccines were now widespread, but the Party hadn’t adjusted its “zero COVID ” strategy. “Their policy overreacts,” Vincent told me. “You should not require the government to do too many things and restrict our liberties. We should be responsible for ourselves. We should not require the government to be like our parents.”

A couple of times, he had attended Sunday services at the Pittsburgh Chinese Church Oakland, an evangelical congregation that offered meals and various forms of support for students. In China, Vincent had never gone to church, but now he was exploring different denominations. He had his own way of classifying faiths. “For example, a church with all white Americans,” he said, referring to his options. “One of my classmates joined that. I think he likes it. He goes every week. He can earn so many profits. Even the Chinese church, they can pick you up from the airport, free. They can help you deliver furniture from some store, no charge. They do all kinds of things!”

In 2021, there were more than fifteen hundred Chinese at the University of Pittsburgh, and around three thousand at Carnegie Mellon, whose campus is less than a mile away. I came to associate the city with Sichuanese food, because I almost never ate anything else while meeting former students. Some of them, like Vincent, were trying to branch out into American activities, but for the most part they found it easy to maintain a Chinese life. Many still ordered from Taobao, which in the U.S. is slower than Amazon but has a much better selection of Chinese products. They also used various Chinese delivery apps: Fantuan, HungryPanda, FreshGoGo. The people I taught still relied heavily on V.P.N.s, although now they used them to hop in the other direction across China’s firewall. They needed the Chinese Internet in order to access various streaming apps and pop-music services, as well as to watch N.B.A. games with cheaper subscription fees and Mandarin commentary.

For students who wanted to play intercollegiate basketball, the Chinese even had their own league. An athletic boy named Ethan, who had been in my composition class at Sichuan University, was now the point guard for the Pittsburgh team. Ethan told me that about forty students had tried out and seventeen had made the cut. I asked if somebody like me could play.

“No white people,” Ethan said, laughing.

“What about hunxue’er ?” The term means a person of mixed race.

“I think that works.”

One weekend in 2022, I watched Pitt play Carnegie Mellon. Or, more accurately, I watched “UPitt,” because that was the name on the jerseys. My father attended Pitt in the late sixties, and I had grown up wearing school paraphernalia, but I had never heard anybody refer to the place as UPitt. The colors were also different. Rather than using Pitt’s royal and gold, the Chinese had made up uniforms in white and navy blue, which, in this corner of Pennsylvania, verged on sacrilege: Penn State colors.

The team received no university funding, so it had found its own sponsors. Moello, a Chinese-owned athletic-clothing company in New York, made the uniforms, and Penguin Auto, a local dealership, paid to have its logo on the back, because Chinese students were reliable car buyers.

The Northeastern Chinese Basketball League, which is not limited to the Northeast, has more than a hundred teams across the U.S. On the day that I watched, the Pitt team played a fast, guard-dominated game, running plays that had been named for local public bus lines. “ Qishiyi B!” the point guard would call out: 71B, a bus that runs to Highland Park. It was the first time I had attended a college basketball game in which the starting forward hit a vape pen in the huddle during time-outs.

The forward was originally from Tianjin, and his girlfriend was the team manager. She told me that she was trying to get him to stop vaping during games. Her name was Ren Yufan, and she was friendly and talkative; she went by the English name Ally. Ally had grown up in Shanghai and Nanjing, but she had attended high school at Christ the King Cathedral, a Catholic school in Lubbock, Texas, where she played tennis. “I was state sixth place in 2A,” she said. She noted that she had also been elected prom queen.

Ally often answered questions with “Yes, sir” or “No, sir,” and her English had a slight Texas twang. Her parents had sent her to Lubbock through a program that pairs Chinese children with American host families. Ally’s host family owned a farm, where she learned to ride a horse; she enjoyed Lubbock so much that she still returned for school holidays. In the past ten or so years, more Chinese have found ways to enroll their kids in U.S. high schools, in part to avoid gaokao agony. In Pittsburgh, my Sichuan University students described these Chinese as a class apart: typically, they come from wealthy families, and their English is better than that of the Chinese who arrive in college or afterward. Their work patterns are also different. Yingyi Ma, a Chinese-born sociologist at Syracuse University, who has conducted extensive surveys of students from the mainland, has observed that the longer the Chinese stay in the U.S. the less they report working harder than their American peers. Like any good Chinese math problem, this distinctly American form of regression toward the mean can be quantified. In Ma’s book “Ambitious and Anxious,” she reports on her survey results: “Specifically, one additional year of time in the United States can reduce the odds of putting in more effort than American peers by 14 percent.”

Ally’s boyfriend had attended a private high school in Pennsylvania that cost almost seventy thousand dollars a year, and he drove a Mercedes GLC. “We are using our parents’ money, but we can’t be as successful as our parents,” Ally said. Neither her father nor her mother had attended university, but they had thrived in construction and private business during the era of China’s rapid growth. Now the country’s economy was struggling, and Ally accepted the fact that her career opportunities would likely be worse than those of the previous generation. Nevertheless, she planned to return to China, because she wanted to be close to her parents. I asked if anything might make it hard to fit in after spending so many formative years in America.

“My personality,” she said. “I’m too outgoing.”

“There are no prom queens in China, right?”

By my second visit to Pittsburgh, in November, 2022, Vincent had decided to stay permanently in the U.S., been baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and added an AK-47 and two Sig Sauer handguns to his arsenal. He had also downgraded to a less expensive car, because the Lexus had been damaged in a crash. Rather than getting the Glock 19 of automobiles, Vincent decided on the Camry’s cousin, a used Toyota Prius. He picked me up in the Prius, and we headed out for a traditional Steel City meal of lajiao and prickly ash. Vincent wore a Sig Sauer P365 XL with a laser sight in a holster on his right hip. The car radio was playing “Water Tower Town,” a country song by Scotty McCreery:

In a water tower town, everybody waves Church doors are the only thing that’s open on Sundays Word travels fast, wheels turn slow. . . .

Earlier in the year, some Mormon missionaries had struck up a conversation with Vincent on campus. “Their koucai is really good,” he told me, using a word that means “eloquence.” “It helps me understand how to interact with people. They say things like ‘Those shoes are really nice!’ And they start talking, and then they ask you a question: ‘Are you familiar with the Book of Mormon?’ ” Now Vincent had a Chinese app for the Book of Mormon on his phone, and he attended services every Sunday. He had been baptized on July 23rd, which was also the day that he had quit drinking and smoking cigarettes, a habit he’d had since Sichuan University. He thought that the church might be a good place to meet a girlfriend. He had a notion that someday he’d like to have a big family and live in a place like Texas, whose gun laws appealed to him.

Corn grows high, crime stays low There’s little towns everywhere where everybody knows. . . .

During the winter of Vincent’s first academic year in the U.S., his political transformation had been rapid. “I watched a lot of YouTube videos about things like June 4th,” he told me, referring to the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre, in 1989. He began to question the accommodationist views that he had previously held. “Young people are like this in China,” he said. “They tend to support the system.”

In the spring of 2022, Vincent became dismayed by the excessive COVID lockdown in Shanghai. He posted a series of critical remarks on social media, and in May he sent me an e-mail:

In recent months, I make some negative comments on WeChat on the humanitarian crisis caused by the lockdown in Shanghai and some other issues. My parents got nervous and asked me to delete these contents because their colleagues having me in their contact lists in WeChat read my “Pengyou Quan” [friends’ circle] and reminded my parents of potential risks of “Ju Bao” [political reporting] that would affect my parents’ jobs.

One day, a man who may have been from the Chinese security apparatus phoned Vincent’s parents. Unlike in the call from years before, this man didn’t identify himself as the police. But he said that Vincent’s actions could cause trouble for the family. Such anonymous warnings are occasionally made to the parents of overseas Chinese, and they weigh heavily on students.

Vincent deleted his WeChat comments. But he also decided that he couldn’t imagine returning to China. “I would say something and get arrested,” he told me. “I need to be in a place where I have freedom.” An older Chinese friend in Pittsburgh had made a similar decision, and he advised Vincent on how to eventually apply for a green card.

Vincent told his parents that he planned to stay in America for at least five years, but initially he didn’t say that his decision was permanent, because he worried that they would be upset. In the meantime, he didn’t want to waste their money, so he earned cash on the side by teaching Chinese students how to drive. Professional garages charged at least five hundred dollars to install a passenger brake, but Vincent found one on Taobao for about eighty-five dollars, including shipping from China. “I don’t know if it’s legal,” he told me. With his engineering skills, he was able to install the brake in the Prius.

The number of Chinese studying in the U.S. had dropped to the lowest level in nearly a decade. But there were still almost three hundred thousand, and many of them arrived in places like Pittsburgh and realized that qishiyi B and other public buses weren’t adequate for their needs. They preferred to hire driving instructors who spoke Mandarin, and Vincent’s rate was eighty dollars an hour. He charged even more for the use of his car during exams. Vincent told me that a Chinese-speaking driving instructor who hustled could earn at least two hundred thousand dollars a year. In my own business, the Chinese political climate had made it almost impossible for American journalists to get resident visas, and specialists of all sorts no longer had access to the country. Sometimes I envisioned a retraining program for old China hands: all of us could buy passenger brakes on Taobao and set up shop as mandarins of parallel parking.

I knew of only a few former students who, like Vincent, had already decided to make a permanent home outside China. It was viewed as an extreme step, and most of them preferred to keep their options open. But virtually all my former students in the U.S. planned to apply to graduate school here.

They were concerned about the economic and political situation in China, but they also often felt out of place in Pittsburgh. American racial attitudes sometimes mystified them. One engineer had taken a Pitt psychology class that frequently touched on race, and he said that it reminded him of the political-indoctrination classes at Sichuan University. In both situations, he felt that students weren’t supposed to ask questions. “They’re just telling you how to play with words,” he said. “Like in China when they say socialism is good. In America you will say, ‘Black lives matter.’ They are actually the same thing. When you are saying socialism is good, you are saying that capitalism is bad. You are hiding something behind your words. When you say, ‘Black lives matter,’ what are you saying? You are basically saying that Asian lives don’t matter, white lives don’t matter.”

It wasn’t uncommon for Chinese students to have been harassed on the streets. They often said, with some discomfort, that those who targeted them tended to be Black. Many of these incidents involved people shouting slurs from passing cars, but occasionally there was something more serious. One group of boys was riding a public bus at night when a passenger insulted them and stole some ice cream that they had just bought. Afterward, one of the students acquired a Beretta air pistol. He was wary of buying an actual gun, but he figured that the Beretta looked real enough to intimidate people.

One evening, I went out for Sichuanese food with four former students, including a couple who had been involved in that incident. They seemed to brush it off, and they were much more concerned about Sino-U.S. tensions. One mentioned that if there were a war over Taiwan he would have only three options. “I can go back to China, or I can go to Canada, or I can go somewhere else,” he said. “I won’t be able to stay here.”

“Look at what happened to the Japanese during World War Two,” another said. “They put them into camps. It would be the same here.”

They all believed that war was unlikely, although Xi Jinping made them nervous. Back in China, my students had generally avoided mentioning the leader by name, and in Pittsburgh they did the same.

“It all depends on one person now,” a student said at the dinner. “In the past, it wasn’t just one person. When you have a group of people, it’s more likely that somebody will think about the cost.”

I asked whether they would serve in the Chinese military if there were a war.

“They wouldn’t ask people like us to fight,” one boy said. He explained that, in a war, he wouldn’t return home if his country was the aggressor. “If China fires the first shot, then I will stay in America,” he said.

I asked why.

“Because I don’t believe that we should attack our tongbao , our compatriots.”

I knew of only one Pitt student who planned to return to China for graduate school. The student, whom I’ll call Jack, was accepted into an aerospace-engineering program at Jiao Tong University, in Shanghai. Jack was one of the top SCUPI students, and in an earlier era he would have had his pick of American grad schools. But Chinese aerospace jobs are generally connected to the military, and American institutions had become wary of training such students. Even if a university makes an offer of admission, it can be extremely difficult to get a student visa approved. “Ten years ago, it would have been fine,” Jack told me. “My future Ph.D. adviser got his Ph.D. at Ohio State in aerospace engineering.” He continued, “Everybody knows you can’t get this kind of degree in the U.S. anymore.”

When I met Jack for lunch, I initially didn’t recognize him. He had lost twenty pounds, because in Pittsburgh he had adopted a daily routine of a four-mile run. “In middle school and high school, my parents and grandparents always said you should eat a lot and study hard,” he said. “I became kind of fat.”

He had assimilated to American life more successfully than most of his peers, and his English had improved dramatically. He told me shyly that he had become good friends with a girl in his department. “Some of my friends from SCUPI are jealous because I have a friend who is a foreign girl, a white girl,” he said. “They make some jokes.”

He said that he would always remember Pittsburgh fondly, but he expected his departure to be final. “I don’t think I’ll come to the U.S. again,” he said. “They will check. If they see that you work with rockets, with the military, they won’t let you in.”

On the afternoon of January 10, 2023, at around three o’clock, in the neighborhood of Homewood, Vincent was stopped behind another vehicle at a traffic light when he heard a popping sound that he thought was fireworks. He was driving the Prius, and a Chinese graduate student from Carnegie Mellon sat in the passenger seat. Vincent wore a Sig Sauer P365 subcompact semi-automatic pistol in a concealed-carry holster on his right hip. The Carnegie Mellon student was preparing to get his driver’s license, and Vincent was taking him to practice at a test course in Penn Hills, an area that was known for occasional crime problems.

At the traffic light, Vincent saw a car approach at high speed and run a red light. Then there were more popping sounds. Vincent realized that they weren’t fireworks when a bullet cracked his windshield.

He ducked below the dashboard. In the process, his foot came off the brake, and the Prius struck the vehicle ahead of him. The shooting continued for a few seconds. After it stopped, the Carnegie Mellon student said, “ Ge , brother, you just hit the car in front!”

“Get your head down!” Vincent shouted. He backed up, swerved around the other vehicle, and tore through a red light. After a block, he saw a crossing guard waiting for children who had just finished the day at Westinghouse Academy, a nearby public school.

“Shots fired, shots fired!” Vincent shouted. “Call 911!”

He parked on the side of the road, and soon he was joined by the driver whose car he had struck. They checked the bumpers; there wasn’t any damage. The driver, an elderly woman, didn’t seem particularly concerned about the shooting. She left before the police arrived.

A woman from a nearby house came out to talk with Vincent. She remarked that shootings actually weren’t so common, and then she walked off to pick up her child from Westinghouse Academy. After a while, a police officer drove up, carrying an AR-15. Vincent explained that he was also armed, and the officer thanked him for the information. He asked Vincent to wait until a detective arrived.

For more than two hours, Vincent sat in his car. The Carnegie Mellon student took an Uber home. When the detective finally showed up, his questions were perfunctory, and he didn’t seem interested in Vincent’s offer to provide dashboard-camera footage. A brief report about the incident appeared on a Twitter account called Real News and Alerts Allegheny County:

Shot Spotter Alert for 20 rounds Vehicles outside of a school shooting at each other. 1 vehicle fled after firing shots.

Later that year, Vincent took me to the site. He recalled that during the incident he had repeatedly said, “Lord, save me!,” like Peter the Apostle on the Sea of Galilee. The lack of police response had surprised Vincent. “I didn’t know they didn’t care about a shooting,” he said. For our visit, he wore a Sig Sauer P320-M17 on his right hip. “Normally, I don’t open-carry,” he said. “But this gun can hold eighteen rounds.”

It had been four years since Vincent arrived in my class at Sichuan University. Have you ever been involved in a situation that was extremely threatening, or dangerous, or somehow dramatic ? Back then, he had written about what happened when the Chinese Internet police came to his home. Now Vincent’s American story was one in which the police effectively didn’t come after twenty rounds had been fired near a school. But there was a similar sense of normalcy: everybody was calm; nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The following month, four students were shot outside Westinghouse Academy.

I asked Vincent if the incident had changed his opinion about gun laws.

“No,” he said. “That’s why we should carry guns. Carrying a gun is more comfortable than wearing body armor.”

At Sichuan University, I also taught journalism to undergraduates from a range of departments. Last June, I sent out a detailed survey to more than a hundred and fifty students. One question asked if they intended to make their permanent home in China. A few weren’t certain, but, of the forty-three who answered, thirty said that they planned to live in China. There was no significant difference in the responses of students who were currently in China versus those abroad.

Since the pandemic, there have been increasing reports of young Chinese engaged in runxue , or “run philosophy,” escaping the country’s various pressures by going abroad permanently. A number of my students pushed back against the idea that runxue had wide appeal. “I think that’s just an expression of emotion, like saying, ‘I want to die,’ ” one student who was studying in Pittsburgh told me. “I don’t take it very seriously.” He planned to go to graduate school in America and then return home. He said that in China it was easy for him to avoid politics, whereas in Pittsburgh he couldn’t avoid the fact that he was a foreigner. During his initial few months in the city, he had experienced three unpleasant anti-Asian incidents. As a result, he had changed the route he walked to his bus stop. “I think I don’t belong here,” he said.

Yingyi Ma, the sociologist at Syracuse who has surveyed Chinese students in the U.S., has observed that almost sixty per cent of her respondents intend to return to their homeland. She told me that young Chinese rarely connect with the political climate in the U.S. “But what makes America appealing is the other aspects,” she said. “The agency. The self-acceptance. Over time, as they stay in the U.S., they figure out that they don’t have to change themselves.”

One former student told me that she might remain in America in part because people were less likely to make comments about her body. She’s not overweight, but she doesn’t have the tiny frame that is common among young Chinese women, and people in China constantly remarked on her size. In Pittsburgh, I met with Edith, the student who had written about her graduation banquet. Now she had dyed some of her hair purple and green, and she avoided video calls with her grandparents, who might judge her. Once, she had gone to a shooting range with Chinese classmates, and she had attended church-group meetings out of curiosity. She told me that recently she had taken up skateboarding as a hobby.

It was typical for students to pursue activities that would have been unlikely or impossible in China, and several boys became gun enthusiasts. Nationwide, rising numbers of Asian Americans have purchased firearms since the start of the pandemic, a trend that scholars attribute to fears of racism. One afternoon, I arranged to meet a former student named Steven at a shooting range outside Wexford, Pennsylvania. I knew that I was in the right parking lot when, amid all the pickup trucks, I saw a car with a bumper sticker that said “E=mc 2 .” On the range, whenever the call came for a halt in shooting—“All clear!”—a bunch of bearded white guys in camo and Carhartt stalked out with staple guns to attach new paper covers to the targets. Steven, a shy, round-faced engineer in glasses, was the only Chinese at the range, and also the only person who used quilting pins for his target. He told me that the quilting pins were reusable and thus cheaper than staples. He had come with a Smith & Wesson M&P 5.7 handgun, a Ruger American Predator 6.5 Creedmoor bolt-action rifle, and a large Benchmade knife that he wore in a leather holster. At the range, he shot his rifle left-handed. When he was small, his father had thought that he was a natural lefty, but he was taught to write with his right hand, like all Chinese students. He told me that shooting was the first significant activity in which he had used his left.

On the same trip, I met Bruce for a classic Allegheny County dinner of mapo tofu and Chongqing chicken. After the accident in the Himalayas, Bruce had sworn off motorcycles. At Pitt, in addition to his engineering classes, he had learned auto repair by watching YouTube videos. He bought an old BMW, fixed it up, and sold it for a fifty-per-cent profit. He used the money to purchase a used Ford F-150 truck, which he customized so he could sleep in the cab for hiking and snowboarding excursions to the mountains. He had decorated the truck with two “thin blue line” American-flag decals and another pro-police insignia around the license plate. “That’s so it looks like I’m a hongbozi ,” Bruce said, using the Mandarin translation of “redneck.” “People won’t honk at me or mess with me.” He opened the door and pointed out a tiny Chinese flag on the back of the driver’s seat. “You can’t see it from the outside,” he said, grinning.

Over time, I’ve also surveyed the people I taught in the nineties, and last year I asked both cohorts of former students the same question: Did the pandemic change anything significant about your personal opinions, beliefs, or values? The older group reported relatively few changes. Most are now around fifty years old, with stable teaching jobs that have not been affected by China’s economic problems. They typically live in third- or fourth-tier provincial cities, which were less likely to suffer brutal lockdowns than places like Shanghai and Beijing.

But members of the younger generation, who are likelier to live in larger cities and generally access more foreign information, responded very differently. “I can’t believe I’m still reading Mao Zedong Thought and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” one graduate student at a Chinese university wrote. “In this collectivist ideology, there is no respect for the dignity and worth of the individual.” Another woman, who was in graduate school in the United Kingdom, wrote, “Now I’ve switched to an anarchist. It reduces the stress when I have to read the news.”

Their generation is unique in Chinese history in the scope of their education and in their degree of contact with the outside world. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that their concerns are broader. In my survey, I asked what they worried about most, and, out of forty-seven responses, three mentioned politics. Another three worried about the possibility of war with Taiwan. Only one cited environmental issues. The vast majority of answers were personal, with more than half mentioning job opportunities or problems with graduate school. This seemed to reflect the tradition of “educated acquiescence”: there’s no point in concerning yourself with big questions and systemic flaws.

Nevertheless, their worldliness makes it harder to predict long-term outcomes, and I sense a new degree of unease. On a recent trip to California, I interviewed a former student who commented that even when she and her Chinese boyfriend were alone they instinctively covered their phones if they talked about politics, as if this would prevent surveillance. I noticed that, like many other former students, she never uttered the name Xi Jinping. Afterward, I asked her about it over e-mail, and she replied:

I do find myself avoiding mentioning Xi’s name directly in [California], even in private conversations and in places where I generally feel “safe.” . . . I guess it’s a thing that has been reinforced millions of times to the point that it just feels uncomfortable and daunting to say his full name, as it has too much association with unrestrained power and punishment.

In the survey of my Sichuan University students, I was most struck by responses to a simple query: Do you want to have children someday? The most common answer was no, and the trend was especially pronounced for women, at seventy-six per cent. Other surveys and studies in China indicate a similar pattern. One former student explained:

I think that Chinese children are more stressed and profoundly confused, which will continue. We are already a confused generation, and children’s upbringing requires long periods of companionship and observation and guidance, which is difficult to ensure in the face of intense social pressure. The future of Chinese society is an adventure and children do not “demand to be born.” I am worried that my children are not warriors and are lost in it.

By my third visit to Pittsburgh, in November, 2023, Vincent had graduated, been baptized again, and embarked on his first real American job. The previous year, I had attended Sunday services with him at a Mormon church, but this time he took me to the Church of the Ascension, an Anglican congregation near campus. When I asked why he had switched, he used a Chinese word, qihou . “Environment,” he said. “They aren’t pushy. The Mormons are too pushy.”

He liked the fact that the Anglicans were conservative but reasonable. He saw politics in similar terms: he disliked Donald Trump, but he considered himself most likely to vote as a traditional Republican if he became a citizen. He had been baptized in the Anglican Church on Easter. “I told them that I had already been baptized,” he explained. “But they said that because it was Mormon it doesn’t count.”

The previous summer, Vincent’s mother had visited Pittsburgh, where, among other places, he took her to church and to the shooting range. During the trip, he told her about his plan to live permanently in the U.S. When I spoke with her recently by phone, she still held out hope that he would someday return to China. “I don’t want him to stay in America,” she said. “But if that’s what he wants I won’t oppose it.” She said that she was impressed by how much her son had matured since going abroad.

After receiving his degree in industrial engineering, Vincent decided not to work in the field. He believed that he was best suited for a career in business, because he liked dealing with all kinds of people. He had started working for his landlord, Nick Kefalos, who managed real-estate properties around Pittsburgh. One morning, I accompanied Vincent when he stopped by Kefalos’s office to drop off a check from a tenant.

Kefalos was a wiry, energetic man of around seventy. He told me that on a couple of occasions a roommate had left an apartment and Vincent was able to find a replacement. At one point, he persuaded a Japanese American, a Serbian, and a Dane to share a unit, and all of them had got along ever since. “We could see that he had a knack,” Kefalos said. “He was able to find unrelated people and make good matches.” Kefalos also liked having a Chinese speaker on staff. “We think a diverse population is ideal,” he said. Vincent was currently studying for his real-estate license, and he hoped to start his own business someday.

Kefalos’s grandfather had come from Greece, and his father had worked as an electrical engineer in the steel industry. Many of his current tenants were immigrants. “My personal experience is that they are relatively hardworking,” he said. “And I think that’s true with most immigrants who come into the country. Whether it’s for education or a better life.” He looked up at Vincent and said, “My sense is that most U.S. citizens born in the United States don’t have any idea how fortunate they are.” ♦

New Yorker Favorites

Searching for the cause of a catastrophic plane crash .

The man who spent forty-two years at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool .

Gloria Steinem’s life on the feminist frontier .

Where the Amish go on vacation .

How Colonel Sanders built his Kentucky-fried fortune .

What does procrastination tell us about ourselves ?

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Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions is a joint effort of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research .

Track 2 Diplomacy Effort on U.S.-China Scholarly Exchange Publishes Final Report

In early 2023 Professor Scott Rozelle, SCCEI Co-Director, was asked to participate in a track 2 diplomacy effort focusing on the current state of scholarly exchange between the United States and China. Led by CSIS and Peking University, the initiative produced a report consisting of 27 essays by American and Chinese scholars explaining the benefits of U.S.-China scholarly cooperation to the two societies and the world at large, identifying the obstacles to greater exchanges, and outlining practical strategies for overcoming these challenges. Scott Rozelle contributed two essays to this report: Scholarly Exchange between the United States and China: The Benefits of Collaboration and the Costs of Disruption and Scholarly Exchange Must Not Be Collateral Damage of National Security Impulses .

View the report summary on the CSIS website .  

Watch the Recorded Event on U.S.-China Scholarly Recoupling: The Path Forward

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U.s.-china scholarly recoupling: advancing mutual understanding in an era of intense rivalry, scott rozelle joins track two diplomacy efforts on scholarly exchange between the united states and china, adb's chief economist shares insights on china’s economy and asia’s rise, 2023 china business conference: washington’s view of china.

Media feel pressure to tell ‘positive’ China story as party tightens grip

State-linked Sixth Tone news outlet, known for its coverage of socioeconomic issues, comes under scrutiny.

The first time 27-year-old Ong Mei Ching* came across the Chinese online magazine, Sixth Tone, it immediately caught her attention.

For years, Ong had been interested in Chinese current affairs and had stayed updated about news from China, but she found that much of the coverage revolved around similar topics.

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Sixth Tone, which is published in English, was different.

“I found it refreshing because it was not about Chinese business or economics or politics – it was about people,” Ong told Al Jazeera.

She was captivated by the way the publication’s journalists ventured beyond the usual spaces into lesser-known cities and provinces to report about social dilemmas such as the country’s ageing population or its marginalised groups like single parents and children left with their grandparents by parents who had left for work in faraway cities.

“I felt they were doing something quite meaningful, that they were changing the narrative of how an international audience saw China,” she said.

Ong wanted to be a part of it. So, when she got the opportunity to work at Sixth Tone in 2019, she jumped at the chance and moved her life to Shanghai where the magazine has its headquarters.

She became a part of an editorial team that she described as upholding high journalistic standards and whose members were passionate about their work.

However, the work could often lead to clashes with Chinese censors who objected to certain topic choices and story angles, which sometimes resulted in pieces getting killed before they were ever published or taken down just a few hours after they went online.

“We were testing the waters with many stories to see whether they would pop the censors,” she said.

Regardless of the scrutiny, Ong found that Sixth Tone, which was geared towards a Western and internationally-minded audience, often had more leeway than media for more local audiences.

But its room for manoeuvre now appears to have shrunk.

Former and current employees at Sixth Tone have recently given accounts of how articles have been removed and phrases censored on a massive scale across the outlet’s archives. Editors have also been required to check in with censors every few hours and certain terminology has been changed to align with the preferred narrative of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) including referring to Tibet as “Xizang”.

Al Jazeera reached out to Sixth Tone for comment but did not receive a reply.

Ong is not surprised that the grip appears to be tightening around Sixth Tone.

“As Sixth Tone has grown, it has attracted a bigger audience making the government want to increase its control over the content this audience is getting,” she said.

“At the same time, there is a lot of pressure on Chinese media today to portray China in a solely positive manner.”

A controlled experiment

Under President Xi Jinping, the Chinese government has called for “ telling China’s story well ” and spreading “positive energy”.

Such mantras have not always been reflected in Sixth Tone’s many articles about the socioeconomic issues facing common people in China.

The irony is that while Sixth Tone’s reporting has drawn the attention of Chinese censors, the outlet is also considered state media because it is part of the state-controlled Shanghai United Media Group.

According to Shaoyu Yuan, a scholar of Chinese studies at Rutger’s University in the US, state media in China serve as a mouthpiece of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with less emphasis on editorial independence and more focus on aligning content with party ideology and government policies.

“This means that state media operate under the auspices of the CCP and contribute to the promotion of government objectives, enhancing national unity and supporting China’s image domestically and internationally,” he told Al Jazeera.

But although Sixth Tone had to balance credible reporting for an international audience with CCP ideology, Yuan is not convinced the magazine was doomed to lose its edge.

Instead, he argues that allowing Sixth Tone to pursue its own journalistic style was akin to a controlled experiment by the CCP.

“Chinese citizens interested in such reporting most likely already knew how to bypass censorship and access foreign news outlets that already cover some of the same issues,” he said.

“The Chinese government’s support for Sixth Tone allowed for a subtle control over the tone and framing of such issues.”

Additionally, when Sixth Tone was founded in 2016, China was still transitioning from the less assertive governing style of Hu Jintao, who was China’s president from 2003 until 2013.

“Compared to eight years ago, it would be more unusual to see a media like Sixth Tone be founded today,” Yuan said.

Shrinking space

Since Xi came to power in 2013, the media environment has tightened. Internet freedom has also declined.

In Freedom House’s 2023 report on internet freedom around the world, China was rated “not free: with a score of only nine points out of 100, one point less than the year before.

In RSF’s World Press Freedom Index , meanwhile, China fell four spots compared with 2022, ranking second to bottom and just above North Korea. More journalists are currently in jail in China than anywhere else in the world.

“There has been a very clear development towards greater state control over the media in China in recent years leaving very little space for media,” Alfred Wu, a scholar of public governance in China at the National University of Singapore, told Al Jazeera.

This development has also affected state media, according to Yuan at Rutger’s University.

“Under the rule of President Xi Jinping, state media in China have been consolidated and aligned closer with the ideology of the CCP,” he said.

“This involves regular ideological education and training, aiming to make sure that reporting reinforces Xi Jinping Thought [Xi’s ideology] and the objectives of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and this is why we are witnessing foreign staff members resigning from media outlets like Sixth Tone.”

One of those staff members is former editor Bibek Bhandari who allegedly landed himself and several other employees at Sixth Tone in “hot water” last year after publishing a media project that criticised Beijing’s zero-COVID policy .

On X, Bhandari wrote a long thread explaining how the list of prohibited topics was growing and had come to include migrant relocation, the Shanghai lockdown , LGBTQ-related stories , women’s issues and the zero-COVID protests.

Bhandari attended the biggest of the zero-COVID protests in November 2023 along with other members of the editorial team.

By May 2023, none of them were left at Sixth Tone, he wrote in a series of posts.

“I resigned. Demand for ‘positive stories’ was growing. Censorship getting worse. And the place has been utterly mismanaged. Space for stories that we previously published without any hiccups is shrinking. It’s not the same place I joined.”

Walking a tightrope

But it is not only journalists in more outspoken media such as Sixth Tone who have come under pressure.

When a reporting team from Chinese state television CCTV began a live interview close to the scene of a gas leak explosion that had claimed the lives of 27 people in a city outside Beijing in the middle of March, members of the local authorities reportedly blocked the camera while others engaged in pushing and shoving to physically remove the journalists.

Even this year’s annual news conference at the end of the annual political gathering of the Two Sessions was cancelled.

Yuan warns that the incident near the gas leak explosion, the cancelled press event and the tightening controls over media outlets like Sixth Tone suggest more difficulties ahead for journalists in China.

“These developments underscore the precarious nature of media freedoms and the tightrope that journalists must walk within the regulatory and political landscape of the country,” he said.

Despite recent crackdowns and restrictions, former staffer Ong believes that Sixth Tone still has a role to play in China’s media landscape.

“I don’t think they will be shut down completely because I think they are still useful as a tool to promote China to a Western audience,” she explained.

“And even if it is not the same as before, a lot of it is still real stories, real people and real issues.”

Yuan noted that the future of outlets like Sixth Tone is not set in stone.

“I consider Sixth Tone’s journey to be reflective of the evolving strategies within China’s media ecosystem,” he said.

“Should there be a shift towards a more open governance approach, there’s the possibility that Sixth Tone could once again rise to prominence.”

*The source’s name was altered to respect a wish for anonymity given the sensitivity of the topic.

Strong Taiwan Quake Kills 9, Injures Hundreds

The earthquake was the most powerful to hit the island in 25 years. Dozens of people remained trapped, and many buildings were damaged, with the worst centered in the city of Hualien.

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• Hualien, Taiwan A landslide after the quake. Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times
• New Taipei City, Taiwan Books flew off shelves as a home shook. @Abalamindo via Storyful
• Taipei, Taiwan Passengers waiting at a train station as some services were suspended. Chiang Ying-Ying/Associated Press
• Hualien, Taiwan People are rescued from a building that had partially collapsed. TVBS via Associated Press
• Hualien, Taiwan Firefighters rescuing trapped residents from a building. CTI News via Reuters
• Taipei, Taiwan Students evacuated to a school courtyard after the earthquake. Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times
• Guishan Island, Taiwan Rocks tumbling down one side of an island popular for hiking. Lavine Lin via Reuters
• Hualien, Taiwan A building leaned to one side after the quake. Randy Yang via Associated Press
• Ishigaki, Okinawa, Japan Watching news on a rooftop of a hotel after a tsunami warning. Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
• Hualien, Taiwan Motorbikes damaged in the quake. TVBS via Associated Press
• New Taipei City, Taiwan Damage in an apartment Fabian Hamacher/Reuters
• New Taipei City, Taiwan Water cascading down a building during the quake. Wang via Reuters

Meaghan Tobin and Victoria Kim

Here’s what you need to know about the earthquake.

Taiwan was rocked Wednesday morning by the island’s strongest earthquake in a quarter century, a magnitude 7.4 tremor that killed at least nine people, injured more than 800 others and trapped dozens of people.

The heaviest damage was in Hualien County on the island’s east coast, a sleepy, scenic area prone to earthquakes. Footage from the aftermath showed a 10-story building there partially collapsed and leaning heavily to one side, from which residents emerged through windows and climbed down ladders, assisted by rescuers. Three hikers were killed after being hit by falling rocks on a hiking trail in Taroko National Park, according to the county government.

By late afternoon, officials said rescue efforts were underway to try to rescue 127 people who were trapped, many of them on hiking trails in Hualien.

One building in Changhua County, on the island’s west coast, collapsed entirely. The quake was felt throughout Taiwan and set off at least nine landslides, sending rocks tumbling onto Suhua Highway in Hualien, according to local media reports. Rail services were halted at one point across the island.

The earthquake, with an epicenter off Taiwan’s east coast, struck during the morning commute, shortly before 8 a.m. Taiwanese authorities said by 3 p.m., more than 100 aftershocks, many of them stronger than magnitude 5, had rumbled through the area.

In the capital, Taipei, buildings shook for over a minute from the initial quake. Taiwan is at the intersection of the Philippine Sea tectonic plate and the Eurasian plate, making it vulnerable to seismic activity. Hualien sits on multiple active faults, and 17 people died in a quake there in 2018.

Here is the latest:

The earthquake hit Taiwan as many people there were preparing to travel for Tomb Sweeping Day, a holiday across the Chinese-speaking world when people mourn the dead and make offerings at their graves. Officials warned the public to stay away from visiting tombs in mountain areas as a precaution, especially because rain was forecast in the coming days.

TSMC, the world’s biggest maker of advanced semiconductors, briefly evacuated workers from its factories but said a few hours later that they were returning to work. Chip production is highly precise, and even short shutdowns can cost millions of dollars.

Christopher Buckley

Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s vice president, who is also its president-elect, visited the city of Hualien this afternoon to assess the destruction and the rescue efforts, a government announcement said. Mr. Lai, who will become president in May, said the most urgent tasks were rescuing trapped residents and providing medical care. Next, Mr. Lai said, public services must be restored, including transportation, water and power. He said Taiwan Railway’s eastern line could be reopened by Thursday night.

Meaghan Tobin

Taiwan’s fire department has updated its figures, reporting that nine people have died and 934 others have been injured in the quake. Fifty-six people in Hualien County remain trapped.

Shake intensity

Taiwan’s fire department reports that nine people have died and 882 others have been injured in Taiwan. In Hualien County, 131 people remain trapped.

Agnes Chang

Footage shows rocks tumbling down one side of Guishan Island, a popular spot for hiking known as Turtle Island, off the northeast coast of Taiwan. Officials said no fishermen or tourists were injured after the landslide.

The death toll has risen to nine, according to Taiwan government statistics.

Meaghan Tobin, Siyi Zhao

Officials in Taiwan warned residents to not visit their relatives' tombs, especially in the mountains, this weekend during the holiday, known as Ching Ming, meant to honor them. There had already been 100 aftershocks and the forecast called for rain, which could make travel conditions on damaged roads more treacherous.

Crews are working to reach people trapped on blocked roads. As of 1 p.m. local time, roads were impassable due to damage and fallen rock in 19 places, according to the Ministry of Transportation. At least 77 people remain trapped. A bridge before Daqingshui Tunnel appeared to have completely collapsed.

Taiwan’s worst rail disaster in decades — a train derailment in 2021 that killed 49 people — took place on the first day of the Tomb Sweeping holiday period that year, in the same region as the earthquake.

The earthquake hit Taiwan as many people here were preparing to travel for Tomb Sweeping Day, or Ching Ming, a day across the Chinese-speaking world when people mourn their dead, especially by making offerings at their graves. Now those plans will be disrupted for many Taiwanese.

The holiday weekend would typically see a spike in travel as people visit family across Taiwan. Currently, both rail transport and highways are blocked in parts of Hualien, said Transport Minister Wang Guo-cai. Work is underway to restore rail transportation in Hualien, and two-way traffic is expected to be restored at noon on Thursday, he said.

Taiwan’s preparedness has evolved in response to past quakes.

Taiwan’s earthquake preparedness has evolved over the past few decades in response to some of the island’s largest and most destructive quakes .

In the years after a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in central Taiwan killed nearly 2,500 people in 1999, the authorities established an urban search-and-rescue team and opened several emergency medical operation centers, among other measures .

And in 2018, after a quake in the eastern coastal city of Hualien killed 17 people and caused several buildings to partially collapse, the government ordered a wave of building inspections .

Taiwan has also been improving its early warning system for earthquakes since the 1980s. And two years ago, it rolled out new building codes that, among other things, require owners of vulnerable buildings to install ad-hoc structural reinforcements.

So how well prepared was Taiwan when a 7.4 magnitude quake struck near Hualien on Wednesday morning, killing at least seven people and injuring hundreds more?

Across the island, one building collapsed entirely, 15 others were in a state of partial collapse and another 67 were damaged, the island’s fire department said on Wednesday afternoon . Structural engineers could not immediately be reached for comment to assess that damage, or the extent to which building codes and other regulations might have either contributed to it or prevented worse destruction.

As for search-and-rescue preparedness, Taiwan is generally in very good shape, said Steve Glassey, an expert in disaster response who lives in New Zealand.

“ The skill sets, the capabilities, the equipment, the training is second to none,” said Dr. Glassey, who worked with Taipei’s urban search-and-rescue team during the response to a devastating 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. “They’re a very sharp operation.”

But even the best urban search-and-rescue team will be stretched thin if an earthquake causes multiple buildings to collapse, Dr. Glassey said.

Taiwan has options for requesting international help with search-and-rescue efforts. It could directly ask another country, or countries, to send personnel. And if multiple teams were to get involved, it could ask the United Nations to help coordinate them, as it did after the 1999 earthquake.

Pierre Peron, a spokesman for the United Nations, said on Wednesday afternoon that no such request had yet been made as a result of the latest earthquake.

Meaghan Tobin contributed reporting.

At least seven people have died and 736 have been injured as a result of the earthquake, according to Taiwan’s fire department. Another 77 people remained trapped in Hualien County, many of them on hiking trails. Search and rescue operations are underway, said the fire department.

Aftershocks of magnitudes between 6.5 and 7 were likely to occur over the next three or four days, said Wu Chien-fu, director of the Taiwanese Central Weather Administration’s Seismology Center, at a news conference.

As of 2 p.m., 711 people had been injured across Taiwan, the fire department said, and 77 people in Hualien County remained trapped. The four who were known to have died were in Hualien.

Victoria Kim

Hualien County is a quiet and scenic tourist destination.

Hualien County on Taiwan’s east coast is a scenic, sleepy tourist area tucked away from the island’s urban centers, with a famous gorge and aquamarine waters. It also happens to sit on several active faults , making it prone to earthquakes.

The county has a population of about 300,000, according to the 2020 census, about a third of whom live in the coastal city of Hualien, the county seat. It is one of the most sparsely populated parts of Taiwan. About three hours by train from the capital, Taipei, the city describes itself as the first place on the island that’s touched by the sun.

Hualien County is home to Taroko National Park, one of Taiwan’s most popular scenic areas. Visitors come to explore the Taroko Gorge, a striated marble canyon carved by the Liwu River, which cuts through mountains that rise steeply from the coast. The city of Hualien is a popular destination as a gateway to the national park.

According to the state-owned Central News Agency, three hikers were trapped on a trail near the entrance to the gorge on Wednesday, after the quake sent rocks falling. Two of them were found dead, the news agency said. Administrators said many roads within the park had been cut off by the earthquake, potentially trapping hikers, according to the report.

Earthquakes have rattled Hualien with some regularity. In 2018, 17 people were killed and hundreds of others injured when a magnitude 6.5 quake struck just before midnight, its epicenter a short distance northeast of the city of Hualien.

Many of the victims in that quake were in a 12-story building that was severely tilted, the first four floors of which were largely crushed, according to news reports from the time. The next year, the area was shaken by a 6.1-magnitude earthquake that injured 17 people.

The area has some of the highest concentrations of Taiwan’s aboriginal population, with several of the island’s Indigenous tribes calling the county home .

The county government in Hualien released a list of people that had been hospitalized with injuries, which stood at 118 people as of midday Wednesday.

Across Taiwan, one building fell down entirely, in Changhua County on the west coast, and 15 buildings partially collapsed, Taiwan’s fire department said. Another 67 buildings were damaged. One of the partially collapsed structures was a warehouse in New Taipei City where four people were rescued, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency. Another 12 were rescued at a separate New Taipei City building where the foundation sank into the ground.

Peggy Jiang, who manages The Good Kid, a children’s bookstore down the street from the partially collapsed Uranus Building in Hualien, said it was a good thing they had yet to open when the quake struck. The area is now blocked off by police and rescue vehicles. “Most people in Hualien are used to earthquakes,” she said. “But this one was particularly scary, many people ran in the street immediately afterward.”

Lin Jung, 36, who manages a shop selling sneakers in Hualien, said he had been at home getting ready to take his 16-month-old baby to a medical appointment when the earthquake struck. He said it felt at first like a series of small shocks, then “suddenly it turned to an intense earthquake shaking up and down.” The glass cover of a ceiling lamp fell and shattered. “All I could do was protect my baby.”

Chris Buckley ,  Paul Mozur ,  Meaghan Tobin and John Yoon

The earthquake damaged buildings and a highway in Hualien.

The magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck Taiwan on Wednesday damaged many buildings and a major highway in Hualien, a city on the eastern coast, and it knocked out power as it rocked the island.

Across Taiwan, the quake and its aftershocks caused one building to completely collapse and 15 others to partially collapse, according to Taiwan’s fire department. Sixty-seven other buildings sustained damage.

Two tall buildings in Hualien that sustained particularly extensive damage were at the center of the rescue efforts there. Most damage across the city was not life-threatening, said Huang Hsuan-wan, a reporter for a local news site.

Where buildings were reported damaged in Hualien City

“A lot of roads were blocked off. There are a lot of walls toppled over onto cars,” Derik du Plessis, 44, a South African resident of Hualien, said shortly after the earthquake. He described people rushing around the city to check on their houses and pick up their children. One of his friends lost her house, he said.

One of the damaged buildings in Hualien, a 10-story structure called the Uranus Building that housed a mix of homes and shops, was tilted over and appeared to be on the verge of collapse. Many of its residents managed to flee, but some were missing, said Sunny Wang, a journalist based in the city. Rescuers were trying to reach the basement, concerned that people might be trapped there.

Photographs of the initial damage in Hualien showed another building, a five-story structure, leaning to one side, with crushed motorcycles visible at the ground-floor level. Bricks had fallen off another high-rise, leaving cracks and holes in the walls.

The quake also set off at least nine landslides on Suhua Highway in Hualien, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency, which said part of the road had collapsed.

Taiwan’s fire department said four people had been killed in the earthquake.

Across Taiwan, 40 flights have been canceled or delayed because of the earthquake, according to Taiwan’s Central Emergency Operation Center.

President Tsai Ing-wen visited Taiwan’s national emergency response center this morning, where she was briefed about the response efforts underway by members of the ministries of defense, transportation, economic affairs and agriculture, as well as the fire department.

A look at Taiwan’s strongest earthquakes.

The magnitude 7.4 earthquake that hit Taiwan on Wednesday morning was the strongest in 25 years, the island’s Central Weather Administration said.

At least four people died after the quake struck off Taiwan’s east coast, officials said.

Here’s a look back at some of the major earthquakes in modern Taiwanese history:

Taichung, 1935

Taiwan’s deadliest quake registered a magnitude of 7.1 and struck near the island’s west coast in April 1935, killing more than 3,200 people, according to the Central Weather Administration. More than 12,000 others were injured and more than 50,000 homes were destroyed or damaged.

Tainan, 1941

A magnitude 7.3 earthquake in December 1941, which struck southwestern Taiwan, caused several hundred deaths, the United States Geological Survey said.

Chi-Chi, 1999

A 7.6 magnitude earthquake in central Taiwan killed nearly 2,500 people in September 1999. The quake, which struck about 90 miles south-southwest of Taipei, was the second-deadliest in the island’s history, according to the U.S.G.S. and the Central Weather Administration. More than 10,000 people were injured and more than 100,000 homes were destroyed or damaged.

Yujing, 2016

A 6.4 magnitude earthquake in February 2016 caused a 17-story apartment complex in southwestern Taiwan to collapse, killing at least 114 people . The U.S.G.S. later said that 90 earthquakes of that scale or greater had occurred within 250 kilometers, or 155 miles, of that quake’s location over the previous 100 years.

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