Fewer Westerners in China is bad for China — but worse for the West
- In a soft power shift, the West is losing its goodwill grass-roots influence in China while China’s influence grows
- More Chinese are going to the West to study and understand it – and returning
I’ve heard similar stories. One is from a former student. Decades ago, he briefly taught English in a remote area in Nepal and that also had a profound impact on his life. He admitted he was not qualified to teach, and thought at the time the area was so poor in so many ways that English seemed the last thing those students needed.
I also met English teachers in China many years ago, employed solely because they were from the West. They acknowledged they weren’t good at teaching but all loved the experience. Most did not plan to teach for long. After one or two years, they moved on to other places and careers.
For a long time, the West represented a superior culture in its scientific advancement, economic strength and enlightenment ideals. The English language has an undisputed dominance worldwide. All these factors enabled people like Dodwell to go to less developed places as volunteers or backpackers, take a temporary teaching job, and then move on, whereas the reverse is unimaginable.
Although only briefly, they embraced a tougher living environment, interacted with local people and made new friends. Whether they realised it or not, this sojourn made them goodwill grass-roots ambassadors of the West, bringing different concepts and cultural practices to people much less privileged.
China was once such a backward place, and it has received its share of grass-roots ambassadors since it opened up to the West in 1979. Gradually, the number of qualified teachers increased, as well as professionals and college students. Some brought their families. Consciously or not, they all exerted a constant and cumulative soft influence.
Unfortunately, the number of these grass-roots ambassadors has declined. There was an exodus during the coronavirus pandemic due to a combination of factors, such as travel restrictions, geopolitical tensions and a weak economy. Although people are coming back, the number is low compared to the pre-pandemic level.
The most dramatic drop is in the number of American students in Chinese universities – a 98 per cent fall from 11,639 in the 2018-19 academic year to 211 in 2021-22.
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In contrast, China’s influence in the West is growing in terms of its grass-roots ambassadors and their understanding of the West. It is most evident in Chinese students abroad.
The number of students going to Western universities kept increasing until it was disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. Compared to the fall of American students in China, the fall of Chinese students in the US was much smaller. And after travel restrictions lifted, the number of Chinese students going to European universities picked up.
Relationship between China and US rests on people exchanges
Judging from these trends, it seems to me that China is doing much better than the West in nurturing its soft power. If the West wants to catch up, it needs to put more people back on the ground.
The US can take advantage of this initiative, use it to increase its own grass-roots influence, and leave the rest to serendipity.
April Zhang is the founder of MSL Master and the author of the Mandarin Express textbook series and the Chinese Reading and Writing textbook series
