A recent survey suggests there has been a generational shift in American attitudes toward China, with younger Americans more supportive of engagement and cooperation between the two countries.
Nearly 100 young students from 10 U.S. universities, including Harvard University, recently participated in the "Future Makers 2026: China-U.S. Youth Tour for a Shared Asia-Pacific Future," during which they met Chinese peers and visited some of China's most renowned heritage sites and advanced tech facilities.
After the trip, they wrote to Chinese President Xi Jinping, sharing their reflections on the trip and expressing their willingness to contribute to U.S.-China friendship.
In his reply on Tuesday, Xi encouraged young people from both countries to promote friendship.
Christina Cogdell, a professor at the University of California, Davis who accompanied the students on the trip, said it had changed the way the students understood China.
"It was a very stark contrast to how our media has talked about China and life in China. It changed how my students perceive China. One of them is thinking about graduate school at Tsinghua if he were able to be admitted. Another one is realizing that she could live in China. She didn't know that she had a bigger world and that she would be happy living somewhere else," she said.
Students from the two countries also found common ground through their shared academic and research interests.
"I talked pretty extensively with one of the students about my research. I have research in material chemistry and on that side of things. And the student I was talking with was a PhD student in biomedical engineering, so he had kind of similar experiences. So even though we are quite far apart, we were able to connect over those academic and research-based type of connections," said Madilynn, Borger, a student at Central Michigan University.
For many of the American students, the tour also reshaped how they view the relationship between the two countries.
"We saw on this trip, when I was talking to the students at the university in China, all of us, as individuals, are more alike than we are different. I think fostering better connection between our two countries and having a better relationship I think would be pretty good for everyone worldwide. I mean, we're two great countries. I love America, and I loved my visit to China. I'm hoping that we can work together in the future,” said Delaney Murphy, another student at Central Michigan University.
Chinese electric vehicles, humanoid robots and other smart products also made an impression on the U.S. students.
"Seeing the advanced technology, seeing the robotics and artificial intelligence at the scale that it was happening to produce the electric vehicles. It was incredibly impressive," said Michael Mitchell, a student at the University of Chicago.
Looking ahead, Professor Cogdell said she hopes both sides can find common ground and move cooperation forward.
"What I hope is that there's a capacity to listen on both sides, and to try to imagine both sides, to take a moderate path to find an appropriate solution that moderates a point in the middle that allows both sides to exist, but also to find a common ground to move something forward. I hope it's a common ground that is progressive, that actually steps forward our collaboration," she said.
Youth exchanges between China, US bridge gaps, fuel future cooperation
