Want to improve US-China relations? Bring back Fulbright programme, advocates say
- Uphill battle looms to restore educational exchange scheme cancelled in 2020 under Donald Trump and kept shut by Joe Biden
- Supporters praise cross-cultural programme for giving ‘fingertip feel for China’ vital to building bilateral understanding
As tensions between Washington and Beijing keep rising, a loose alliance of former officials, politicians and ordinary US citizens are pushing to restore one of America’s oldest and most prestigious connections to China that observers hail as unmatched in its potential to put the relationship back on track.
Opposition came thick and fast from within and outside the Fulbright community. Seton Hall University professor Margaret Lewis, for example, likened the decision to “shooting ourselves in the foot”, and an alumni-led petition to restore the programme garnered more than 700 signatures in two days.
“Appalled” by the cancellation, Colleen O’Connor and fellow alumni formed a group of 100 volunteers called the Protect Fulbright China Coalition to push for its restoration.
Though that proposal was included in a competition bill that passed the House in February last year, it also failed to become law.