For America’s next generation of China experts, the challenges go beyond language and country access
- Sagging interest in studying ‘most serious competitor’ impedes Biden administration’s goals amid tense bilateral relations
- Political sensitivity also puts young people off China research, boding ill for gaining vital insight, says current cadre
As an Ivy-league graduate in China studies, 22-year-old Patrick Beyrer ticks all the right boxes to launch a career focused on the country – language skills, prior experience on the mainland, and above all, zeal.
Finding someone like Beyrer is no small feat. Fewer foreigners these days want to pursue China studies, despite expertise in the country arguably more needed than ever. But Beyrer faces a more prosaic challenge: he cannot enter China.
“It has become a challenge to understand China without the prism of face-to-face interactions,” said Beyrer, an American who visited the country in 2016 and 2019, each time for weeks-long programmes through the US State Department.
Having studied Mandarin in the US since middle school, Beyrer was looking to deepen his expertise in China studies through a master’s programme he enrolled in last year at a top university in Beijing.
“I think if China doesn’t open soon, there is a huge risk that there’s going to be … five or maybe even 10 years of young Americans who’d just develop a really negative opinion of China,” Beyrer said. “This is not good.”