This year marks the 25th anniversary of Sino-U.S. educational exchange programs. Cheng Li, William R. Kenan Professor of Government, coordinated a conference, with Fudan University, that took place in Shanghai. Topics included the history and current status of U.S.-China educational exchange programs from both the U.S. and Chinese views, as well as a session devoted to mapping the future of Sino-U.S. exchange programs. In addition to scholarly presentations, Richard Levin, president of Yale University, gave the keynote address and senior officials of China's Ministry of Education offered remarks.
Li presented results of a study on western educated Chinese leaders. During the past 25 years, China has sent a total of 450,000 people to study abroad as degree candidates or visiting scholars. One-third of them, approximately 150,000, returned to China. Li explained that in the last few years, China has experienced the highest return rate in its history of students and visiting scholars who have completed their study abroad. He addressed the impact of, since 1978, "training some of China's best minds in America."
In inviting speakers to the conference, "Bridging Minds across the Pacific: The 25-Year Sino-U.S. Educational Exchange," Li wrote "[this] is motivated by the crucial need to examine the multi-dimensional impact of educational exchange between China and the United States, especially in light of the 25th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping's Open Door Policy."
The two-day conference brought together more than two dozen distinguished scholars from both China and North America with extensive expertise in the areas of educational exchange, human resources, educational institution building, and curricular development to take part in the conference. The conference examined the role of "returnees" in education, business, finance, law, media, NGOs and government, as well as the role of scholars in the U.S. who teach courses about China and scholars in China who study about the U.S.
The conference was sponsored by Fudan University with generous support from the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong.
