「中英」美国应该对中国学生敞开大门

After more than four decades of cautious but steady engagement with the West, China is shutting the door.

在与西方40多年谨慎但稳定的接触后，中国正在关上大门。

Connections with the United States in particular — in academia, trade, science, defense and security — that were crucial to China’s re-emergence on the world stage are withering as relations worsen, decoupling accelerates and President Xi Jinping of China turns his nation inward.

特别是在学术、贸易、科学、国防和安全方面，与美国的联系曾对中国在世界舞台上的重新崛起到至关重要，随着双边关系的恶化、脱钩加速，以及中国国家主席习近平将国家转向封闭，这些联系正在枯萎。

This is worrying. A healthy level of exchange is critical to prevent mistrust between two rivals from metastasizing into confrontation and conflict. The problem is: Who within and outside China is there to engage with? Mr. Xi has overcome political rivals, jailed dissidents and strangled civil society organizations, making it politically risky for anyone to interact with counterparts in the United States.

这令人担忧。健康的交流水平对于防止两个对手之间的不信任演变成对抗和冲突至关重要。问题是：中国内外，还有谁可以打交道？习近平战胜了政治对手，监禁异见者，扼杀公民社会组织，这使得任何与美国同行互动的人都有政治风险。

People-to-people exchange may seem banal, but it has already proved vitally important to China-U.S. relations. In 1971, with the United States and China deeply estranged, the thaw began with “Ping-Pong diplomacy,” which paved the way for diplomatic normalization and eventually the return of an isolated China to the community of nations.

人与人之间的交流看似平淡无奇，但事实证明，这对中美关系来说至关重要。1971年，美中关系严重疏远，解冻始于“乒乓外交”，它为外交正常化铺平了道路，并最终使孤立的中国重返国际社会。

The United States must view engaging with young Chinese as an integral part of its diplomatic strategy. It should ease visa restrictions for Chinese students, reinstate exchange scholarship programs and actively court Chinese students to study in the United States.

美国必须将与中国年轻人接触视为其外交战略的一个组成部分。它应该放宽对中国学生的签证限制，恢复交换奖学金项目，并积极吸引中国学生到美国学习。

The Chinese remain the largest group of international students in the United States, at more than 300,000. As a faculty member at a Canadian university, I teach many young Chinese who harbor reservations about their country’s direction and who will help shape future attitudes toward the United States.

中国留学生仍是美国最大的留学生群体，人数超过30万。作为一所加拿大大学的教员，我教过许多中国年轻人，他们对自己国家的方向持保留态度，他们将帮助塑造中国未来对美国的态度。

But their numbers are declining. U.S. visas issued to Chinese students have plummeted since the Covid pandemic. As U.S. public opinion toward China sours, a survey last year showed that most Americans support restrictions on Chinese students. Some American politicians and media reports have painted Chinese students and researchers as potential spies, which helped spawn the China Initiative, a Trump administration effort to investigate possible espionage by Chinese academics. But it was dropped after accusations from civil rights advocates and universities that it unfairly targeted people of Asian descent.

但他们的数量正在下降。自新冠疫情以来，美国发放给中国学生的签证大幅减少。随着美国公众舆论对中国的看法变坏，去年的一项调查显示，大多数美国人支持限制中国学生。一些美国政治人士和媒体报道将中国学生和研究人员描绘为潜在的间谍，这催生了特朗普政府的“中国倡议”，以调查中国学者可能从事的间谍活动。但在民权倡导者和大学指控其不公平地针对亚裔之后，它被撤销了。

Concern about Chinese espionage and the country’s influence in overseas operations remains, but Generation Z Chinese should be seen not as a threat but as an opportunity.

对中国间谍活动和中国在海外行动影响力的顾虑依然存在，但Z世代的中国人不应被视为威胁，而应被视为机遇。

Ever since the Chinese Army crushed student-led democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989, the Chinese Communist Party has kept a wary eye on the young. They grow up in a tightly controlled system of “patriotic education” designed to instill loyalty to the party, which has gained momentum since Mr. Xi took power a decade ago.

自1989年中国军队镇压学生领导的天安门广场民主示威以来，中国共产党一直对年轻人保持警惕。他们在严格控制、 旨在灌输对党忠诚的“爱国主义教育”体系中成长，自习近平十年前掌权以来，这种教育势头越来越猛。

Yet an independent streak still runs through Chinese youth. Just before last month’s Communist Party Congress in Beijing, at which Mr. Xi cemented his control, an apparently lone demonstrator staged a protest to repudiate Mr. Xi’s increasing authoritarianism. The rare public show of dissent was quickly suppressed. But anonymous Chinese students across more than 350 universities in the United States and around the world amplified the protester’s message online.

然而，中国的年轻人仍然具有独立的特质。就在上个月习近平巩固其控制权的共产党代表大会于北京召开之前，一名显然孤身一人的示威者进行了抗议，反对习近平日益加强的专制主义。这一罕见的公开抗议很快遭到镇压。但美国和世界各地350多所大学的匿名中国学生在网上传播了抗议者的信息。

Even before that, many of my Chinese students had expressed to me, in confidence, complicated sentiments about their country. There is frustration with Mr. Xi’s zero-Covid policy, which has cost friends and family their livelihoods, and concern over their career prospects after they graduate and return to China, where the zero-Covid policy and Mr. Xi’s moves to rein in the private sector have chilled the economy and fueled youth unemployment. Others, having witnessed or taken part in protest movements while studying abroad, want to see protection for L.G.B.T.Q. rights, which have been suppressed under Mr. Xi, as have other civil rights out of concern that advocacy groups could be co-opted by foreign forces. Some of the students I’ve spoken to say they want to stay abroad, seeing Mr. Xi’s tenure — he secured a third five-year term at last month’s Congress — as a prolonged winter for social change in China.

甚至在那之前，我的许多中国学生就曾私下向我表达过对国家的复杂感情。他们对习近平的“清零”政策感到沮丧，该政策使他们的朋友和家人失去了生计，他们对自己毕业回国后的职业前景感到担忧，因为中国的“清零”政策和习近平控制民营企业的举措使经济受到影响，加剧了青年人的失业。还有的学生在国外学习期间目睹或参与了抗议运动，他们希望看到对LGBTQ权利的保护。在习近平的统治下，因为担心倡导团体可能被外国势力利用，这些权利以及其他的公民权利受到了压制。与我交谈过的一些学生说，他们想留在国外，认为习近平的任期——他在上个月的大会上获得了第三个五年任期——会是中国社会变革的漫长冬天。

These frustrations are typically suppressed through self-censorship, even while abroad, because of fear of reprisals from classmates or ultranationalist Chinese online trolls. Many students lower their voices when discussing Chinese politics, whether in the classroom or public spaces.

这些挫败感往往遭到自我审查的压制，即使在国外也是如此，因为他们担心来自同学或中国极端民族主义网络喷子的报复。无论是在教室里还是在公共场所，许多学生在讨论中国政治时都会压低声音。

Yet thousands of China’s best and brightest remain critical thinkers. Some who have served as teaching assistants in courses on democracy are acutely aware of the irony of not being able to vote in their home country. Chinese students arrive at my university with no experience in taking part in social movements, but protests on or around campus inspire interest in social justice within China, such as the hardships of hundreds of millions of migrant workers who toil for low wages in jobs far from home.

然而，中国成千上万最优秀、最聪明的人仍然是批判性的思考者。一些曾在民主课程中担任助教的人敏锐地意识到，在自己的祖国不能投票是一种讽刺。我所在大学的那些中国学生没有参加社会运动的经验，但校园内外的抗议活动激发了人们对中国社会正义的兴趣，比如数亿农民工在远离家乡的地方为低工资辛勤工作的艰辛。

This works both ways, however. Chinese students are often taken aback by the unequal treatment of African Americans or have experienced anxiety over anti-Asian violence that has coincided with the Covid pandemic. But through my years of teaching, I have watched these experiences create a cohort of young Chinese cognizant of the flaws in both the Chinese and the Western political systems. This doesn’t mean they will return home and advocate U.S.-aligned interests, even if they could. But they could be the future when it comes to brokering U.S.-China understanding, something in short supply now.

然而，这是双向的。中国学生经常对非裔美国人受到的不平等待遇感到震惊，或者对新冠疫情期间的反亚裔暴力感到焦虑。但在我多年的教学生涯中，我看到这些经历造就了一批认识到中国和西方政治制度缺陷的中国年轻人。这并不意味着他们会回国倡导与美国结盟的好处，即使他们可以这样做。但在促成美中之间的谅解方面，他们可能是未来的出路，而这正是目前所缺乏的。

The Chinese Communist Party’s “patriotic education” is designed to indoctrinate the country’s younger generation. The strategic American response is to ensure that Chinese students maintain access to Western free thought and the institutions that safeguard it, rather than block those students at the gates.

中国共产党的“爱国主义教育”旨在向该国的年轻一代灌输思想。美国的战略回应应该是确保中国学生能够接触到西方的自由思想和维护自由思想的机构，而不是把他们挡在门外。