US: Patrick Beyrer, 22, an Ivy League graduate in China studies, has all the prerequisites for starting a career in the nation: fluency in Chinese, experience working on the mainland, and most importantly, zeal. It's difficult to find someone with Beyrer's qualities.
Nowadays, fewer foreigners want to study China, even though the need for such knowledge may be greater than ever. Beyrer, however, has a more common problem: he is prohibited from entering China.
"It has become difficult to understand China without the prism of face-to-face interactions," said American Beyrer, who twice travelled there for weeks-long programmes sponsored by the US State Department in 2016 and 2019.
Beyrer, who has been studying Mandarin in the US since middle school, enrolled in a master's programme at a prestigious Beijing university last year in an effort to expand his knowledge of China studies.
Beyrer has low hopes that he will be admitted, though the start of a new academic year is still a few months away. China has not yet stated whether it will resume standard processing for international student visa approvals after three years of suspension due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Beyrer stated, "I believe there is a huge risk that in five or maybe even ten years, young Americans will just develop a really negative opinion of China if China doesn't open soon. "This is bad," I said.
In the 2019–2020 academic year, only 2,481 Americans travelled to China for academic purposes, according to information made public in October by the US–based Institute for International Education.
This marked a 10-year low and a decrease of 78.7% from the prior year. A South China Morning Post inquiry regarding the quantity of student visas granted to US citizens ever since the coronavirus pandemic started received no response from the Chinese embassy in Washington.
Although nearly all foreigners trying to enter China have been impacted by China's strict border policies during the pandemic, Americans have been particularly hard hit as relations between Washington and Beijing continue to be tense.
According to the IIE, over the previous 10 academic years, there were between 11,613 and 14,887 US students who went to China to study.
The possibility for Americans to gain broad, in-depth experience by going to China to study, work, or reside there has contributed to the emergence of "China hands" in the US government, business world, and academic institutions. Particularly after the administration of Donald Trump, when many experts were viewed as being too accommodative of Beijing, some have questioned whether such a cadre is or should be as influential as in years past.
However, Beijing's academics continue to believe that US President Joe Biden's team of China experts has a solid understanding of the nation.
No matter their political inclinations, US policymakers from a variety of fields see China as the United States' "most serious competitor" in the twenty-first century. As a result, the Biden administration has made it clear that it trusts the ranks of specialists in diplomatic, military, and intelligence issues who have a focus on China.
Although Beijing currently only accepts a small number of international students, Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund, warned that this may have an impact on how China analysts in the US are formed.
The inability to understand and interpret China and its policies could be a result of the lack of first-hand experience, according to Glaser. Other long-time observers of China have noted that the political crackdown in Beijing, the decline in job opportunities on the mainland, and the tighter restrictions on entry and movement within the country as a result of Covid-19 have all put a strain on emerging specialists. However, young Americans are particularly impacted by the situation as they have not yet developed the same networks and experiences in China as their elders.
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