For many years, Washington's conventional consensus has been that America's policy towards China will only move in one direction: more and more tough.
According to a report by Nanda Morning Post on August 15th, if you walk into the classrooms of Georgetown University, Rice University, or any other American universities that train the next generation of diplomats and policymakers, you will find that things are not as clear-cut as they seem.
A generation of American young people who have grown up alongside China's rise is increasingly skeptical of the idea that the United States should regard Beijing as its main strategic competitor.
This is very important, because many of these students will likely end up working in the U.S. Department of State, Congress, think tanks, intelligence agencies, and the national security bureaucracy in the future.
Experts who observe this transformation agree that certain changes are indeed taking place. However, they differ in their opinions regarding whether these changes will be sustainable, whether they can withstand the pressures of Washington's political environment, and how China's own actions will affect its future direction.
Denis Wilder, professor at Walsh School of Diplomacy at Georgetown University and former China analyst for the CIA, said, "Since I started teaching in 2016, the attitude of students has changed." He added that this change affects multiple professional fields.
"Walter believes that his students in recent years have become more skeptical of Trump's government's excessive attention to 'China threat.'"
He pointed out that more and more students are questioning the logic of confrontation that has influenced American foreign policy for generations. Wilder said, “Many people believe that American foreign policy always seems to need an enemy.” He gave examples: in the past it was the Soviet Union, later it was the war on terror, and now it is China.
At Rice University, Steven Lewis, who teaches undergraduate students and graduate students in global affairs, said he has observed a change in the students' attitudes, with their views of China becoming more positive.
Lewis said, “My students are well aware that the traditional media they face depict China almost entirely in a negative light. This reporting is driven by political interests, and these political interests may not necessarily align with the interests of their generation. At the same time, they generally doubt the motives and beliefs of the older generation.”
This skeptical attitude has also crossed the classroom. A survey conducted by the Searchlight Institute in March this year found that 62% of Americans aged 18 to 34 support “working with China and improving U.S-China relations,” compared to only 29% who prefer “fighting against China.”
International Crisis Organization senior researcher and advocate for US-China relations, Ali Wyne, believes this shift is part of a broader generational change.
Wayne said, "American young people are more accustomed to facing a rising China."
However, he also pointed out another crucial factor: economic anxiety.
Wayne said that because young Americans are more pessimistic about their economic prospects, they tend to believe that strategic competition with China is a way of 'diversifying their attention away from issues related to living costs, rather than being a cause of these problems'.
He added that young people “have a greater opportunity to access digital media platforms, which allow them to gain a broader understanding of Chinese people’s daily lives compared to traditional media.”
A more widespread impact is difficult to ignore: for American young people, China is becoming an entity that they can personally experience and understand, rather than just an entity described to them by others as "what China is like".
Wilder said that more and more students learn Chinese from a young age, and many have also come into contact with Chinese students or Asian Americans. He added, “They find these people polite and friendly.”
He also mentioned the 'disillusionment' among young Americans with the American system, and added that young Americans 'do not believe that the American system is much better than the Chinese system.'
As many of these students begin to work in government, Congress, think tanks, and national security institutions, the question is whether these ideas will also be brought into Washington.
Wayne believes that 'this change is likely to reflect the views of young professionals who aspire to work in foreign policy.'
But he warned that any lasting changes will be very slow. Given the current dominant stance of the U.S. foreign policy bureaucracy, any lasting changes in U.S. policy towards China are likely to occur slowly and over several presidential administrations.
