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Shrinking academic exchange strains US China expertise
The United States, as it marks its 250th anniversary, is facing a weakening of its long-running base of expertise on China, with tensions and reduced academic exchange cited as key pressures, according to SCMP Economy.
The outlet describes how earlier generations of US researchers built deep knowledge through extended time in China, including fieldwork that reached beyond major cities to remote county towns and villages.
SCMP Economy says those researchers spent months or even years traveling by train, bus, and boat, conducting interviews, reviewing archives, and engaging with residents to document a China undergoing major transformation.
It adds that many of these scholars later helped shape US understanding of China through academic training and scholarship, and that this tradition is now under strain as the relationship between Washington and Beijing changes.