Stabilizing U.S.-China relations remains one of the top items on President-elect Biden’s agenda for 2021, but in order to do so mutual trust and cooperation must be restored. The incoming administration should seek to revive cultural, educational, and people-to-people exchange in order to repair the years’ worth of structural damage.

Throughout the Trump administration, policies on U.S.-China educational exchange became increasingly narrow and increasingly hostile. While a degree of suspicion is warranted, open exchange remains necessary to secure a competitive edge in the global economic and political arena.

China’s economy has outpaced all other nations in growth for decades, following a growth model that led to 800 million people being lifted out of poverty. As growth begins to taper off, they’re now faced with the challenge of replacing dated practices with new models of development to make it past what economists call “the middle-income trap.”

The carefully woven fabric of educational and cultural exchanges is in imminent danger of unraveling, as Chinese actions worry Washington and push it to adjust its policies. But the cost far outweighs the benefits.

The Trump administration’s decision to cancel the China and Hong Kong Fulbright scholarship programs is yet another move that severs people-to-people exchange between China and the US. But Fulbright is an effective soft-power tool for the US and should be utilized now more than ever.

The U.S. government’s protectionist measures buck the trend of history and provide opportunities for other countries to compete for international talent. When the U.S. ceases to welcome global talent, its technological hegemony will crumble.

The third episode of The Pacific Dialogue, is between two prominent scholars – Prof. Ezra Vogel of the Harvard University and Prof. Jia Qingguo of Peking University. They spoke from their homes in Boston and Beijing respectively. The conversation took place on July 28, 2020, and was moderated by China-US Focus Editor-at-Large James Chau in Hong Kong.

The White House’s attempt to bar many foreign students from returning to the US to continue their studies threatens to damage America’s reputation for educational tolerance and intellectual inquiry – not to mention the fact that it may well turn foreign students against the US.

As the pandemic worsened in China, support came from people and businesses in the United States. Then, when the U.S. situation worsened, Chinese people stepped in with assistance. The two governments should follow this example and cooperate, rather than allowing relations to deteriorate further.

Of the many efforts the United States has made to decouple with China, its moves to prohibit cultural exchanges, including advanced studies, are least likely to work and undermine a key stabilizer in relations.