In Texas, a student trip to China becomes a political act

For Krislyn Massey, it all started with late nights watching Japanese anime as a little one. That sparked a discovery of Chinese novels and a deep curiosity in finding out Asia – an unlikely path for somebody who grew up in a conservative household in Houston, Texas.

She started studying Japanese and getting concerned in student-run academic exchanges. One of those, Bridge Culture Exchange Academy, led her to attend a digital convention in 2023 with college students in China, strangers who soon grew to become buddies she needed to meet face-to-face.

By the time she was incomes a grasp’s degree in worldwide research, the 25-year-old was conscious of the high-level tensions between Washington and Beijing. Still, she didn’t anticipate how rigorously she would have to navigate the politics surrounding even a student trip to China – once a routine half of worldwide research.

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Last November, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed an govt order on “hardening” the state authorities against the Communist Party of China. Among a number of measures proscribing engagement with China was one that barred public college and authorities staff from travelling to the nation for “professional purposes” or accepting items from any establishment related with China.

The same order also discourages personal journey to China by state staff by requiring them to submit stories before and after any trip.

Massey knew she couldn’t go as half of a programme through her college, the University of North Texas, which had already cancelled at least one faculty-led student trip to China by the time she determined to go. Her trip, scheduled for July of this 12 months, was instead organised through a non-profit group called International Student Conferences (ISC), where she had a management function.

Krislyn Massey wears a cowboy hat to show off her Texas satisfaction at Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China. Photo: Krislyn Massey

Determined not to violate the order, Massey resigned early from her job as a public security officer for the college, a place she had held for 4 years.

To pre-empt questions, she wrote a long electronic mail to her college’s compliance workplace detailing her trip, even though she didn’t imagine the order utilized to her. For good measure, she made sure that ISC put limits in place on direct funding from the Chinese authorities for the trip, and also penned a four-page grievance to Abbott explaining how his order had “ruined” alternatives for teachers and college students to study about other nations.

As a remaining layer of precaution, Massey reached out to ISC’s major associate on the ground in China – the Communist Party-owned magazine Beijing Review – to set ground guidelines about pictures and other kinds of media engagement.

“There’s a lot of value in having local guides but we wanted to ensure that our trip was not perceived as aligned with any government messaging,” she said.

Massey’s case is way from remoted. Many American college students and teachers have described the challenges of discovering alternatives and securing approval from US establishments to go to mainland China – and the care they must take once there to keep away from conditions, such as photo-ops, that may later be seen as politically compromising.

But as a student at a public college in Texas, Massey went additional than most, taking on the burden of guaranteeing her trip was as past reproach as potential with little institutional or familial help. Her expertise captures the quiet struggles of Americans who still see worth in studying about China first-hand, even as politics on both sides of the Pacific make that troublesome.

Massey’s case also factors to a problem for Washington: how to maintain a nationwide pipeline of China analysts and interlocutors when political tensions are deterring college students from getting in-country expertise.

Without intervention, specialists say, the research and understanding of China in the United States may develop into more and more concentrated in a handful of elite coastal universities – leaving a lot of the nation disengaged and lowering the US’ total capability to handle its relationship with Beijing.

“We need to really increase the number of Americans going to China so they can have a better picture of the challenges and the history, the culture of China, because whether we like it or not, China is going to be a dominant economic and political force in the future,” said Gary Locke, former US ambassador to China, at an event hosted by the non-profit US-China Education Trust.

American student presence in China is already skinny. Since 2019, their numbers in mainland China have fallen sharply, dropping from about 11,000 to about 1,000 in 2024, according to the US State Department.

Students from the US and China come together to sing in Beijing. The individuals spent 17 days together. Photo: Handout

Texas stands out “in terms of how confrontational and anti-China they’ve moved” but “a large majority of states” have in current years enacted measures proscribing engagement with Chinese entities, says Sara Newland, an affiliate professor of authorities at Smith College in Massachusetts.

Newland, who is working on a ebook on subnational relations between the US and China, said that she knew of other US-based teachers who had cancelled even personal journeys to China due to onerous reporting necessities and issues about showing too pleasant to Beijing.

Though implementation of guidelines can fluctuate by division, universities and their college, cautious of jeopardising state funding or drawing political scrutiny, are usually opting for overcompliance, Newland said.

“There are a lot of people who are just really afraid … they just feel like there’s this target on their backs now.”

Some American teachers are selecting to keep away from states with restricted alternatives or restrictive insurance policies altogether. Those who have already constructed their careers in those states, however, are determining how to negotiate guidelines of engagement with China with their universities.

Students pose for a group shot at the US embassy in Beijing. Photo: Handout

Even in states without specific restrictions, the climate of warning is having an impact.

J. Arbuckle, a rural sociology professor at Iowa State University, said he had cancelled a deliberate September research trip to Nanjing in half due to US-China tensions that he had seen play out in Iowa, and in half because of federal guidelines that prevented him from accepting Chinese funding. He said he would wait until the political environment modified before attempting again.

Some US universities, particularly coastal establishments, have in current years revived or launched programmes sending college students and alumni to China, helped in half by renewed enthusiasm following Xi’s announcement and by help from personal foundations that have stepped in to offset gaps in authorities funding.

One such programme, designed to practice the next era of China students, is run by the University of Pennsylvania. Stanford University has revived its semester-long programme at Peking University as effectively as a two-week trip that exposes undergraduate college students to rural China. Johns Hopkins University, meanwhile, has began week-long visits for alumni to meet stakeholders in China.

Scott Rozelle, an agricultural economist at Stanford University who organises student journeys to China, said he had not confronted major difficulties in working his programmes. He attributes that partly to his long-standing relationships with Chinese counterparts and partly to California’s more open method in direction of engagement with China.

Rozelle said that while his Chinese companions had grown considerably more cautious in current years, most of the obstacles now stemmed from the American facet, expressing concern that youthful generations wouldn’t give you the option to maintain the exchanges that older generations constructed.

Krislyn Massey clothes in historic Chinese hanfu at the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda in Xian, China. Photo: Krislyn Massey

For now, experiences like Massey’s keep alive a small but very important thread of connection between the 2 nations. Massey, whose 17-day trip took her and about a dozen other Americans to the 4 Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou and Xian, said that even though her trip was short, she was ready to work together with Chinese people in a method that she wouldn’t give you the option to from afar.

“People ask me why do I care about exchange so much, and why am I fighting so hard to keep it? I feel like once you learn about the small things, you’re able to build a better picture. And my experience really taught me, Americans and Chinese people, we’re the exact same. We are the same essay, different font.”

“The world I want to see – especially for academics – is one with a free and open space for knowledge. I should be allowed to interact with anyone I see fit to reach a mutual goal of furthering understanding.”

Massey, who will graduate in December, says she has no imminent plans to return to China but says that her involvement in this 12 months’s trip – the first of its form for ISC – paves the trail for future visits, for both her and others. She is contemplating a profession in the US Foreign Service or politics.

“Who knows,” she said with a snigger. “Maybe one day I will become Texas governor and change the rules.”

This article initially appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP tales, please explore the SCMP app or go to the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.