Sino-US relations are at their worst since I began my love affair with China with the adoption of two Chinese infants 22 years ago, followed by eight years as the FT's Shanghai bureau chief. The news that only around half as many mainlanders are coming to the US to study now as before the pandemic seems a harbinger of worse to come. International students are like unofficial ambassadors between their cultures — halving that group will do nothing to heal the rift between the superpowers.
自22年前我开始与中国结缘以来，中美关系正处于最糟糕的时期。当时我收养了两名中国婴儿，随后担任英国《金融时报》上海分社社长8年。有消息称，目前赴美留学的中国内地人只有疫情前的一半左右，这似乎预示着更糟糕的情况即将到来。国际学生就像两国文化之间的非正式大使——这个群体减半无益于弥合这两个超级大国之间的裂痕。
Some have argued that US president Joe Biden's new export controls on semiconductors amount to declaring economic war against China. These kinds of geopolitical tensions have played a role in souring the Chinese view on studying in the US, according to Chinese educational consultants.
一些人认为，美国总统乔•拜登(Joe Biden)对半导体的新出口管制相当于向中国宣布经济战。中国教育顾问表示，这类地缘政治紧张局势，在一定程度上让中国人对赴美留学的看法转向负面。
But based on interviews with Chinese students who cancelled or deferred plans to study in the US, and the consultants who advise them, there are plenty of other reasons too. These include the exorbitant cost of US university education, as well as America's reputation for shocking gun violence, growing anti-Asian racism and pandemic-related travel problems. The targeting of Chinese academics on US campuses as spies during the Trump administration also did nothing to help.
但根据对取消或推迟赴美留学计划的中国学生以及为他们提供咨询的顾问的采访，还有很多其他原因。这些原因包括美国大学教育过高的费用、美国恶名昭著的可怕枪支暴力、日益严重的反亚裔种族主义，以及与疫情相关的旅行问题。特朗普(Trump)政府将美国校园的中国学者视为间谍的做法则雪上加霜。
Years of explosive growth in the number of Chinese students in America had begun to plateau even before the pandemic, but numbers have plummeted since then. F1 student visas issued to Chinese mainlanders fell 45 per cent in the six months to the end of September from the comparable period in 2019, US state department figures show.
甚至在疫情之前，美国的中国留学生人数多年的爆炸式增长就已经开始趋于平缓，但自疫情爆发以来，人数急剧下降。美国国务院的数据显示，在截至9月底的6个月里，向中国内地人发放的F1学生签证比2019年同期下降了45%。
Mainlanders are still going overseas to study, but more are choosing the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong, educational consultants say. Chinese students in the UK rose by 50 per cent between 2016-17 and 2020-21. And India displaced China in US student visa rankings over the past six months. F1 visas for Indian students rose to 87,029, well above China's 49,959, and almost three times the figure for India before the pandemic.
教育顾问表示，中国内地人仍在赴海外留学，但更多的人选择了英国、新加坡和中国香港。2016-17年至2020-21年期间，在英国留学的中国学生人数增加了50%。过去6个月，印度在美国学生签证排名中取代了中国。发放给印度学生的F1签证增至87029份，远高于中国的49959份，几乎是疫情前印度学生签证数量的三倍。
Janet, who prepares Chinese students to study overseas, tells me social media portrayals of crime in the US are a big factor. She says: “Families are asking me, ‘is America still safe? Are Chinese students getting discriminated against there?’” Everyone I spoke to mentioned the fatal shooting in broad daylight of a Chinese student near the campus of the prestigious University of Chicago. I can sympathise: my Chinese daughter has just started a masters degree there, only to have three shootings (one deadly) outside her apartment building in the first weeks of term.
帮助中国学生做留学准备的珍妮特(Janet)告诉我，社交媒体上对美国犯罪的描述是一个重要因素。她说：“很多家庭问我，‘美国还安全吗？中国学生在那里受歧视吗？’”与我交谈的每个人都提到了光天化日之下，一名中国学生在著名的芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)校园附近被枪杀的事件。我很同情：我的中国女儿刚刚在那里开始读硕士学位，但在开学的头几周，她的公寓大楼外就发生了三起枪击事件（其中一起致人死亡）。
Janet is now providing self-defence lessons to clients applying to study in the US: “before we just taught students how to write essays, now we're teaching them martial arts”. She says families who might previously have prioritised the US now keep their options open. She also worries that the US tightening of visa restrictions for Chinese students on security grounds will make more families shy away from there. One of her students was denied a visa to study game design in the US this year. “This is the first time I've seen an undergraduate applicant rejected . . . and I don't think it will be the only case,” she tells me.
珍妮特现在为申请赴美留学的客户提供自卫课程：“以前我们只教学生如何写论文，现在我们教他们武术。”她说，以前可能优先选择美国的家庭现在对各种选择持开放态度。她还担心，美国以安全为由收紧对中国学生的签证限制，将使更多家庭回避赴美。她的一名学生今年申请赴美学习游戏设计被拒签。“这是我第一次看到本科生申请被拒……我不认为这是个例，”她告诉我。