ABSTRACT
Education, like policy and civil society, has been a fertile sphere for US–China exchanges. As soon as he solidifi ed power, Deng Xiaoping identified access to Western – and particularly US – higher education as a key resource for China’s modernization. His push to expose Chinese students to broad liberal arts, not just technical, instruction, initially took his American counterparts by surprise. Notwithstanding the fact that many Chinese students stayed abroad or brought troublesome ideas home with them, Deng and his successors have kept this door open.
