Introduction
While the concept of a foreign or international student may seem like a fairly recently emerged phenomenon, closely related as it is to the modern concept of the nation-state, the notion of leaving one’s community and travelling or sojourning for educational purposes has in fact long existed in human history. As Du Bois (1956) states: “The pursuit of learning beyond the boundaries of one’s own community, nation, or culture is as old as learning itself” (p. 1). The reason is that “[w]e need a constant cross-fertilization of ideas between the many cultures of mankind” (Caldwell, 1965, p. 69). Ancient Greeks, for example, were among the first to attract and host foreign students who came from faraway regions (Bevis & Lucas, 2007; Walden, 1909).
As early as the Sui Dynasty (581–618), China played host to foreign students, and during the Tang Dynasty (618–907) foreign students began arriving in China in relatively large numbers. For example, Japan sent delegations to China 13 times during the Tang Dynasty. It was estimated that the total number of Japanese students and monks who came with the delegations to learn about Confucianism, Buddhism, and other aspects of Chinese culture and Chinese history, amounted to 150 (Dong, 2003). If it was the prosperity and openness of a strong China that attracted students and scholars from Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Russia in ancient China, it was the loss of its dominant position to the Western world after a series of defeats in wars and the ensuing unbalanced treaties that prompted China to gradually adopt the policy of sending Chinese students to study overseas.
On December 26, 1978, the first dispatch of 50 Chinese scholars and scientists, funded by the Chinese government, left for the United States. This would mark the beginning of a new wave of Chinese students studying overseas after decades of national isolation. Over the course of the subsequent four decades, that wave would grow ever stronger, and by the end of 2015, the total number of Chinese students studying overseas had reached 4.04 million with an average yearly increasing rate of 19.06%. In 2018, there were 662,100 Chinese students studying abroad, an increase of 8.83% over the previous year (Ministry of Education, 2019).
This new wave of Chinese students studying overseas can be seen as the continuation of the Chinese people’s quest for self-strengthening through learning from the West. From Yung Wing, the father of the movement to send Chinese students overseas for study, to the first wave of China’s 120 “fortunate sons” who studied in the United States between 1872 and1881, to the second wave of Chinese students which included those going to Japan after 1895 and those studying in the United States on the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship between 1909 and 1940, and finally to this new, third wave of the present day, there is a common theme that runs throughout this nearly 200 years of history: How can China become a modern nation capable of competing with the West on the international scene?
This chapter is the first attempt to depict a thorough picture of those historical trends which bear significant connections with and thus important implications for the current wave. Through providing detailed and comprehensive information on those two waves of historical trends, this chapter shows that educational exchange has always been considered and used by the Chinese government as the most effective way for China to catch up with the more developed and industrialized countries, in spite of opposing voices from more conservative officials. Further, due to the high hopes placed on those exchange programs and the changes resulting from those programs, officials who initiated the programs and students who participated, in spite of their great contributions to and impact on the modernization of China, are susceptible to criticisms and distrust, and the perceptions of them have pendulated between patriots and traitors, heroes and villains, and vanguard and scapegoat (Bieler, 2004; Wang, 2013). That may be a common dilemma faced by anyone trying to build a bridge between two worlds.
Yung Wing, the Forerunner of Overseas Chinese Students
He was the first Chinese in modern times to break completely away from the age-old Chinese social environment and to divorce himself from the cultural inheritance of his people. He marks an important point in the history of his country, for from him there stems in an ever widening stream that numerous body of young Chinese who, first in the mission schools in China and later in the colleges and universities of Europe and the United States, have become thoroughly imbued with the ‘western viewpoint’ and who have consciously striven to spread this viewpoint among their own people. .
Yung Wing was born in 1828, the third child of four, in the village of Nanping, some four miles away from the then Portuguese-controlled trading colony of Macao. Yung’s parents viewed Western schooling—where he could learn English—as a potential avenue for a career in business and diplomacy, and thus at the age of 7, he was sent to study for a 4-year period at a missionary school in Macao which was established in 1835 by Mrs. Gutzlaff, the wife of the British missionary, the Reverend Charles Gutzlaff. When the missionary school was closed, Yung returned to his village and stayed there for 2 years. Between 1841 and 1846, he attended the Morison School, first in Macao, and later in Hong Kong, where the school was moved in 1842. The Morison School was run by the Reverend. S. R. Brown, an 1832 graduate of Yale, and his wife. Toward the end of 1846, the Reverend Brown had decided to return to America, offering to take a few pupils with him to finish their education there. Yung Wing quite literally jumped at this opportunity. As he himself describes: “When he [the Reverend Brown] requested those who wished to accompany him to the States to signify it by rising, I was the first one on my feet” (Yung, 1909, p. 6). Through the influence of the Reverend Brown, Yung Wing and two other boys, Wong Shing and Wong Foon, were able to receive financial support from several patrons in Hong Kong who were not only to cover their education, but also support their parents during their absence in America.
In April 1847, the three boys, along with the Reverend Brown, arrived in New York after 98 days of voyaging on the ship “Huntress.” Soon after in that same year, the three boys started attending the Monson Academy in Massachusetts. Gradually their life took different courses: In 1848, Wong Shing returned to China due to poor health; Wong Foon, upon graduating from the Monson Academy in 1850, entered the University of Edinburgh; and Yung Wing started his college education at Yale at the age of 22.
The first year in college proved to be difficult for Yung Wing largely because of his underpreparedness, especially in such subjects as Latin, Greek, and mathematics. As he describes: “I used to sweat over my studies until twelve o’clock every night the whole Freshman year” (Yung, 1909, p. 6). He worked so hard to keep up with his studies, while also making ends meet financially, that his health suffered. Although he himself felt that he did not perform well academically throughout his college course, so much so that he actually thought he might be dismissed, he was actually quite well-known on campus for his strong academic performance. As the first Chinese to receive an education at a first-class American college, he naturally attracted considerable attention, and he proved himself to be worthy of the attention by winning the first prize in English composition for the two consecutive years of sophomore and junior, and by actively participating in such extracurricular activities as debating. LaFargue (1987) thus comments on him: “Yung Wing’s career at Yale was successful. He was well-known and very much liked among his classmates. He seems to have had a facility for absorbing his American environment” (p. 22).
Behind the stamina and perseverance which supported him through the difficult yet rewarding college years was his deep love for China and a strong sense of social responsibility toward the Chinese people. Between his own financial struggle and academic exertion, he never forgot “the lamentable condition of China.” As he put it: For the 8 years of sojourn in America, China “had never escaped my mind’s eye nor my heart’s yearning for her welfare.” He reached the following conclusion: “the rising generation of China should enjoy the same educational advantage that I had enjoyed; that through western education China may be regenerated, become enlightened and powerful” (Yung, 1909, pp. 15–16). Having thought much about the future of China and his possible role in better preparing China for the modern world, he became convinced that “China’s only hope was to … adopt as rapidly as possible the technological, progressive civilization of the Occident.” It seemed to him that the best way to do it was for the Chinese government to send abroad “a constant stream of carefully selected Chinese youths to be educated at the schools of America and Europe” (LaFargue, 1987, p. 23). It was toward this goal of enabling more Chinese to enjoy a Western education that Yung Wing directed his efforts and energy from 1854 to 1872.
Upon graduating from Yale in 1854, he embarked on his journey back to China. After 6 months of readjustment in Canton, including recovering written and spoken Chinese, he began experimenting with different careers to make a living while awaiting the right opportunity to implement his ideas of reform. Yung first worked briefly as the secretary of Dr. Peter Parker, the US Commissioner in Canton, then followed this with an unsuccessful attempt to become an attorney in Hong Kong. Subsequently, having served at the Imperial Customs Translating Department in Shanghai, Yung would finally come to gradually establish himself as a successful businessman by trading tea and silk.
The First Wave: The Chinese Educational Mission (1872–1881)
The first wave of Chinese students going overseas to study consisted of a few government-sponsored overseas educational missions in the 1870s and 1880s. For example, between 1877 and 1897, the government sent 85 cadets from the Fuzhou Shipyard School to England and France to study engineering and technology. Yan Fu, who later became a renowned translator and important pioneer in the effort to introduce Western writings on social science to Chinese readers, was among the first Chinese students to study at the Royal Naval College Greenwich in England (Chen, 1997; Lin, 2016).
The best known among the first group of overseas Chinese students were the 120 youth who studied in America between 1872 and 1881. Due to his unremitting efforts from 1854 and 1871, Yung Wing gradually won support from enlightened high-ranking officials such as Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang. In a memorial presented in 1871 to the emperor by these two figures, who were arguably the most influential officials of the time, Zeng and Li made a strong case for acquiring technical knowledge of the West if China ever hoped to be free from foreign aggression. Further, they argued that sending students to study overseas was the quickest and most effective way to acquire Western technology. The imperial court finally approved the plan for sending groups of students to the United States, which was called the “Chinese Educational Mission” (CEM hereafter). The plan was to send 30 Chinese students aged between 12 and 16 each year for four consecutive years between 1872 and 1875. These 120 students would study in America for 15 years, and upon graduating from American colleges, would return to China in 1887 to serve the country (Bieler, 2004; LaFargue, 1987; Wang, 2013). In the summer of 1872, the first 30 students sailed for the United States, and they were followed by three more groups of 30 students each year for the following three consecutive years. These 120 students were called “China’s first hundred” (LaFargue, 1987) and referred to as the “fortunate sons” (Leibovitz & Miller, 2011).
Chinese Context and Motives
While Yung Wing was biding his time preparing to implement the plan to send young Chinese overseas to study, China itself was undergoing important changes. The mid-nineteenth century was a turning point in Chinese history in terms of both the internal decline of the Qing dynasty due to such factors as territorial expansion and continual warfare, an explosive increase in population, and bureaucratic corruption, as well as social upheavals like the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864), and the increasing external pressure from the impending menace of foreign invasions with the Anglo-French military presence in Beijing (Chen, 1997; Luo, 1997). The loss of the Opium War to the British in 1842, which, among other things, forced China to open five southern ports to western traders, was a wake-up call for some officials in the Qing court, who became reluctantly open to the knowledge and power of Western countries, and for Chinese intellectuals who then started seeking and disseminating Western learning in hopes of “learning technology from the barbarians to contain them,” as advocated by Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan (Bieler, 2004, p. 3). Gradually, China ended its isolationist policy, which had been implemented from the late seventeenth century, and grew increasingly open to the influence of Western culture (Chen, 1997; Lin, 2016).
One of the approaches to strengthen China, which was discussed at the Qing court in the 1860s, was to introduce Western technology, and in 1863 the possibility of sending students abroad began to be debated. It was within this historical context that the implementation of Yung Wing’s reform ideas were made possible.
American Context and Motives
America’s motives for drawing international students to its educational institutions are in part political, sociocultural, academic, and economic. Academic motives are often cited as the main reason for encouraging foreign students to come to America to study, but even a cursory examination of American policies indicates that from the very beginning, political and sociocultural motives were the driving forces. It is only in recent years that economic considerations have become increasingly important motives.
In the early years of American history, the idea of educational exchange was not welcomed by either the public or politicians. One reason is that sending students to study in European universities amounted to acknowledging that American higher education was inferior. Further, many Americans did not favor reinforcing the ties to Europe through educational exchanges. Thomas Jefferson, for example, was an adamant opponent of sending students to study in any European country, including Germany. He maintained that “an American, coming to Europe for education, loses in his knowledge, in his morals, in his health, and in his habits.” Washington had an even more nationalistic view of educational exchange believing that “there was a danger in sending American youth abroad among other political systems when they had not well learned the value of their own” (Bevis & Lucas, 2007, pp. 32–33).
Following the same line of logic, it is no surprise that America would regard educational exchange as “an instrument of foreign policy and of national interest” when the world started to come to America for higher education (Du Bois, 1956, p. 12). It is argued that “American political and educational leaders hoped that on returning home, the graduates of these academic programs would act as ambassadors and spread American political and cultural mores in their respective nations—to cultivate sympathy and understanding for American values worldwide” (Bevis & Lucas, 2007, p. 245).
Arrangement and Life in America
America was chosen as the destination for the CEM, instead of Great Britain, France or Germany, partially because Yung Wing was familiar with the American educational system, and partially because of the Burlingame Treaty which had been signed between the United States and China in 1868. The treaty was named after Anson Burlingame, the first American minister to reside in Beijing (1861–1867). This treaty allowed citizens of the two countries to have mutual rights of residence and attendance at public schools (LaFargue, 1987). Another reason for favoring America as the destination country was that Chinese officials seemed to believe that an American education was more practical than a European one (Bieler, 2004).
The recruitment was not easy partially because the rather generous offer from the government to educate the students and pay their families a modest stipend while they were abroad, met with some suspicion among the local Chinese population. Families were also reluctant to see their children disappear to an unknown land for such a long period of time. For the first detachment of 30 boys, Yung Wing had to go on recruitment tours throughout the Canton area to persuade families (Bevis & Lucas, 2007). Out of the 120 boys who were finally recruited, 70% of them were from the region around Canton where the local people had more exposure to foreigners and foreign influence (LaFargue, 1987; Yung, 1909).
They became Americanized with bewildering rapidity. In no time they learned the language of the schoolroom and the playground. They soon shed their long silk gowns and with them their dignified Chinese manners. Within a few months they were on the best of terms with their American schoolmates and were competing for honors both in their classes and on the baseball diamond. In their American homes they were taught western table manners and were introduced to the somewhat severe discipline of New England family life (p. 35).
Termination of the Mission
The changes the boys underwent, which were inevitable to some extent, were viewed negatively by the Chinese officials who co-directed the Mission with Yung Wing, and a stream of unfavorable reports were sent back to Peking on the “un-Chinese conduct of the students” (LaFargue, 1987, p. 44). With the death of Zeng Guofan in 1871, the most important supporter of the Mission, the Conservatives gradually came back to power at the court. They saw abolishing the Mission as a way to attack Li Hongzhang, the protégé of Zeng. Further, the high cost of running the Mission—an estimated total of one million two-hundred thousand taels1 and an average of $1200 per student per year—had truly been a tremendous amount for China and thus a source of concern and conflict as China was struggling financially (Bieler, 2004; LaFargue, 1987).
During this same period, an anti-Chinese mentality had begun to take shape in America. The “gold rush,” which started in 1847 in California, brought thousands of Chinese to America who were forced to stay and find work as most of them failed to make their fortune. Many of them were able to find employment in the construction of the first transcontinental railroad in America, a significant and widely recognized contribution to the growth of the country. After the completion of the railroad, however, the Chinese were back in the labor market, which had grown more competitive due to the recession following the Civil War, and the large influx of settlers from the eastern part of the country into the west. Resentment of the Chinese workers, who were considered the “yellow peril,” grew among American workers, and “Chinese workers became targets of racial attacks and mob violence” (Bevis & Lucas, 2007, p. 56; Bieler, 2004, p. 7). As a response to the mounting anti-Chinese sentiment and social unrest, in May 1882, the American congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act prohibiting Chinese laborers from entering the United States (Bevis & Lucas, 2007; Ye, 2001). In the midst of anti-Chinese sentiments, the American government rescinded its earlier agreement with the Chinese government to allow Chinese students to study at military academies in the United States. This was a huge disappointment for Li Hongzhang as in his mind military training was the main motive for the CEM (Bieler, 2004; LaFargue, 1987). As Ye argues: “The anti-Chinese zealotry of the American policy makers as well as the American government’s refusal to admit Chinese students into U.S. military academies had given the conservative Chinese officials a convincing excuse to call back the educational mission” (Ye, 2001, p. 88).
In 1881, Yung Wing received the final orders to abandon the Mission, and all teachers and students were to return to China. By the time the students returned to China in 1881, only two had completed college at the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. Even though over 60 of them were enrolled in colleges and technical schools, most of them had only started their training (Bevis & Lucas, 2007; LaFargue, 1987).
On the surface, the Mission was terminated for political and economic reasons, as discussed in the preceding analysis. At a deeper level, however, the failure of the Mission was almost doomed from its inception for ideological reasons. The conservatives at the court were opposed to the Mission from the very beginning because they felt the plan of sending students abroad seriously undermined Chinese tradition and Confucian values (Bieler, 2004). This expression of what is referred to as the ti-yong dichotomy would present a dilemma for the Chinese journey to modernization.
Along with the intellectual enlightenment came the Yangwu Movement, which is essentially a “self-strengthening movement” (Bieler, 2004, p. 4) that aimed to introduce Western technology into China. Led by high-ranking officials such as Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and Zhang Zhidong, the Movement was governed by the principle of Zhongti Xiyong (Chinese learning as the essential principles and Western learning as the practical application). The ti-yong dichotomy can be traced back to the mid-nineteenth century. Ti, (essential principles), is composed of two elements: one is the feudal, totalitarian political system, and the other is Confucian ethics. Yong (practical applications) refers to Western science and technology. Ti is the goal and yong the method which serves ti (Chen, 1997; Wang, 1997). According to Chen (1997), there is a contradiction inherent in the principle of Zhongti Xiyong, between the feudalist goals and the capitalist means: adherence to the essential principles of Chinese learning confined the Yangwu Movement to only a superficial knowledge of the West, “for the steady dissemination of Western learning without limitations would have eventually broken down the feudalist ti” (p. 166).
This ideological dilemma of ti-yong was reflected in the conflicts between Yung Wing and the other conservative co-directors. Along with Yung Wing, another Chinese official, Qin Lanpin, who was known for his devotion to Confucian learning, was appointed to co-direct the mission. When Qin was called back to China in 1878, the even more conservative Wu Zideng replaced him. The trigger of the termination was the neglect of Chinese studies on the boys’ part as they were supposed to be instructed in the Chinese language and Confucian classics by Chinese teachers who accompanied the Mission during school breaks (Bieler, 2004; LaFargue, 1987). Both Qin and Wu were astonished and upset to see the boys had been “denationalized” (Bieler, 2004, p. 7) and “Americanized” (Bevis & Lucas, 2007, p. 49). For example, Wu scolded the students for not kneeling down to him, a sign of respect for elders. Many of them preferred Western suits over their Chinese gowns, and some had cut their queues. Further, it was disturbing to the conservative officials that some students had become Christians (Bevis & Lucas, 2007; Bieler, 2004).
Yung Wing, on the other hand, was convinced that “China’s future depended on these students abandoning their traditions, fully taking on the science and technology of Western culture, as soon as possible” (Bevis & Lucas, 2007, p. 73). His emphasis on American studies at the expense of Chinese studies came as no surprise, and his encouragement of the boys to break with the Chinese tradition and habits essentially “betrayed the Chinese government’s original purpose of assimilating and using Western technology while preserving traditional culture” (Bevis & Lucas, 2007, p. 73). He did not seem “to have been disturbed by the evident fact that in the measure that China adopted the machinery of the West, the old traditional Chinese civilization would be undermined and eventually destroyed” (LaFargue, 1987, p. 28). This approach of wholesale Westernization has important implications and sowed the seeds for the criticism of blind copying on the part of Chinese students returning home, and also partially explained the premature termination of the CEM (Bevis & Lucas, 2007). As LaFargue (1987) summarizes: “His attitude opened the conduct of the Mission to severe criticism by those in China unfavorably disposed towards it, and in the long run it was one of the chief reasons why the Mission was prematurely abandoned” (p. 35).
The CEM started around the same time that Japan’s diplomatic Iwakura Mission (1871–1873) took place, but their different destiny in some way forecasted the fate of the two nations in their modernization process. While the Iwakura Mission expedited the Meiji Restoration and helped Japan develop national policy for the realization of modernization (Ding, 1997; Wang, 1997), the CEM was ended 9 years later in 1881—much earlier than the originally planned 15 years—when only 2 out of the 120 students were able to complete their college education. To a certain extent, it is this underlying ideological dilemma of ti-yong that terminated the CEM and shattered Yung Wing’s dream of strengthening China by sending students to study overseas.
Contributions by Yung Wing and the 120 “Fortunate Sons”
Yung Wing died in 1912 in Hartford, Connecticut, having spent almost half of his lifetime in the United States. He was highly regarded by the next generation of students in America as an “Educator, Reformer, Statesman, Patriot” (Bieler, 2004, p. 16). He was often criticized, however, for his lack of Chineseness and disrespect for the Chinese culture and was considered by many “a comprador whose thoughts reflected signs of cultural imperialism” (Wang, 2013, p. 32). It is true that Yung Wing was converted to Christianity while studying at Monson Academy in Massachusetts (1847–1849), and in 1852 he became a naturalized American citizen (which was later revoked under the Naturalization Act of 1870). He even married an American woman, Mary L. Kellogg, the daughter of a prominent local doctor in Hartford, in 1875 (Bieler, 2004; LaFargue, 1987). As Edmund Worthy argues, “His loyalty to America rested on his family ties as well as on a strong intellectual kinship with the West” (Wang, 2013, p. 33). Nonetheless, his affinities with America did not prevent him from loving China. He describes this seeming paradox the following way: “Would it not be strange, if an Occidental education, continually exemplified by an Occidental civilization, had not wrought upon an Oriental such a metamorphosis in his inward nature as to make him feel and act as though he were a being coming from a different world, when he confronted one so diametrically different. This was precisely my case, and yet neither my patriotism nor love of my fellow-countrymen had been weakened” (Yung, 1909, Preface).
Yung’s contribution to the modernization process of China should not be underestimated. As LaFargue argues: “[Yung Wing]… more than any other one person, prepared the ground for China’s advances in science and technology. His protégés, the students of the Educational Mission, were the active leaders in establishing modern communications in China” (LaFargue, 1987, p. 65). Together they built railroads, constructed telegraph lines, developed coal mines, became China’s first modern army and navy officers, and filled the ranks of her consular and diplomatic service. According to LaFargue, among the 100 or so members of the CEM who did return to China to serve, 13 worked in the diplomatic service; 6 in coal mining; 14 worked as either chief engineers or in managerial capacities in railroads; 17 served in the navy, 7 of whom were killed in action and 2 of whom became admirals; 15 contributed to the Government Telegraph Administration; 4 practiced medicine; 3 worked in education; 2 served in the Customs Service; and 12 became magistrates and governors, etc., following the traditional career routine (LaFargue, 1987).
Although the CEM members “never rose far up the ladder of official preferment” (LaFargue, 1987, p. 65) as a group, there are names that bear significant positions in modern Chinese history. Among them are Zhan Tianyou, the first engineer to have constructed an important railway—the Peking-Zhangjiakou railway—independent of foreign assistance; Tang Shaoyi, the first Prime Minister and one of the founders of the Chinese Republic which was established after the 1911 revolution; Liang Dunyan, who served as the Minister of Communications in the first Republican government, and the minister of foreign affairs; and Cai Tingkai, who rose to the position of a navy admiral (Bevis & Lucas, 2007; Bieler, 2004; LaFargue, 1987).
Sun Yat-Sen in Hawaii
Although not as part of the CEM, Sun Yat-Sen, the founding father of the Republic of China, came to the United States around the same period of time and he seemed to have shared some common experiences as those 120 boys as an international sojourner. All his lifetime Sun paid six visits to Hawaii between 1879 and 1910, among which only the first one was for educational purpose. He first came to Hawaii in 1879 at the age of 13 with the help of his older brother Sun Mei who had come in 1871 and become an economic success. He enrolled in Iolani School between 1879 and 1882, where he quickly mastered English, from not knowing a word of the language. He graduated from Iolani School as the second in grammar and was awarded a prize by King Kalakaua. He then continued his education at the Punahou School (then called Oahu College), but was there only for one semester in the spring of 1883. He was sent back to China by his brother who felt that he had started to betray Chinese culture when Sun expressed his wish to become a Christian (Lum & Lum, 1999).
Needless to say, the early years Sun spent in Hawaii for his education were the most formative period of his time there and had significant implications for his later, revolutionary career. As Lum and Lum (1999) state: “During his years at Iolani and Punahou, he was exposed to Western culture, was strongly influenced by it, and in his young mind, the seeds of Western democracy were planted.” Even Sun himself told a journalist in 1910: “This is my Hawaii ... here I was brought up and educated; and it was here that I came to know what modern civilized governments are like and what they mean” (p. 3).
The Second Wave (1890s–1940s)
While China was debating about the merit of ti and yong, the Western world became more industrialized, and significant changes took place by the late nineteenth century: More telegraph lines and steamships were built, cities grew, more goods were traded, and bank offices appeared. If the defeat in the Opium War (1840–1842) was a wake-up call for China, Social Darwinism, with its credos of the struggle for existence, natural selection, and survival of the fittest, offered an explanation of the rules of the game. Japan’s crushing victory over China in the 1895 Sino-Japanese War prompted the Chinese government to take immediate measures to obtain Western knowledge and technology, including reforming its educational system and sending students overseas to study. As Harrell states: “[There was] a new openness, a new focus on national goals, a general acceptance of the need to modernize, a hint that reform outside tradition was worth considering” (Harrell, 1992, p. 5; Wang, 2013).
It is under this historical and social context that Chinese students began to go in large numbers to Europe, Japan, and America, thus forming the second wave of Chinese students studying overseas. The lingering question was once again pushed to the forefront: How can China become a modern nation capable of competing with the West? Again, sending students overseas was endorsed as the quickest and most effective way to reform education and modernize China. Similar to the first wave, the main goal of the second wave was also to strengthen the state by modernizing its economy, military, and education. The gradual phasing out of the civil service examination system and its final abolition in 1905 removed institutional barriers and provided an additional catalyst to the trend of Chinese students studying overseas; the route to upward social mobility was now clearly found in obtaining an education in foreign countries (Harrell, 1992).
Important components of this second wave include students studying in Japan after the 1895 Sino-Japanese War and students studying in America on the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship after 1909. The following sections will examine those two groups.
The 1895 Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Students in Japan
After the defeat of China in the 1895 Sino-Japanese War, Japan became an increasingly popular destination for overseas Chinese students. First, its language, literature, and customs were similar to those of China, and this cultural affinity meant that students would be less likely to become “denationalized” (Bieler, 2004, p. 7). Further, its physical proximity meant lower transportation and living cost, which made it a more financially affordable proposition (Bieler, 2004; Harrell, 1992).
Another reason for Chinese students’ interest in studying in Japan, which is arguably the most important one, was Japan’s success in its modernization efforts. Japan, an Asian nation, had built its national power to qualify as a competitor with the West which drew admiration from Asian countries, including China. As Ye states: “To many [Chinese] people in the first decade of the 1900s, recently modernized Japan was a shortcut to Western knowledge” (Ye, 2001, p. 9) This “[l]earning about the West through Japan” (Harrell, 1992, p. 7) had become the primary driving force behind the large number of Chinese students going to Japan.
From the Japanese perspective, having Chinese students study within its borders fit well with its vision of “Asia for the Asians” and “common culture.” These students, many of whom might become part of China’s next generation of leaders, could help to expand Japanese influence throughout Asia. In other words, both sides welcomed the prospect of educational exchange which was viewed mutually beneficial as it ultimately “[held] promise of developing a counterforce against the bogey that faced them both—the threatening presence of the West in East Asia” (Harrell, 1992, p. 7).
In 1896, 13 young Chinese arrived in Tokyo—the first to study in Japan. The number quickly and steadily increased in the following years and in the peak year of 1905–1906, about 8000–9000 Chinese were studying in Tokyo alone. However, the number began to decrease in 1906, mainly because of the competition from the opportunity to study in America (Wang, 2013). It was estimated that between 1900 and 1911, as many as 20,000 Chinese students received education in Japan. Unlike students in the first wave, a considerable proportion of Chinese students who studied in Japan came from privileged family backgrounds, and many of them were self-funded. The majority of them pursued liberal arts, teacher training, and military studies, and only a small number studied science and technology majors (Harrell, 1992).
Even though it is true that Japanese and Chinese cultures share similarities, adjusting to life in Japan still proved to be difficult for most Chinese students. In fact, among the first 13 students who studied in Japan starting in 1896, only seven eventually completed their education and received diplomas. Homesickness was a common problem among them, partially because of the differences in food, dress, and customs which made them an “object of curiosity” and the “butt of jokes” (Harrell, 1992, p. 2). Furthermore, the overall quality of education they received was poor because Japan was not well equipped to accommodate so many Chinese students (Bieler, 2004). The most challenging difficulty for those students, however, was the arrogant and patronizing attitude of Japanese toward Chinese, which resulted in an environment of indifference and even hostility. For centuries the Chinese culture had been respected and emulated by the Japanese, but now China was perceived as “antediluvian in a modern world of technological advance” (Harrell, 1992, p. 81). Deeply aware of the depiction of China as the objects of derision in Japanese press, Chinese students often felt inferior and alienated which easily slipped into the feelings of resentment and hostility toward Japan (Bieler, 2004; Harrell, 1992). The maladjustment of those Chinese students was to a large extent due to the fact that it was not in the interest of either side to help those students fit into the new environment by developing intercultural understanding. In fact, “it was thought better that Chinese not intermingle with Japanese” (Harrell, 1992, p. 8). The objective of China was to learn about the West through Japan, not to learn about Japan, and what the Japanese side stressed was supervising the students for educational purposes.
For them, exposure to the outside world created the desire to participate in China’s political life, to help chart out a course for China’s future. For them Asia for the Asians came to mean China for the Chinese, national independence and the strength to ward off all imperialists of whatever origin (p. 209).
The Boxer Indemnity Scholarship and Studying in America (1909–1940s)
After the invasion of China by the eight allied forces of Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Russia, Japan, Italy, and Austria between 1900 and 1901, China was forced to pay 450 million taels (an equivalent of $330 million) to these eight countries as a compensation for their losses in the war. This payment is called the Boxer Indemnity. The United States received about 7.5%, or $25 million. After a long debate and much negotiation, the United States decided to return the surplus part of the Boxer Indemnity, under the stipulation that the money be spent on educating Chinese students in the United States (Bieler, 2004; Li, 2008).
From the American perspective, this educational plan would strengthen its ties with China so that the influence of a rising Japan in China could be contained to a certain extent. To the United States, Japan was a rival in Asia, and it had effectively grown its influence through both military victories and educational programs that allowed a large influx of Chinese students. Further, it would help to raise the prestige and image of the United States in China. Having successfully mentored Japan in its modernization process and deeply proud of this accomplishment, America hoped to do the same for China and have long-term influence on China’s future. But, in contrast to the more strong arm technique employed by US Naval Commodore Matthew Perry with his ships off the shores of Japan nearly half a century earlier, as Bieler summarizes: “The educational plan was a more subtle and strategic policy than using gunboats to open China to American influence and commerce” (Bieler, 2004, p. 43; Ye, 2001).
Compared to the paradoxical ideological and intellectual environment which was dominated by the ti-yong dichotomy during the first wave, students in the early twentieth century were urged to acquire broad learning from the West (Bieler, 2004). As Ye states: “[It became] understood and largely accepted by the people involved that going abroad to study would imply a departure from traditional ways of life, in contrast to the resistance to Western cultural influences by the conservative officials in the Yung Wing mission” (Ye, 2001, p. 9). For China, the West represented both the humiliation of oppression and the lure of modernity. Further humiliated by the Boxer Incident—after losing both Opium Wars in 1842 and 1869, and the 1895 Sino-Japanese War, China became even more eager to strengthen itself through learning from the West. The Boxer Indemnity Program required that 80% of the students study technical and practical disciplines such as engineering, agriculture, and mining. China also hoped to build an alliance with America to counterbalance the increasing influence of neighboring Japan (Bieler, 2004; Ye, 2001).
Toward the end of 1908, President Roosevelt signed a bill remitting the indemnity. It was stipulated that the United States would return about $500,000 every year to China for establishing preparatory school and training 100 students a year to study in the United States, beginning in 1909, and the final payment would be made in 1940. In 1909 and 1925, the United States delivered the remission of the Boxer Indemnity in two installments (Bieler, 2004; Li, 2008). On October 12, 1909, the first group of Chinese students, a total of 47 winners from 640 candidates who had sat on a 5-day exam, sailed for the United States from Shanghai. The following year, 70 students passed the exam and left for the United States, and an additional 73 students in 1911. In 1911 the Imperial Tsinghua College was established with an enrollment of 468 students to help prepare students who were going to study in the United States. The college eventually became a comprehensive university in 1925, and the name was changed to Tsinghua University in 1927 (Li, 2008).
As “the most important scheme for educating Chinese students in America and arguably the most consequential and successful in the entire foreign-study movement of twentieth-century China” (Ye, 2001, p. 9), the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program contributed to the rapid and steady increase in the number of students in America. While there were only 300 of them in 1906, the number grew to 650 in 1911 and reached 1000 4 years later. By 1918, there were about 1200 Indemnity Scholarship recipients in America, and it was estimated that around 1600 Chinese students studied in America between 1925 and 1926. They tended to concentrate in schools located in the East and Midwest, and only a small number of them attended schools in the West and the South. They were also likely to have come from relatively privileged family backgrounds, similar to those who studied in Japan.
The average American: “They are Japs.”
The uneducated class: “Well, the Chinaman’s chop suey is some class.”
The middle class: “Chinaman eats rats and birds’ nests!” (Straw and twigs)
The intelligent class: “The Chinese Revolution! Premier Kai and Dr. Sun!”
He wore clothes of the best fashion, smoked, and used slang, and developed a keen interest in athletics; in short he was fast becoming Americanized. His ideas of life were changing too. Some of the old teachings which he had formerly regarded as infallible now appeared to him not only questionable but ridiculous. He began to lay more value on personal attraction and less on intellectual parts. He regarded riches as the highest prize of life and forgot his first resolution to dedicate his life to unselfish service (Bieler, 2004, p. 227).
The foundations these people laid in republican China, particularly in the areas of higher education, research, and, to a lesser degree, industry, eventually provided the institutional base of the People’s Republic of China. …they introduced new social customs, new kinds of interpersonal relationships, and new ways of associating in groups—in brief, they initiated a new way of life that contained key aspects of Chinese modernity (p. 2).
The Dilemma of Making Waves: Comparing and Contrasting
The two waves of Chinese students studying overseas took place in the historical context of China’s humiliation by Western powers since 1840. Thus, the primary driving force behind the two waves was a patriotic mentality and a strong sense of social responsibility among the students to learn from the West so that China could end its humiliating history of being trampled upon, even though the need to catch up with the Western world seemed to be even more urgent during the second wave, and thus the approach was more wholesale.
[T]he Qing government expected too much from the first generation of students in the Chinese Educational Mission. The goal of making China technologically independent was unrealizable. The second generation of students was given an equally daunting set of goals in 1910: free China from foreign domination, abolish the practice of extraterritoriality, establish a parliamentary government, frame a constitution, and establish a new financial system and an effective military system (p. 342).
With such high expectations placed upon them, those students were of course susceptible to criticisms. One such criticism of returned students was the problem of “blind copying,” referring to excessive reliance on foreign theories and methods which were often not applicable to China. Another criticism had to do with social stratification, in that “the concentration of Chinese students in Japan and the United States created a special political and social status for the returned scholars that further contributed to the ‘Japanization’ and ‘Americanization’ of Chinese society” (Bevis & Lucas, 2007, p. 73).
It was also those high expectations that caused the perceptions of those students to pendulate between patriots and traitors, heroes and villains, and vanguard and scapegoat (Bieler, 2004; Wang, 2013). On the one hand, the students were considered threats because of the Western values and knowledge they had been exposed to and oftentimes acquired. The cultural adjustments they had gone through made them the targets of suspicion because they could no longer be trusted as patriots. Their energy, independence, outspokenness, and ingenuity all seemed dangerous to the existing power structure in the eyes of Chinese officials. As a result, many of them returned to their places of study overseas, unable to call China home anymore because of the cold rebuff they received. They were paid low wages and kept low in ranks so that their influence could be lessened. On the other hand, their skills were needed in a China desperately seeking its way to modernization. LaFargue (1987) argues: “They not only saw the emergence of a ‘new China’; they prepared the way” (p. 16). To a certain extent, it was the very success of the study-abroad programs and experiences that put those students in this dilemma. It is also a common dilemma faced by anyone who tries to build a bridge between two totally different worlds as they struggle to gain recognition or gratitude from either side.
Moving Forward with the Third Wave
In many aspects, the current third wave of Chinese students studying overseas differs from the two historical waves. For example, unlike the first two waves where China was forced to open its door by Western aggression and invasion, China made its choice to open up to the Western world toward the end of the 1970s, and thus educational exchange was more of a voluntary action. However, the goal was similar: Educational exchanges were used as a quick way to learn from the West so that China could keep up.
Further, the scale of transnational mobility for Chinese students is unprecedented, which is facilitated by the process of globalization. Globalization presents both opportunities and risks for international student mobility. On the one hand, mobility is made easier by technological advancement in communication and transportation, and the opportunity becomes accessible to a much larger number of students. On the other hand, the weakened boundaries between nations and the pressure to converge in an increasingly globalized world make it more difficult and thus more important to maintain one’s heritage and identity. As a result, students studying overseas may become more easily confused about their identity in the face of conflicted perspectives and values. In this sense, the dilemma facing those students may be the age-old one: How does one bridge two totally different worlds without becoming “patriots and traitors, heroes and villains, and vanguard and scapegoat” all at the same time?