Chinese Students in the US: an unaccomplished mission

The UK replaced the US as the favorite intended destination of Chinese students in 2019, and the gap was even wider in 2020 due to the tension between China and the US.  About 150 years ago, the US was the first country in the world to receive the first government-funded students from China. Their average age was 12. They were sent by the imperial Qing government under an initiative promoted by the first Chinese graduate from the United States, Rong Hong, who was known as Yung Wing in the US. Some of these children became Chinese diplomats, engineers and military officers. One of them, Liang Cheng, became the Qing court’s ambassador to the United States. He was knighted as Sir Chentung Liang Cheng by Great Britain. He initiated and facilitated a project in which some of the reparations paid by the Qing to Western powers for losses over the Boxer Rebellion were used to fund the study of Chinese students in the US and other Western countries.