The China-US Fulbright Program

The Fulbright Program is the largest and most acclaimed international exchange program in the world. As a part of this world-wide program, the China-U.S. Fulbright Program is an official educational exchange between the People’s Republic of China and the United States "to provide opportunities for cooperation and exchange in educational fields based on equality, reciprocity and mutual benefit." Under the program’s auspices, Chinese and American educators, researchers, professionals and students pursue study, research and teaching in each other’s countries.

"The lotus plants in the lake on Nankai’s campus fascinated me. . . I found lotus on many university campuses. Why? They symbolize the ability to rise from the lowest of circumstances to great heights. Somehow, they grow in the muddy, dirty and often polluted waters to produce the cleanest, purest and most beautiful blossoms."

-Kendall Taylor, Director, Artbank, and Visiting Fulbright Lecturer at Nankai University, 1998-1999

History of the Fulbright Program in China

The Fulbright Program, designed to promote mutual understanding between the United States and the rest of the world, resulted from legislation sponsored by Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946. Fulbright's ambitious goal was to prevent the recurrence of the devastation that he had seen in Europe and Asia through an educational exchange program that would widen the world's intelligence. From a modest program that brought 35 students and a single professor to the United States in 1948 and sent 65 Americans abroad, the Fulbright Program has grown into a global effort with some 4,400 grantees from the U.S. and 140 other countries participating yearly. To date, approximately a quarter of a million people have taken part in Senator Fulbright’s vision. Funding for the program comes from an annual appropriation made by Congress and participating governments. Host institutions, both in the U.S. and abroad, contribute through cost-sharing, salary supplements, tuition waivers and university housing.

China was among the first countries to participate in the new Fulbright Program, when a Fulbright accord was signed by the then Nationalist Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Shiqie and American Ambassador J. Leighton Stuart on November 10, 1947. By August 1949, 27 American scholars and students and 24 Chinese students and scholars had taken part in the exchange. The program was suspended in 1949 when the People’ Republic of China was established. Upon normalization of U.S.-China relations in 1979, the Fulbright program was revived as part of the official exchange relationship under the general U.S.-China agreement on cooperation in science and technology.

After thirty years without contact between the Chinese and American academic communities, the early years of the Fulbright lecturer program focused on English teaching, American literature and history at four institutions in Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai. At that time China's drive for modernization was the main engine powering its educational exchange programs with the U.S.: nearly all were aimed at the acquisition of western technology and scientific expertise. To balance and broaden the exchange, the American Lecturer Program and the Chinese Research Program, in 1983, were formally dedicated to advancing American Studies, as that discipline is defined by Chinese academia, including American approaches to history, literature, law, journalism, business, economics, political science, sociology, philosophy and international relations. Since then, the program has expanded to include more than twenty-five institutions throughout the country, most of them universities under the direct jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. Current funding levels support the exchange of approximately twenty American lecturers and twenty Chinese research scholars and graduate students each year.

While the American lecturer program and Chinese scholar and student programs focus on American studies, other programs including two new additions to the Fulbright program support Chinese studies. 1.) The Asian Scholar-in-Residence Program which supports Chinese lecturers invited by American universities and 2.) the Recent Graduates Program, added in the fall of 1999, and the fellowships for graduate student and faculty research, will be added in the fall of 2000. One other U.S. Government-sponsored program supporting Chinese studies is the U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays exchanges for doctoral research and American faculty development in Chinese studies.

Administration of the Fulbright Program in China

The Fulbright Program in China operates under the auspices of the Protocol Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the People's Republic of China for Cooperation on Educational Exchanges, whose objective is "to provide opportunities for cooperation and exchange in education fields based on equality, reciprocity and mutual benefit." The program is jointly administered by the Educational Exchange Office of the U.S. Embassy and the Department for International Cooperation and Exchange in the Ministry of Education.

The Chinese Scholarship Council, an organization affiliated with the Ministry, assists in the recruitment of Chinese participants for the program and the placement of American grantees at Chinese institutions. The Council for International Exchange of Scholars assists with the recruitment of American scholars and placement of Chinese scholars at American universities while the Institute for International Education assists with the recruitment of American students and the placement of Chinese students at American universities.