Number of US students in China has plunged in wake of COVID curbs

The number of Americans studying in China has plummeted, falling to just 700 - down from 15,000 six or seven years ago, U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns told a seminar at the Brookings Institution in December 2023. "Last year we were down to 350 American students in all of China," he said. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko said during a visit to China in December that his country currently has 100 educational programs running in China, and has set up 27 joint-venture educational institutions affiliated with Chinese universities. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said in May 2023 that there were 7,500 Russian students in China at the time of his visit. "In the first decade of the 2000s, a lot of American students felt that there were actually a lot of opportunities in China, not just learning the language," Yang said. "Some people said that a lot of students wanted to learn about China so that they could go do business, and then the business climate became more complicated," Mertha said. "I have colleagues in Hong Kong who ... are nervous about crossing the border and try to avoid doing so," he said, citing a "Tiny number" of cases where foreign students have been detained, harassed or prosecuted by the authorities in recent years, and adding that he doesn't think the risk is high enough to warrant deserting China for Taiwan.