In young hands

New generations can strengthen foundation for Sino-US relationship based on respect, fairness and reciprocity

China and the United States are building a constructive relationship of strategic stability based on respect, fairness and reciprocity, a consensus both sides affirmed at the summit meetings in Washington last month, strengthening the new positioning established at the May summit in Beijing. China's invitation to 100,000 young people of the United States to visit for exchange and study over the next five years underscores the broader significance of people-to-people ties. By giving a new generation first-hand experience of everyday life in China, these visits can deepen understanding of the two countries' societies, histories and development paths. In this way, youth exchanges can strengthen the social foundations of bilateral stability and place the future of China-US relations in young hands.

This summer, eight students from Muscatine, Iowa, spent four weeks in China. They experienced daily life with host families and attended seminars and workshops on Chinese language, culture and clean energy at Wanxiang Polytechnic in Hangzhou. Giovani Ocampo, who was making his second visit to China, joined discussions with Chinese students about Hangzhou's approach to green development and witnessed the city's energy transition. Such close contact gave the students a true and multi-dimensional view of China.

The visit is a seed for future growth. The broader role of youth exchanges can be traced across successive phases of the bilateral relationship. At the 1971 World Table Tennis Championships, Chinese player Zhuang Zedong and US player Glenn Cowan met by chance on the Chinese team's bus. Their encounter became a memorable episode on the road to diplomatic ties. In 1986, the Hopkins-Nanjing Center gave joint education an institutional home. Today, the China-US Young Maker Competition carries that tradition into innovation, with 13 editions held since 2014.

The lasting value of youth exchanges lies not simply in better impressions today, but in the capacity for cooperation that one generation can pass to the next. Understanding different development paths, sharing knowledge about the digital economy, pursuing joint innovation and involving wider communities are complementary ways of advancing the two peoples' aspirations for a better future.

Youth exchanges can illuminate different paths to modernization, giving substance to harmony without uniformity. Hawaii and Hainan province, both island regions, have followed different institutional paths but share the goals of greater openness, connectivity, service diversification and resilience. Hawaii's tourism growth benefited from jet travel and rising incomes in the US and Japan. Hainan's progression from a special economic zone to a free trade port reflects the deepening of China's reform and opening-up, with island-wide special customs operations beginning on Dec 18, 2025. Its 2026 work report sets out plans to widen access to service industries.

In July, a dozen students and teachers from Hawaii's Maryknoll and Campbell high schools visited Haikou and Sanya cities in Hainan. Comparing these experiences can help young people understand how openness serves development under different historical and institutional conditions.

Youth exchanges can also draw on Gen Z's digital creativity to promote mutual learning and cultural creation. On TikTok, the playful "Becoming Chinese" trend has young users abroad sharing videos about drinking boiled water and practicing baduanjin, one of the most ancient forms of Chinese  qigong. The same curiosity carried Darren Watkins Jr, known online as IShowSpeed, through his first China tour in 2025: backflips on the Great Wall, kung fu drills at Shaolin, electric vehicles and a livestream that never dropped inside a high-speed train tunnel. By Sept 29, the first five livestreams from his China trip had drawn 41.9 million views on YouTube. Digital platforms lower the cost of sharing such experiences, allowing young people to contribute to cross-cultural understanding as creators, not simply as audiences.

Youth exchanges can build capacity for shared innovation at the technological frontier. Young people are not only consumers of new technology but also its creators, bringing complementary skills to shared problems. AI opens new possibilities for such cooperation. At Dartmouth College and Peking University's School of Software and Microelectronics, engineering management programs combine technical study with management education, reflecting a shared need to connect scientific advances with practical applications. The 2026 China-US Young Maker Competition has brought 120 teams and more than 500 young innovators to its final. A team from Tsinghua University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign ranked first with a handheld ultrasound project designed to assist diagnosis using AI. Such projects draw on expertise across institutions to address common needs. They can also develop the skills and working relationships that sustain innovation beyond a single competition.

Youth exchanges cannot remove all disagreements, but they can help sustain the relationships through which those disagreements are understood and addressed. The task is to turn this potential into a lasting contribution to respect, fairness and reciprocity between the two countries, through three practical priorities.

First, strengthening mutual respect by bringing young people's perspectives into bilateral dialogue and global economic governance. This year's APEC Youth Scholars Forum in Shenzhen brought together young scholars from 13 member economies. Future world and regional forums could provide more opportunities for youth to discuss development, innovation and the challenges their generation will inherit. The purpose is to understand different national circumstances and identify common interests, giving mutual respect a practical basis.

Second, advancing fairness by expanding youth cooperation in the industries of the future. Universities and businesses can support young engineers and entrepreneurs in forming joint teams and bringing new technologies from the laboratory to the market. Partnerships in AI, clean energy and advanced manufacturing can pool complementary strengths and respond to both countries' development needs. Fair opportunities to participate and benefit would give both societies a greater stake in cooperation.

Third, advancing reciprocity by enabling young people to share scientific knowledge and explore the unknown side by side. From school science projects to university partnerships, Chinese and US students can frame research questions together and contribute to openly available research. Both countries can facilitate two-way educational exchanges while addressing legitimate concerns, so that opportunities to learn and contribute flow in both directions.

Young people are a constructive force in China-US relations. Giving them room to learn across differences, test ideas together and sustain partnerships beyond a single visit can build both the capacity to cooperate and the confidence to do so. The future is in young hands.

The author is a researcher at the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn.