Number of Americans studying in mainland China falls sharply, but Chinese students still flock to US

Tallies of Americans studying in Hong Kong and Taiwan recovered slightly after the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the number of American students in mainland China plummeted to the lowest in over a decade, according to new data released on Monday.

Only 211 Americans studied in mainland China during the 2021-22 school year, according to the 2023 version of an annual US government-funded study by the Institute of International Education (IIE). In contrast, from 2018 to 2019, there were more than 11,000 American students in the mainland.