As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its founding, it confronts a new world order dominated by its relationship with China. In this wide-ranging series, we examine the pressure points and possibilities in those ties, from hard tech to soft power. In this article, Jane Cai and Yuanyue Dang examine Chinese people’s changing attitudes towards the US.
As the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary this month – marking its journey from a revolutionary experiment to a global beacon of opportunity – few relationships have mattered more in modern history than the one between America and China.
For generations, the US represented not just a distant power but an aspirational ideal: a land of innovation, individual freedom and boundless possibility that contrasted with China’s own turbulent path through dynastic decline, republican hopes, invasion, revolution and rebirth.
Nowhere is the transformation more vivid than across two generations of Chinese families. Parents who once viewed America as the ultimate destination – a symbol of modernity and escape from scarcity – now have children who approach it with pragmatic respect or detachment, national confidence and sometimes outright scepticism.
What was once emulation has become selective engagement; what was aspiration has shifted towards equality and, in some quarters, rivalry.
“I’ve got such a headache,” said Zhang Mengyao, 48, a former banker in the northern port city of Tianjin. “My daughter doesn’t want to study in the US, even though I’ve made all the preparations for her. I really don’t understand what’s on her mind. I’ve dreamed of this chance my whole life, yet she won’t even consider it.”
Zhang’s frustration runs deep. In the 1990s, as China flung open its doors, her sister landed a coveted job on Wall Street. Videotapes mailed from across the ocean revealed American streets, offices and vibrant city life that moved Zhang to tears in her modest Tianjin bedroom. Fired up by those images of prosperity, she applied for a student visa – only to face three rejections over suspected immigration intent.
For her daughter, a third-year public administration student, the plan was postgraduate study in the US. But the young woman has rejected the idea. She aims to take the civil service exam and aspires to become a foreign ministry spokeswoman – one who can confidently push back against powers such as the US.
Zhang’s story reflects a seismic shift in Chinese perceptions of America: from starry-eyed admiration to a more complex, pragmatic and self-assured stance. As the US approaches its semiquincentennial, this psychological evolution may prove as significant as any trade deal or diplomatic pact.
A century of shared history
For more than a century, the US stood apart in Chinese eyes as a power distinct from, and often less predatory than, European colonial forces.
In the late Qing dynasty (1644-1911), America returned much of its share of the Boxer Indemnities – penalties imposed on the Qing following the Boxer rebellion. These returned funds helped establish institutions including the prestigious Tsinghua University and enabled generations of Chinese students to study in the US.
That schooling shaped a generation of leaders, according to Rana Mitter, S.T. Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School.
“American education was central to shaping the views of the elites of the Republican era,” he said. “Even for many who did not go to America, American education in China was central to shaping their wider understanding of the world.”
The US was the first Western power to recognise the Republic of China in 1911. Chinese intellectuals praised American ideals, and the US-China wartime alliance against Japan in World War II, including the Flying Tigers pilots, cemented bonds of shared sacrifice.
Later, Cold War hostilities gave way to Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s “reform and opening up”. The Deng-era slogan “to get rich is glorious” aligned with the American dream.
Hollywood, the NBA, Starbucks and American universities became emblems of the future. Tens of thousands of Chinese students flocked to American campuses. For that generation, the US embodied progress.
Today, younger Chinese often have limited exposure to this rich shared history, which was once a source of affinity, according to a historian at a university in Jiangsu province who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.
He said Generation Z, those born roughly between 1997 and 2012, generally had “scant interest in digging into the details of past Sino-US ties”, and this history was given modest coverage in China’s textbooks.
Official narratives around events such as last year’s 80th anniversary of Victory Day increasingly cast China as the main bastion against fascism in Asia, and portray the West as neglecting or downplaying this contribution.
The historian said that while there continued to be gestures of respect and people-to-people warmth, such as invitations to Flying Tigers veterans and their families by President Xi Jinping, the broader framing positioned China as “an equal partner rather than a pupil”.
The wartime partnership ran deep both ways, according to Mitter. “Without China’s resistance until 1941, Japan might have conquered Asia,” he said.
“However, without the US bringing finance and materiel to China, China could not have defeated Japan on its own.”
Mitter said the relationship “became warm and deep in many ways during the war”. In recent years, as ties have soured, “that history is less well-remembered than it used to be – but there are good reasons to recall the period when the two worked together”, he added.
From ‘sea turtles’ to self-reliance
Many of China’s reform-era elites were “sea turtles” – citizens who returned home after living and studying abroad.
Figures such as former vice-premier Liu He, who earned a master’s degree in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, and former central banker Yi Gang, who holds a PhD from the University of Illinois, brought back advanced ideas in economics, finance, management and governance.
Liu, one of Xi’s most trusted confidants, was in charge of a huge portfolio – from China’s hi-tech drive to state enterprise reforms and broader industrial policies – until his retirement from all official positions in the government and the Communist Party in 2023. Despite his retirement, he is still regularly consulted on important financial and economic affairs – particularly on issues related to the US.
From 2018 to 2023, Yi led financial reforms and debt reduction while maintaining a prudent monetary stance as governor of the People’s Bank of China. Yi was also responsible for raising China’s profile on the global stage and continuing its opening to the world. He is unusual among Chinese bureaucrats in that he earned his doctorate in economics in the US and taught the subject at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. He worked at the institution for about eight years before returning to China in 1994 and has called the university his “second home”.
For decades, China learned from other countries, adapting technologies and models while often playing catch-up. In the early 1990s, China’s nominal gross domestic product (GDP) was roughly 5 to 10 per cent of America’s. In recent years, it has reached around 65 per cent. This transformation has reshaped global dynamics and prompted Washington to view China as a systemic challenger.
China’s economic ascent has fuelled domestic confidence. Having gone through a copycat phase, the country is now a leader in electric vehicles, high-speed rail, 5G and artificial intelligence (AI). Home-grown tech giants such as Huawei Technologies and online platforms including Douyin offer alternatives. Public sentiment has shifted accordingly.
Over 70 per cent of 2,083 Chinese adults surveyed in 2021 had “unfavourable feelings” towards the US, according to a research paper published in the April 2023 issue of the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs. In contrast, just 17 per cent of Chinese respondents reported having unfavourable feelings towards the US in 2019, according to a study conducted by the Eurasia Group.
This dramatic rise in animosity over just two years was highlighted in the 2023 paper by Adam Liu of the National University of Singapore, Xiaojun Li of the University of British Columbia and Songying Fang of Rice University. They found that compared with the older generation, younger Chinese survey respondents were less likely to express positive feelings towards the US. In addition, more “nationalistic respondents” and party members viewed the US less favourably.
When US President Donald Trump blamed China for the Covid-19 pandemic and repeatedly called it the “China virus”, his rhetoric fuelled a surge in nationalism in China and reinforced the widespread perception that the US had mismanaged the crisis.
Meanwhile, the trade war and technological restrictions imposed by Washington have prompted Beijing to respond in kind, intensifying its focus on supply-chain security and the development of home-grown technology.
The end of history?
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, Chinese families have become far more pragmatic. According to Jason Zhu, a Beijing-based overseas study consultant, seminars that were once packed with anxious parents planning undergraduate studies in the US are now half-empty.
“Many now prefer to keep their children in domestic universities. They believe in China’s bright future and worry about safety and stability in the US,” Zhu said.
While China remains the largest source of undergraduate international students in the US, the numbers have dropped sharply. Undergraduate enrolment from China fell around 10 per cent year over year to around 78,583 in the 2024-25 academic year, down from its peak of 148,900 in the 2018-19 academic year.
Zhu said multiple forces were at work, including the trade wars, technology export controls, bitter debates over the origins of Covid-19 and vivid images of American political chaos, inequality and social division.
The economic insecurity facing ordinary Americans was highlighted in the “kill line” meme on Chinese social media, which featured stories of how a single illness, accident or job loss could push people into poverty. The online trend, whose name comes from video game slang, helped shatter illusions about life in the US.
“Also, parents, many of them being civil servants, believe in the state media narrative of ‘Eastern rise, Western decline’,” he said. “I’m now considering scaling down my business.”
This framing, promoted since around 2020, portrays China and Asia as ascending while the West, led by the US, faces decline.
“Beijing today retains many of the instincts of a vulnerable power even though in reality it is a very strong power,” said Harvard’s Mitter.
He said that the China of today had “much more agency than in the past and could be more confident about coexisting with the US in Asia and beyond”. This, he added, was “what most other Asian countries would take as the best legacy of the war era”.
As China continues to thrive, Western observers are rethinking old assumptions about the country’s future, which has buoyed Beijing’s confidence.
American political scientist Francis Fukuyama, long a champion of liberal democracy and author of the “end of history” thesis, has offered a more nuanced assessment of China’s system.
In recent interviews, he acknowledged that China had created “a pretty impressive system” that had proved highly effective at marshalling new technologies and innovating in areas once thought beyond its reach.
Fukuyama contrasted this with American democracy, which sometimes appears to be stumbling, noting that he was reconsidering some of his earlier assumptions about the inevitability of the triumph of Western-style democracy.
Mitter remains wary of both narratives. “America and China tell apocalyptic stories about each other – either that the other one wants to dominate the world, or that one of them is about to decline or collapse,” he said.
“Actually, both powers will have to live with each other for a very long time to come. Apocalyptic stories rarely come true.”
New pragmatism, new anxieties
Li Yuelin, a university student in the southern province of Guangdong, exemplifies the new pragmatism of the younger generation.
“I’d still love to study cutting-edge technology in the US and hopefully land a Silicon Valley job, but attractive, high-paying opportunities in Shenzhen or Hangzhou make staying home an equally strong choice,” Li said. “Many of my fellow [computer science] majors think the same way.”
Zhang’s daughter, Wang Yiyi, prioritises stability and the conveniences of life in China rather than trying her luck in the US.
“If that path [being a civil servant] doesn’t work out, I would consider a stint in Hong Kong,” Wang said.
“It would give me some international exposure before going to Beijing or Shanghai to look for a job. If I cannot find a job, as the competition is cutthroat nowadays, I would like to enjoy a comfortable ‘lying flat’ life back home with my parents’ support,” she said.
“Lying flat” is a popular slang term among Chinese youth that refers to a conscious rejection of intense societal pressure to strive, compete and achieve.
Instead of chasing the conventional path of relentless hard work, home ownership and career success, many young people are choosing to do the bare minimum necessary to get by – essentially “lying flat” and living a low-desire, low-stress life.
“Rather than stressing over high-stakes opportunities in the US, I’m happy just exploring the world through my screen at home. After seeing all those viral cost-of-living comparisons on [social media platform] RedNote last year, I realised we can actually enjoy a much lower-stress, lower-cost life in China,” she said.
Xi has taken a firm stance against the “lying flat” mindset, repeatedly urging young Chinese to contribute actively to national rejuvenation. In official discourse, the Chinese leader has explicitly called for avoiding “lying flat”, a passive attitude he views as incompatible with the country’s ambitions for greatness.
“The United States was built on the idea of America,” said Xu Guoqi, the David H.Y. Chang Professor of Chinese History at the University of Hong Kong.
“The Chinese have never thought about the idea of China in a big way. We need a deep soul-searching: What do we mean by China? Who are the Chinese? What do we want to be?” he said. “Just as the Americans did in 1787 with their constitution.”
Wang Yuanchong, associate professor of history at the University of Delaware, said: “The year 1900 was a turning point. For China, it marked the Boxer rebellion and the Boxer Indemnity; for the United States, the [American] civil war had ended, ushering in an era of reconstruction and the Gilded Age, a period of steady growth.”
“Back then, the United States faced the challenge of shaping itself based on European experience; today, China faces the challenge of preserving its identity amid globalisation,” he added.
“From this perspective, the two are similar.” -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
