Clouded Vision: The Access Challenge in U.S.-China Scholarship

Last year, when I received an invitation from a U.S.-China joint academic venture to lead a delegation of young scholars and scientists to an international health forum with host-covered expenses, the response was telling. Of the five potential delegates I contacted, two never responded, and while three initially showed enthusiasm, all ultimately declined the invitation within days. With no other options, I declined the invitation.

This case highlights the increasingly challenging atmosphere for conducting academic exchanges between China and the United States. For one thing, air travel between the two countries has become increasingly arduous—not merely due to rising ticket prices, but also because of severely limited direct flight options. The current 89 weekly nonstop flights pale in comparison to the pre-pandemic frequency of 340. A journey that once took 13 hours from the East Coast can now stretch into a 24-hour odyssey with multiple connections.

Safety concerns persist. While serious crimes against foreigners remain rare in China, scholars conducting fieldwork face distinct risks. This becomes particularly concerning in light of the new anti-espionage law, which establishes broad criteria for determining what constitutes state secrets and calls for nationwide mobilization to report suspicious activities. Following Beijing’s release of three U.S. citizens in a prisoner exchange in November 2024, the U.S. State Department lowered China’s travel advisory from level three (“reconsider travel”) to level two (“exercise increased caution”). Some interpret this downgrade as evidence that scholarly exchange can be insulated from political tensions. Critics nevertheless argue that the prisoner swap risks normalizing “hostage diplomacy,” potentially encouraging Beijing to detain more Americans.

Yet attributing these access issues solely to China would be misleading. The challenges also emanate from within the United States itself. Growing pressure from policy circles and broader society has made American scholars and students increasingly hesitant to engage in academic exchanges with China, fearing potential stigma from such associations. Federal funding for China-focused research has declined significantly in recent years, and the Fulbright academic exchange programs with China, suspended during the first Trump administration, remain dormant. As engagement with China has fallen out of favor, China hawks have gained prominence while advocates of exchange find themselves increasingly sidelined. The Justice Department’s now-discontinued China Initiative, which targeted perceived security threats from Beijing and led to several failed prosecutions of U.S.-based academics, has left lasting concerns among scholars. Public sentiment has likewise hardened—a 2024 Pew Research Center survey indicates that for the fifth consecutive year, approximately eight in ten Americans hold unfavorable views of China.

In this oversecuritized environment, American universities are curtailing their China programs, former U.S. government officials are discouraged from Chinese engagement, and American students are steered away from China studies. Some American universities have implemented stricter protocols for faculty participation in Chinese-funded academic activities—such as conference-related expenses like flights, accommodation, and speaking fees—or have banned accepting such support entirely, concerned about losing U.S. government research funding. The amendment and extension of the landmark bilateral science and technology agreement (STA) in December 2024 has substantially narrowed its scope—it now explicitly limits cooperation to government-to-government research in the hard sciences, excluding both non-government research and social sciences that were previously covered. This restriction could further impede U.S.-based scholars’ work in China, as they can no longer rely on either government’s commitment to facilitating access.

These restrictions not only foster self-censorship in China specialists’ publications and public remarks but also alter the calculus of conducting their research. Those conducting in-person interviews in China must exercise extraordinary caution to protect both themselves and their interlocutors. Chinese sources have become increasingly reluctant to engage in one-on-one conversations with foreigners or share data with international colleagues—some due to fears of government scrutiny, others swayed by anti-American sentiment, and many influenced by both factors.

Perhaps more significant, in the face of this thickening information fog, China scholars in the West are increasingly forced to rely on remote analysis and often secondary sources to interpret complex political and social developments from afar. To be sure, open-source intelligence and secondary materials remain valuable tools for remote analysis when physical access to China is constrained. Like earlier analysts who gleaned insights into Chinese leadership thinking through careful study of open sources, researchers today can extract meaningful signals from official media content that reflects CPC preferences and indicates shifts in policy direction. The proliferation of social media platforms—WeChat, Weibo, and Douyin—has also opened new windows into public opinion and social dynamics within China.

Yet the limitations of desk-based research are profound. Reflecting on U.S. Soviet studies two decades after the USSR’s collapse, leading scholars observed that the obsession with Kremlin politics blinded Sovietologists to the agency of Soviet society, preventing them from foreseeing its downfall. As one scholar noted, “in the absence of access to archives, or permission to do in-country fieldwork at that time, there was no scholarly basis for challenging this most fundamental of all aspects of the totalitarian paradigm.” Similarly, without field observations, researchers struggle to test theoretical frameworks against ground-level reality. The neototalitarian model illustrates this dilemma: while it correctly identifies the intensifying state control over society since 2012, it fails to capture the subtle dynamics of resistance and adaptation within Chinese society and how they may influence government decisions.

How can we address this knowledge deficit problem? In my recent New York Times article, “America Is Dangerously Ignorant of What’s Going On in China,” I highlighted the limitations of relying on remote analysis and secondary sources—and the potential harm this poses to U.S. China policy. I also outlined a multi-faceted strategy, including revolutionizing open-source research, rebuilding institutional bridges to restore suspended academic exchanges, protecting legitimate scholarly work, and increasing awareness among political leaders. For a deeper dive, read the full article.