英语新闻丨Key role seen for education exchanges

People-to-people exchanges, especially educational ones, play a key role in the bigger picture of United States-China relations, and sometimes the events with the most impact "occur quietly", said an expert on Sino-US educational cooperation.中美教育合作专家表示，人文交流特别是教育交流在中美关系大局中发挥着关键作用，有时影响深远的事件反而会“悄然发生”。"I'm hopeful that as we continue the dialogue in 2024, we will see even more progress that will help to sustain and support the continuation of educational exchanges and cooperation between the two countries," said Denis Simon, a distinguished fellow at the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies, in an interview with China Daily.华盛顿中美研究所杰出研究员丹尼斯·西蒙(Denis Simon)在接受《中国日报》时采访表示：“我希望，2024年的持续对话能带来更多进展，这将有助于支持和助力两国教育交流与合作”。Simon most recently served as a clinical professor of global business and technology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School. He also was vice-president and executive vice-chancellor of Duke Kunshan University, a joint venture of Duke University in the US, Wuhan University in Hubei province and the city of Kunshan, Jiangsu province, from 2015 to 2020.西蒙最近担任北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校凯南-弗拉格勒商学院全球商业和技术临床教授。2015年至2020年，他还担任美国杜克大学、湖北省武汉大学和江苏省昆山市合资的昆山杜克大学副校长兼常务副校长。Simon emphasized the role of exchanges in overall US-China relations. "If we can maintain the progress and maintain the discussion, I'm hopeful that the education relationship can insulate itself to some degree from these larger problems," he said.西蒙强调了交流在整个美中关系中的作用。他说：“如果交流能持续推进下去，两国间教育关系能够一定程度上免受更大问题的影响。”"Sometimes these kinds of people-to-people diplomacy occur quietly. They're not accompanied by a lot of fanfare and noise, but they accomplish a great deal," he said.他说：“有时这种民间外交会悄然进行。阵仗虽不大，但会取得大成果。”Simon said the first post-COVID US-China Higher Education Dialogue, held in New York in September, was "extremely successful".The event, co-hosted by the Institute of International Education and the China Education Association for International Exchange, involved about 15 Chinese universities and a similar number of US universities.西蒙表示，今年9月在纽约举行的新冠疫情后首届中美高等教育对话“非常成功”。此次活动由国际教育协会和中国教育国际交流协会共同主办，涉及约15所中国大学和约15所美国大学。"The discussions covered every aspect of the bilateral education relationship", including undergraduate education, graduate education, university research collaboration and also policy issues like visa issues that are affecting the bilateral education exchange, Simon said."I think that we can keep talking and have dialogues like this and have them conducted in such an open and frank way. That gives me great hope," he said, adding that relations involving education are still in a "transitional phase".西蒙说，“讨论涵盖了双边教育关系的各个方面”，包括本科教育、研究生教育、大学研究合作以及影响双边教育交流的签证问题等政策问题。我认为中美可以继续进行这样的对话交流，并一以贯之如此开放和坦诚的风格。这给了我很大的希望，但不可否认，中美两国的教育关系仍处于“过渡阶段”。"We've gone from a height of having 370,000 Chinese students in the US before COVID, and now we're down to about 289,000," Simon said,"we're starting to see some recovery, of course, in this post-COVID era. But it's yet unclear whether or not we're going to go back to the good old days of… big numbers wanting to come to the United States."西蒙说：“新冠疫情爆发之前，在美国留学的中国学生人数最多为37万人，现在已降至28.9万人左右。当然，在后新冠时代，已经呈现一定复苏。但目前还不清楚我们是否会回到过去的美好时光，不确定是否还会有大量人想要来到美国”。On the other hand, the number of US students in China "is really limited", he said, noting that the number peaked at about 15,000 around 2011, while by 2022 it was around 400. "The ability of our two countries to understand one another really does depend on the young people who are crossing the Pacific, learning about each other's cultures and countries, learning to speak the languages," he said.另一方面，他表示，在中国的美国留学生人数“确实有限”，该数值于 2011年左右达到峰值，约为15,000人，而到2022年，仅有400人左右。但两国互相理解很大程度上正是依靠这些漂洋过海去到对方国家的年轻人，他们学习对方国家的语言、学习了解彼此的国家和文化都能极大促进两国互相理解。"And if they don't achieve that, then the United States, in particular, is going to suffer because we will not have a generation of professionals, whether they're in business, government or academia, who have a deep understanding of the situation in China, and that does not bode well for the long term," he added.“如果他们做不到这一点，美国会尤其遭受损失，因为美国会失去一大批对在经济、政治、学术方面对中国国情有深入了解的专业人士，从长远来看这可不是好兆头。During the November summit between President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden in San Francisco, Xi said that China was ready to invite 50,000 young people from the US to participate in exchange and study programs in China over the next five years.Simon said it was "a wonderful gesture" by China's president.Because I think he, too, realizes, as do many, many of my Chinese friends, that Americans need to have access to China and need to have an experience living and working with Chinese counterparts.""And now there's a whole new generation of students who want to study China in terms of its global role," Simon said. "That means they want to understand more about China's environment policy, China's health policy, China's policies about food security, and all sorts of things that influence the way China interfaces with the rest of the world."西蒙说：“与过去不同，美国的新一代学生对中国在全球发展中扮演角色很感兴趣，因此想进一步了解中国的环境政策、卫生政策、粮食安全政策，以及影响中国与世界其他国家交往方式的各种事情。”peak英/piːk/  美/piːk/n.山峰，顶峰；v.达到顶峰