During his visit to the U.S. in November 2023, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping announced in San Francisco that China would invite 50,000 American youths to visit China for “exchange and study.”
Two students from Duke University shared their experiences after participating in a CCP-organized exchange camp last summer. Kyle Abrahm said, “Every city we visited had some kind of innovation museum. When you walked into these museums, they were spotless, and besides the tour guides, we were the only people there. That’s when I started to feel that everything was artificially staged and controlled because we didn’t actually experience any real cultural exchange. What we got was exactly what the regime wants to show us.” He added, “The guides always talked about China’s strengths, China’s resilience, and China’s innovation: ‘Look at what we are doing,’ and they constantly compared their data to the U.S. It all felt like they were trying to say, ‘This is how we are beating the U.S.’”
Matthew Rodriguez recounted an incident during a discussion at the Kunshan Chinese Opera Museum. An American student raised a question about Shen Yun Performing Arts, a group whose performers are mainly practitioners of Falun Gong that showcases traditional Chinese culture predating the CCP’s rule. (Editor’s Note: the CCP has been persecuting Falun Gong for 26 years since 1999.) The Chinese hosts quickly avoided the sensitive topic, which then led to an argument at the event.
Source: Epoch Times, March 10, 2025
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/25/3/10/n14454651.htm