China’s Student-Exchange Program Urges American Youth to Tell China’s Stories

When Muscatine High School student Emmanuel Garcia-Gomez Jr. returned from China, his praise was published by Beijing’s state media.

“The taste, the feel, the smell, the sights of China really set into picture how good of a place it can be,” Garcia-Gomez told state-run Xinhua News Agency.

Xinhua placed his remarks under the heading “The Real China” in a feature on American participants in Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s “50,000 in Five Years” initiative.

The feature followed a gathering at the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, where students, parents, and educators celebrated the release of a book containing 100 American secondary-school students’ accounts of China.

Principals from 18 Chinese and American schools also signed an agreement to expand school partnerships and establish long-term exchanges.

Official program publications viewed by The Epoch Times document the same progression across the country: subsidized trips, organizer-controlled itineraries, recorded testimonials, and continuing relationships with American schools.

The exchanges are taking place under a one-party regime whose human rights record includes arbitrary detention, torture, forced labor, severe restrictions on expression and religion, and other abuses documented by the U.S. State Department.

The United Nations human rights office found that abuses against Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim groups in Xinjiang may constitute crimes against humanity. The United States has declared these abuses to be genocide.

The FBI has said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seeks to influence American lawmakers and public opinion and targets academic institutions and the public.

U.S. authorities have also charged Chinese officials and agents in cases involving transnational repression against people living in the United States.

An investigation released on Aug. 13 by Defending Education identified 83 American universities and 26 K–12 schools across 30 states as participants in the Chinese Young Envoys Scholarship, or YES.

Xi announced the broader initiative in San Francisco in November 2023, setting a five-year goal of bringing 50,000 young Americans to China.

In May, Xi said more than 50,000 had already visited China under the initiative, meeting the target 2 1/2 years early.

Party-Led Exchange Network

YES is administered by the China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE).

CEAIE’s Chinese-language website says the organization adheres to CCP leadership and is guided by Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, and Xi Jinping Thought. It also says Party activities are incorporated throughout the organization’s operations.

On its English-language website, CEAIE describes itself as a nationwide nonprofit devoted to educational cooperation, international understanding, and friendship. It says it maintains relationships with more than 170 education organizations in more than 50 countries and regions.

The first YES newsletter said the program would draw on Chinese schools and universities to offer short visits, camps, school exchanges, forums, internships, credit-bearing study, and degree programs.

A review by The Epoch Times of all 22 available YES newsletters found hundreds of programs for American and other foreign visitors.

The publications identify participating institutions, itineraries, Chinese hosts, visiting delegations, and selected comments from students and educators. Funding arrangements vary.

City University of Seattle advertised a 2026 trip for which the Chinese host would pay for accommodations, meals, local transportation, and activities. Participants were responsible for airfare and international health insurance, while the Chinese Embassy waived the visa application fee.

Muscatine High School’s first delegation received broader support. The school district said the Chinese regime fully funded the January 2024 trip for 24 students and four educators.

Curated Trips, Published Testimonials

In June 2025, 27 students and teachers from Walter Payton College Preparatory High School in Chicago traveled to Xinjiang.

CEAIE’s account in YES Newsletter Vol. 17 described an itinerary of cultural performances, calligraphy, a promotional video, the Korla Museum, the Tarim Oilfield Exhibition Hall, a smart ranch, a dairy operation, and Heshuo Golden Beach.

The account did not mention the Chinese regime’s mass detention, forced labor, religious repression, coercive birth-control policies, or surveillance of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim groups.

CEAIE published a favorable statement from the Chicago school’s principal thanking the organization and the Chinese hosts.

It also said the American and Chinese schools signed a Friendship Schools Agreement establishing regular exchanges.

In September 2024, nearly 100 teachers and students from more than 10 Washington state high schools visited China at the invitation of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC).

According to YES Newsletter Vol. 9, Xi’s wife, Peng Liyuan, told the students to share their experiences and impressions of China with their “families, friends, and schoolmates” after returning home and pass along the “friendly sentiments of the Chinese people.”

However, the U.S. State Department has described CPAFFC as part of Beijing’s effort to influence state and local leaders and promote the CCP’s global agenda.

Participants in a Zhejiang University leadership program produced videos titled “My Impression of China.”

At its closing ceremony, organizers encouraged them to share what they had witnessed with their communities and tell “authentic and vivid ‘China stories,’” while serving as young ambassadors of cultural exchange, according to YES Newsletter Vol. 17.

Shanghai International Studies University called another group of foreign visitors “Future Experience Officers.”

Journalism students accompanied them as reporters and conducted one-on-one interviews about what they had seen and felt.

A program leader called the project “the best footnote for international communication,” according to Newsletter Vol. 14.

At a 2024 U.S.–China Youth Leaders Dialogue hosted through Peking University, the university’s president urged participants to share their experiences and present a “true, multi-dimensional, and panoramic view of China to the world,” according to Newsletter Vol. 5.

Twenty College of William & Mary students attended a January 2025 program organized through Beijing Normal University.

Sessions covered the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing’s three “global initiatives,” Chinese foreign policy, regional security, and China’s economic reforms.

Newsletter Vol. 13 quoted a William & Mary student describing China as a responsible major power and promising to become an envoy of China–U.S. friendship.

A Franklin College summer exchange program in Hunan Province drew 40 young American participants in 2024. The headline in Newsletter Vol. 8 read, “Telling Chinese Stories in Aid of Rural Revitalization.”

The itinerary included presentations on “targeted poverty alleviation” and “rural revitalization,” two policies associated with Xi.

Students interviewed more than 20 households, and the newsletter said they were “amazed” by the effect of the policies.

It also said participants pledged to promote the village’s tea and handicrafts after returning home.

A Missouri State University delegation visited Alibaba, Hormel Foods, a smart-bed manufacturer, an aquaculture project, and companies using artificial intelligence and livestream commerce.

Newsletter Vol. 15 quoted faculty member Daezia Cymone Smith repeatedly saying, “Tell everyone about the real China.”

It also quoted participants saying they would share accounts of the China they had “touched and felt” with friends and relatives.

Muscatine’s Connection to Xi

Iowa resident Sarah D. Lande’s relationship with Xi helped bring Muscatine students into the program.

Lande hosted a dinner for Xi during his first Iowa visit in 1985, when he was the Communist Party secretary of Zhengding County in Hebei Province.

He returned to her Muscatine home in 2012 as China’s vice president.

In 2013, CPAFFC named Lande an honorary friendship ambassador.

Lande was among 30 American “people-to-people” friends who greeted Xi before his Nov. 15, 2023, dinner in San Francisco, where he announced the “50,000 in Five Years” initiative.

She then wrote to Xi asking that Muscatine students be included.

A Chinese Embassy account said that with Xi’s support, more than 20 Muscatine students traveled to Beijing, Hebei, and Shanghai in January 2024.

“When these kids’ parents hear what they’ve seen and learned, maybe they think, well, let’s try to find some ways to work together or just turn off the negatives and respect China for more than you see in the paper,” Lande told state-run outlet China Daily.

Garcia-Gomez was among the students on the trip.

A later four-week program took eight Muscatine students to China through a partnership between Lande’s organization and Wanxiang America.

Administered with support from the Community Foundation of Greater Muscatine, it included Chinese-language and cultural instruction and renewable energy and sustainability seminars at Wanxiang Polytechnic in Hangzhou.

Muscatine Community School District Superintendent Clint Christopher told The Epoch Times that the four-week program was not sponsored by the district or approved by its Board of Education.

The district therefore did not review the itinerary, supervision, funding, host-family arrangements, safety protocols, or participating organizations, he said.

Christopher said the district entered no agreement, memorandum of understanding, or continuing partnership connected to the program, Wanxiang, or any school or government body in China.

Pin Ni, president of Wanxiang America, told The Epoch Times that the Future Wanxiang Foundation funded expenses incurred on the U.S. side but did not select the students, design the program, or require post-trip activities.

He said the foundation was unaware of Chinese regime involvement.

Continuing School Relationships

Longer-term arrangements have also emerged outside Iowa.

In April 2025, 44 students and teachers from Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland traveled to Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing.

In an Aug. 18, 2025, statement and letter, the chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), said the delegation included students from 12 county high schools and was supported by CEAIE.

The letter said students were interviewed by Xinhua, used WeChat to maintain contact with Chinese students, and wrote to Xi. It said Xi later sent a verbal reply encouraging them to serve as friendship ambassadors.

The letter also said the school system signed memoranda with the Nanshan District Education Bureau, Beijing Academy Education Group, and Beijing No. 10 Middle School Education Group.

Montgomery County Public Schools acknowledged receiving questions from The Epoch Times but had not provided a substantive response by publication time.

A Different Model After Confucius Institutes

The YES expansion follows years of U.S. scrutiny that sharply reduced Beijing’s Confucius Institute network.

The number of Confucius Institutes at American colleges fell from approximately 100 in 2019 to fewer than five, according to a 2023 Government Accountability Office report.

YES operates differently. Instead of placing a Chinese-funded institute on an American campus, it brings American participants into programs hosted in China, where Chinese organizations generally arrange the itineraries, speakers, government contacts, media access, and publicity.

Defending Education described YES as a continuation of Beijing’s efforts to influence American students after most Confucius Institutes closed.

Congressional Scrutiny

Moolenaar’s 2025 statement urged officials in Montgomery County and Des Moines to end partnerships involving CEAIE and CPAFFC.

He said organizations connected to the CCP were using educational exchanges to target American students and described the trips as propaganda and influence operations rather than genuine cultural exchanges.

His letter concerning Des Moines addressed a gospel choir exchange organized by CPAFFC.

The committee said participating students were required to download WeChat, which it described as presenting censorship, surveillance, and data security concerns.

A committee spokesperson told The Epoch Times that the committee had nothing new to share and clarified that the letters did not request documents or records.

The exchanges leave unresolved what kind of review is conducted by participating U.S. schools of foreign sponsors, organizer-controlled itineraries, publicity expectations, data practices, and agreements establishing future relationships.

The Epoch Times contacted CEAIE, Lande, Walter Payton College Prep, Chicago Public Schools, and other schools and districts named in this article for comment.

Apart from the responses from Christopher and Ni and Montgomery County Public Schools’ acknowledgment, no substantive responses had been received by publication time.