Before COVID-19 vaccines were developed and distributed, China’s strict approach to controlling the virus resulted in fewer deaths and a much lower death rate per million people than in many other countries. But while these successes were impressive in late 2020 and early 2021, effective vaccines and treatments have become readily available since then, leading the World Health Organization to declare that the end of the pandemic is in sight.

The 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of China recently concluded, and with Xi Jinping entering his third term with a Politburo Standing Committee of allies, the stage is set for coherent leadership over the next five years.

The last few years have shown us that it’s perhaps more important than ever to take the time to seek out truth before jumping to conclusions about complicated issues. Some scholars like Jeffrey Sachs are asking the hard questions to find the truth - and they shouldn’t be scrutinized or discredited when some of their conclusions overlap with Beijing.

The now ceased-China Initiative ushered in the resurgence of questioning the loyalty of foreign scientists and scholars. And similar to past outcomes, the U.S. has lost many brilliant minds that were working to contribute to the global good at our companies and universities.

U.S. and Chinese officials have grown accustomed to barbed exchanges in the public forum. It would seem that the minds of the two nations are diverging to opposing extremes. While a U.S.-China schism is undeniable, the world of academia is operating at a different wavelength than their government counterparts.

Not all conflict can be avoided through better understanding, but promoting cultural exchange is a great place to start mending relations. And as China-U.S. relations spiral, promoting study abroad opportunities, many seeking to return to normal after the pandemic, is perhaps more important than ever before.

Given the credibility problem of colonial powers, allegations about Chinese “genocide” in boarding school education are not worth a dime. The central government deserves praise, not slander, for ensuring the right to education in rural areas of Tibet and elsewhere.

The news of Shinzo Abe’s assassination rocked the world for a brief moment, and opened the doors for some unseemly reactions from China’s public, but within the context of Sino-Japanese history one may have expected worse.

A great deal of America’s public diplomacy can be traced back to the government, so why is there such a stigma about Confucius Institutes?

Twenty-five years on from Hong Kong’s handover to China, the special administrative region undoubtedly still has a role to play still in mediating Sino-American relations.