During the first round of Presidential debates in April 2007, then Senator Barack Obama, in referring to China, said, “They're neither our enemy nor our friend. They're competitors.” Of course, President Obama could not have known that, far from the glow of the campaign floodlights, two of those competitors -- Chinese students in an internship in Washington, D.C. -- were in fact promoting the democratic process and had actually campaigned for Obama in Philadelphia.

Jason Sun and Lenna Chen were interning at The Washington Center in a U.S.-China Bilateral Trade program, sponsored by the Boeing Company. This exercise in civic engagement was just one of many of the internships that students could take part in during their spare time. Other options included participating in the Republican or Democratic National Conventions, volunteering at local schools, and joining the fight against cancer by helping to raise funds.

In commenting on his experience, Sun said he felt that he had “opened a door” to the secrets of American society, something he never could have learned from a textbook. “The advantage of the American political system, based on what I saw, is that it empowers people and facilitates people who are eager to make a difference,” he explained. “It's always been tempting for students from mainland China, a country long described by the U.S. media as a dictatorship, to experience an American presidential election and democracy.”

As part of their work, the students found themselves staying at a YMCA branch in West Philadelphia and, to their surprise, found that many local volunteers would be joining them. “We were really excited about the trip to Philadelphia, especially because we would get a chance to see how Americans take part in politics,” Sun said. In the process, they met a variety of characters, from a single mom spending her own money to support the campaign, and two street actors from New York, to Richard, a public service consultant, and Paul, an independent social development advisor.

These people exuded “enormous enthusiasm for this election”, Sun said, noting that he was amazed to learn that Richard and Paul, who were from Maryland, were giving up their weekends to drive to Philadelphia on behalf of Senator Obama to get more voters involved.

To add to the color, the trip was completely devoid of luxuries. According to Sun, “We had to sleep in the corner of a basketball court in sleeping bags.” Still, these austere conditions didn’t dampen the students’ enthusiasm. In fact, they met one social worker who arrived in Philadelphia in the middle of the night after a two-hour bus ride from New York. Other folks, when asked why they cared about the campaign, said that politics would influence their lives and that they needed to participate in order to have a voice.

At campaign headquarters, the students couldn’t believe their eyes: there were crowds of people running around organizing, distributing brochures, collecting forms, and gathering some initial data from volunteer workers. The students were given instructions and told to knock on every door in a certain neighborhood as a grass-roots outreach effort. A local coordinator emphasized that they needed to cover as many households as possible.

“We were expected to find out whether the households had any first-time voters and to remind those people of the documents they would need to present at the polling location,” Sun went on to explain. In addition, they needed to make sure that the residents knew the location of the nearest polling station and to see whether they needed a ride to it on voting day.

Finally, Sun and a fellow intern, Vladimir Sturza, from California State University Long Beach, set out on their grass-roots adventure. It took a total of four hours for them to complete their household visits. The conclusion? “We met very interesting people,” Sun enthused, “and I was able to make a comparison between Chinese and U.S. students in terms of the way they express their patriotism and get involved in politics and change their country.”

Meanwhile, Chen was feeling equally excited about this chance to encounter ordinary Americans and to see their drive and enthusiasm for the election: “We knocked on hundreds of doors and talked to people,” soliciting opinions about the candidates and encouraging them to vote. “Many were very passionate, even though some were not exactly clear about what voting involved, such as the need to bring an ID with them to the polling station.”

She also noticed that some people were quite indifferent about politics in spite of the abundance of information on the presidential race. “One lady we spoke with on the street even asked us, with a completely innocent expression on her face, what would happen to her if she didn’t vote. We were a bit shocked, but explained that nothing would happen, except that, if she didn’t express an opinion by voting for a candidate she liked, she would have to accept someone else’s choice as president, maybe someone whose policies would be bad for her and her family. She looked as if she had learned the importance of voting and began asking us to explain the differences between the candidates.”

“What struck me most, after taking part in all this, was not just the scale but also the depth of my American colleagues’ sense of participation. It was beyond my imagination,” Sun chimed in.

In an interview with a local U.S. newspaper, he had expressed his frustration over the fact that there was no grass-roots awareness in China about empowering people generally by getting them involved in contributing to the nation. “The government should create more platforms for people who really care about China to be able to share their ideas on how to govern in a better way,” he concluded.

At the same time, Chen felt that she was able to see that “Americans are striving for change.” She also felt that by participating, “we ourselves made a real difference by encouraging people to vote.”

Her conclusion was that “as more people realize the value of voting, the better a country’s political system can be.” For her, “essentially, democracy boils down to the fact that everybody has the right and uses the right to express his or her own political ideas.”


The United States-China Bilateral Trade Internship Program

Last year, the first group of Chinese and U.S. students traveled to Washington, D.C. to take part in The Washington Center internship program, sponsored by Boeing. It focused on analyzing bilateral trade issues relevant to China and the U.S. Its main purpose was to expose participants to various aspects of U.S.-China trade and to teach them responsibility and prepare them for leadership roles by developing 21st century skills. By engaging American and Chinese students in a dialogue on foreign policy, trade and economic issues, The Washington Center was able to emphasize the importance of its “three pillars”: professional development, leadership and civic engagement.

By all analyses, the program was a tremendous success. Students had internships with various government agencies, businesses, and NGOs in Washington, D.C. These included the U.S. Department of Commerce, Merrill Lynch, CSIS, the Atlantic Council and The Nixon Center. Each Monday, they took part in special activities organized by The Center. Among the many speakers were Ambassador Alan Holmer, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Special Envoy for China and the Strategic Economic Dialogue, Thomas Pickering, former U.S. Ambassador to China, Shephard Hill, president of Boeing International, and Dr. Charles Freeman of CSIS.

One of the Chinese students gave this view of the events: “This was a one-time opportunity, and I wanted to see and absorb everything about the United States.” Another student added: “We are going to think it all over back in China. There were so many interesting ideas that could be replicated in various parts of our lives.”

The internships helped Chinese students to challenge existing perceptions and to re-evaluate the importance of the U.S.-China dialogue. In the words of one American student, “While the internship was extremely important for me, I believe that living together with Chinese students was this project’s greatest value!”

When I asked the students to identify the best thing about the U.S. and China, their answers actually surprised me, with many Americans expressing admiration for the collective spirit of the Chinese. “They’re always together, whether they’re going to lunch or dinner or out on a shopping tour,” noted Sturza. “Sometimes I really wanted to see the same spirit among us Americans.”

For their part, the Chinese students were unanimous in their belief that the American dream and American lifestyle were for real, and were tangible and achievable. They said they enjoyed the American freedom and the free press in spite of their frequent disagreements with American media views on China.