Harvard group has unforgettable China experience

Liu Xi

First Person - Liu Xi

I studied at Harvard Kennedy School from 2013 to 2015. While I was in Kennedy school, I always got questions like this: look at cities like Beijing and Shanghai, their infrastructure are even better than New York and London. Chinese spent so much money on luxury goods overseas. Why China still identifies itself as developing country and applies funding from international organizations?

People have wrong perceptions about China more or less. However, this bias is not from the difference in ideology, but from the partial fact they received from media and other resources. Thus, I want to offer them a real China, both good part and bad part, and the Chinese thinking behind it. That's the reason why I organized Harvard China Trek.

China is big, how to introduce China to my foreign students within a week is a hard task. After careful design, I came up with four topics: political situation and stability; the rising private sectors and its influence on society; the rising NGOs and social power; Chinese history and Chinese attitude towards the history (if you don't know what China has gone through in the past 150 years, you can hardly understand some decisions made by Chinese government). Under this framework, I want to tell my classmates: what happens in China everyday? Why it is hard for China to copy the western system?

China is big. During the whole trip, I tried my best to let my classmates understand the complexity of China. Yes, we have cities like Beijing and Shanghai; however, we also have 900 million farmers who live in rural countries.

We have the China Wall, however, we also have young students who try to raise their voice and make some changes. These students will be the future leader in their professional industry and I believe that we will benefit a lot in the future if they can establish an objective view of China from now.

Liu Xi, starter of World Youth Development Forum, organizer of Harvard China Trek 2016.