Reflections | Unlike Trump, ancient China embraced foreign students and even made exams easier for them
As China has shown at various periods in its history, the greater a civilisation, the more open and magnanimous it is to foreigners
Foreigners who are thinking of enrolling in American universities are having second thoughts or cancelling their plans outright following President Donald Trump’s attempts to cut funding to Harvard University and block it from enrolling foreign students.
A few months ago, my nephew, an undergraduate at the National University of Singapore, was considering applying to an American university for his exchange programme in 2026.
Now, he is looking at universities in the United Kingdom, Australia and China.
Imperial China’s highest institutes of learning were not just for locals.
For centuries, when China was the civilisational lodestar in the region, people from all over Asia came to study in its universities and try their luck in the famously tough imperial examinations. Some did very well.
To make it easier for foreign candidates, the Tang dynasty government created a special examination category in 627 that was basically a separate track just for foreign scholars.