Editor's note: March 2023 marks the 10th anniversary when the concept of "Community with a Shared Future for Mankind" was first introduced by China. To commemorate this occasion, CGTN is working with the Institute for a Community with Shared Future, Communication University of China, to invite researchers specialized in the field from around the world to share their visions. Anthony Moretti is an associate professor at the Department of Communication and Organizational Leadership at Robert Morris University. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

For all human beings, there are policies and people we favor, and we often find ourselves confidently speaking out in support of the things in which we believe.

For me, higher education, and more specifically the incredible power it has to shape the future of the people who graduate from college, is an item you can always find me discussing in positive terms.

Higher education has long been a global phenomenon. Students benefit in tangible and intangible ways when they encounter students from other countries. Both students affirm some of the best attributes of their nation, but they also are exposed to and learn different cultural attributes and traditions. In my 20-plus years as a professor, I need much more than my 10 fingers to count the number of students who have studied or visited a fellow student overseas and returned to the U.S. more mature and confident.

For those reasons, and many more, I am a consistent advocate for the importance of higher education in a community with a shared future. Higher education's doors must always be widely open to students and scholars from all over the world.

The higher-education system in the U.S. has justifiably enjoyed a positive image around the world for many decades. Spend time on almost every college or university campus, and you will find faculty, staff and students from all corners of the globe. Sometimes, these men and women from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and elsewhere choose to remain in the U.S. after their studies are completed. Countless others decide to return to their homeland. Either way, they inspired their colleagues who took the time to talk, study and have fun with them.

By one estimate, roughly 950,000 international students could be found in U.S. colleges and universities in 2022. With the worst of the coronavirus pandemic behind us, there is every reason to believe that figure will soar beyond one million in the next couple of years.

China continues to send the most number of students to the U.S. One estimate put that figure at about 317,000, slightly less than one-third of the total foreign-born student population.

In recent years, that respect for U.S. colleges and universities around the world has been reduced, and a few of the country's politicians deserve blame. Instead of supporting the community with a shared future, these so-called leaders unnecessarily and unfairly targeted people from specific nations — especially China — under a ridiculous idea that those scholars were in the U.S. simply to steal information connected to cutting-edge technology and military programs. According to Technology Review, almost nine out of every 10 cases resulting from the hopelessly flawed China initiative were brought against men and women from China.

It did not take long for multiple courts to tell the Department of Justice that these cases brought forth by its attorneys were empty; Technology Review also determined that by an overwhelming number, the government failed to win convictions in the cases they tried. We should be relieved that the current U.S. President Joe Biden wants nothing to do with the China initiative, which was started by his predecessor.

Nevertheless, the fallout from those draconian policies continues. A recent story in Inside Higher Ed, a website devoted to examining the higher education landscape in the U.S. (and around the world), noted that the representatives of America's colleges and universities are now facing skeptical Chinese parents.

As the story stated, the admissions representatives "will face questions about the stability of their own nation as an ideal destination for Chinese students with its never-ending gun violence and rampant anti-Asian racism, worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic." They will face questions about the unpredictable direction of federal government rhetoric and policies toward Chinese students. Above all, admission recruiters will find themselves re-entering a market that has lost a great deal of confidence in the United States as a study destination."

We can be thankful that China views education through a different lens. After a two-year hiatus because of the pandemic, China is again welcoming international students. Roughly 500,000 global students were in China in 2018, and the country can confidently presume a large influx of students in years to come. Those students will be exposed to China's educational modernization plan that, by 2035, is certain to bring impactful change to the country's education system.

Among the goals relating to the college and university system: expanding international partnerships that will increase the number of Confucius Institutes and allow more students to learn Chinese.

Ventures associated with artificial intelligence, both at home and abroad, are also prioritized, and this commitment will guarantee that Chinese students studying abroad and international students studying in China will work with a technology that will fundamentally change the world in the coming decades.

It is hoped that the U.S. will affirm the necessity for the community with a shared future in higher education now and in the years to come. Both American students and Chinese students will benefit from open doors, and the knowledge gained by these students will make the 21st century stronger and healthier.

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