Writing an article, or articles, on China and America, I have happened upon a remarkable story, of which I had no concept. It involves 120 Chinese kids who were sent to America after the US Civil War to learned modern science and technology. One of them was Liang Cheng, who played baseball for his school team in Massachusetts. Liang later became ambassador to the US. When he met Teddy Roosevelt, Teddy allegedly asked him who the best player on his school team was, and he said, un-Chinese (the government was worried these kids were getting Americanized), that he was. This endeared him to Roosevelt.
Later, after the Boxer Rebellion, Liang persuaded Roosevelt to use the indemnity (or much of it) for educating Chinese students. This was the origin of Qinghua University, the top university in China. Also, another 1300 Chinese students came to the US to study, many at Yale, and many achieving great things in life: Hu Shi the philosopher was one, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Yang Chengning was another.
Now here's another interesting link -- the rest of the story. At one point, the Chinese government turned conservative, and decided to withdraw that first set of students. (I got this from an autobiography by, of all people, Mark Twain, which I was listening to in the car today.) Twain happened to know General Grant. (Indeed, he would publish his memoirs.) So Twain and a partner went to see Grant, and asked Grant to sign a petition to the Chinese government asking to let the boys stay on. Instead of just signing the petition, Grant, who had travelled to China and Japan and was world-famous, wrote the Chinese government a letter - and they agreed to keep the program going.
Who knew what illustrious footsteps I was following when I was teaching Chinese kids preparing to study in America?
I am preparing to write an open letter to the Chinese people, reminding them of such incidents from history, so they resist allowing the Chinese government to demonize their American rivals. This story will help.