The Tsinghua summer fellowship kicked off in Beijing on Aug 17, with the aim to offer participating students the chance to experience modern China and prepare them to engage more effectively with the country in their future endeavors.

The fellowship has attracted 40 undergraduate and postgraduate students from the US and the UK. These students will take part in a 12-day visit to China, visiting a variety of sites critical to understanding the nuances of China's development, from hubs of technological innovation and production to rural and lesser-known regions. Along the way, Tsinghua Summer Fellows will interact with business leaders, hear from locals, and engage with Chinese students at the top universities in the country.

During the program, students will visit Beijing and Shanghai, where they will attend lectures on China's digital economy, China's governance system, and China's foreign policy, and visit sites such as the Tesla factory to learn about China. The students will also undertake in-depth trips to Guizhou and Zhejiang provinces and Inner Mongolia autonomous region to gain nuanced insights into the challenges and successes of modern China's efforts to innovate, urbanize, revitalize rural regions, transition to a greener economy, and preserve ancient culture, among other processes.

"China has always put great emphasis on youth. Young people are a vital link in international cooperation, playing key roles in cultural exchange and technological innovation. This program is not only a positive response to this call but also a platform for young leaders to discuss pressing issues such as global development, civilization innovation, and mutual learning to shape an inclusive future by our collaborative efforts," said Yang Bin, vice-president of Tsinghua University, in his opening remarks.

"I come to this fellowship with a sense of intellectual humility and a genuine desire to learn. My goals are to immerse myself in Chinese culture to understand its perspectives and to grow both personally and academically," said Richard Dong, a graduate student from Harvard Kennedy school.

"I applied to this fellowship because I want to improve the relations between the United States and China, and I think this fellowship is a wonderful opportunity to understand China and bolster this relationship so that we can continue to thrive together. And I expect to connect with different leaders in China in business and academia and get to know these people better through the fellowship so that we can continue these relationships outside these two weeks and get to know each other better," said William McTeigue, a US student of biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"I've actually never been to China before and this is an excellent opportunity to not just experience modern China and modern life," said Noah Shenoy, a student of Chinese at the University of Oxford.

"I think it's going be a really great opportunity for us to be able to travel a bit and see some parts of China that we wouldn't necessarily get to see before, " said Bethany Eason, a graduate student of Chinese at the University of Edinburgh.

"I really hope to see the things that I've learned in class about US-China relations and and Chinese politics, and really want to experience them firsthand," said Oliver Zhong, a student of economics at Princeton University.