The politicians call it people-to-people relations ... soft power ... getting the young people to know us that will theoretically convince other young people in their home country that America is fabulous and they won't see us as the enemy.
That may work in some countries' populations but not Chinese. Students and workers sent here sooner or later are expected to provide intel of all kinds. They may not want to but they have to because their families are back in China and the government will do harm to them if the students overseas do not comply.
That, and Chinese nationals pay overseas tuition rates. Follow the money. There is very little national pride in college presidents, it appears.
Yes. It’s a policy of willful ignorance and stupidity. Driven by people who don’t understand what communism is.
Present day Chinese communism is communism with a Han racial emphasis. It is now more akin to German National Socialism with its pseudo-scientific Aryan superiority theories. China also has built-in ideas of cultural\racial superiority going way back to the beginning. They've never forgotten their treatment by the Western colonial powers. Flooding us with fentanyl are far as they are concerned is payback for the UK flooding and forcing on them opium. (See Opium Wars! UK USA its all the same to them! All barbaric round eyes!) Additionally, they remember the Taping Rebellion as a colossal catastrophe that they also blame the West for! It may have killed more people than WWII! A war that very few in the West know anything about.
To them historically we are barbarians, and we must show our deference to the Middle Kingdom who has the “True Mandate of Heaven “ in their cultural consciousness. They do not want physically occu 1 / py us, conquer us in the old style of say Genghis Khan. They want hegemony over us a sort of colonial control. (Like how the West treated them!) They want us intact enough to buy their goods and be able to exploit our resources, etc. Our politicians here and in Europe are very easy to buy off and so far their campaign seems to be working.
Note there are several ethnicities in China. Han is the largest (I think!) and the most dominant.