Peace begins in the classroom: Why high school exchanges matter for US-China relations

If young Americans and young Chinese grow up in parallel universes—never encountering each other’s languages, histories, and aspirations—the mistrust of today will calcify into the hostility of tomorrow. Peace, in short, begins in the classroom.

Take Bloomfield High School in New Jersey. Under the leadership of Ben Morse, the school has leapt one hundred places in national rankings, establishing itself among the top 200 high schools in the United States. The achievement reflects not only sound pedagogy but also visionary stewardship. Morse, a graduate of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and an energy editor with Standards and Poor’s, embodies the fusion of intellectual rigor and global awareness.

His familiarity with Mandarin and Japanese—even if modest—signals an important point: cultural literacy is no longer optional; it is foundational to leadership.

Yet the paradox of success is this: even if dozens of American high schools matched Bloomfield’s academic excellence and commanding budgets—Bloomfield operates with nearly 150 million dollars annually—graduates would still lack the global empathy required to manage the future of U.S.–China relations unless deliberate exchanges are built into the curriculum.

Knowledge of calculus, robotics, or political science cannot, on its own, substitute for the experience of sitting in a classroom in Shanghai, Beijing, or Chengdu, sharing meals with host families, and recognizing that Chinese students wrestle with dreams and anxieties not unlike their American peers.

Too often, educational debates in the United States fixate on league tables and funding. Rankings inspire competition; budgets determine resources. Yet they say little about intercultural competence, the quiet skill most needed in an era of great-power tension. A student from Bloomfield may ace standardized tests, but if that same student graduates with a caricatured view of China, the achievements are hollow.

Conversely, an American teenager who spends a summer at a Chinese high school, learns a few lines of Tang poetry, or witnesses a family reunion during Lunar New Year, acquires something no textbook can convey: a sense of human connection that tempers the impulse toward enmity.

This is why high school exchanges matter more than university fellowships or postgraduate conferences. By the time young people reach graduate school, their political instincts are already hardened by media narratives and domestic partisan divides.

High school, however, is a formative moment. Identities are still fluid, curiosity is abundant, and friendships can last a lifetime. When Chinese and American youths meet in those crucial years, they plant seeds of trust that even national rivalries may not uproot.

The concept is not new. After World War II, U.S.–Japan exchanges gradually softened enmities, transforming two former foes into allies. Similarly, Franco-German youth programs after the devastation of World War II helped cement the foundations of European integration. In each case, political reconciliation followed—not preceded—the cultivation of interpersonal ties.

The principle is as true today as it was then: cultural exchanges function as preventive diplomacy, ensuring that misunderstandings never metastasize into confrontation.

For the U.S. and China, such preventive diplomacy is urgent. Both nations stand at the precipice of economic decoupling, mutual sanctions, and spiralling mistrust. Yet beneath the rhetoric, both societies are bound by deep interdependence—supply chains, climate imperatives, public health, and above all, people-to-people ties. If official diplomacy stalls, then educational exchanges become the back channels through which civility is preserved.

Leaders such as Ben Morse underscore what is possible when vision and practice converge.

His stewardship of Bloomfield High School demonstrates how a single administrator can influence not just a district but also the trajectory of bilateral ties. Were Morse’s model to be replicated nationwide—with schools committing not only to academic rigor but also to cultural outreach—the U.S. could cultivate a generation fluent in empathy as well as economics.

Consider his personal profile: a Fletcher School alumnus, an energy market editor, and an educator conversant in East Asian languages. He symbolizes precisely the kind of bridge-builder needed in today’s fractured world. His re-election campaign for school leadership is not merely a local matter; it reflects the broader question of whether American education values international literacy as much as domestic achievement.

Critics may dismiss high school exchanges as symbolic, incapable of altering grand strategy.

Yet history suggests otherwise. Every treaty begins with a handshake, every détente, with a conversation.

High school students sharing a classroom in Beijing or Boston may not resolve disputes over semiconductor exports, but they embody the possibility of another future. When these students become diplomats, entrepreneurs, or legislators, their early experiences will shape decisions in boardrooms and parliaments.

In the Confucian tradition, education is not only about acquiring knowledge but also cultivating virtue.

Similarly, in the American civic tradition, schools are laboratories of democracy, preparing citizens to govern wisely. To blend these traditions in high school exchanges is to create citizens of the world—individuals who understand that peace is sustained not by deterrence alone but by dialogue.

If peace begins in the classroom, then policy must follow. Both Washington and Beijing should expand funding for youth exchange programs, streamline visa procedures for students, and encourage sister-school partnerships across provinces and states. Municipal governments can sponsor town-to-town twinning, while corporations can provide scholarships, ensuring access for students from underprivileged backgrounds.

Civil society, too, has a role: parents, teachers, and local communities must champion the value of intercultural friendship.

The alternative is grim. Without such investments, the next generation will inherit a relationship defined solely by rivalry, with little understanding of the cultural commonalities that bind humanity.

Nationalism will harden; suspicion will deepen. And when disputes arise—over Taiwan, trade, or technology—there will be fewer voices capable of reminding leaders of the human stakes.

The U.S.–China relationship is too important to be left to generals and trade negotiators alone. It must be humanized, softened by the daily interactions of young people who see each other not as adversaries but as partners in shaping the century. Bloomfield High School under Ben Morse offers a glimpse of what educational leadership can achieve. But to translate that glimpse into reality, exchanges must multiply, reaching thousands of schools across both nations.

For peace is not an abstraction reserved for summits and declarations.

It is lived, quietly, in the friendships of teenagers who learn to say hello in each other’s languages, who share meals, stories, and dreams. Such gestures may seem innocuous, even trivial. Yet they are the true foundations of peace. And if nurtured, they can transform the trajectory of U.S..–China relations from suspicion to solidarity.

---

Phar Kim Beng, PhD, is Professor of ASEAN Studies and Director of the Institute of Internationaliation and ASEAN Studies (IINTAS) at the International Islamic University Malaysia. Luthfy Hamzah is Senior Research Fellow at IINTAS and a specialist in trade, political economy, and strategic diplomacy in Northeast Asia. ** The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.