Today, more than 600 U.S. colleges and universities offer courses in Mandarin. It's a trend educators say will continue to grow as China's economic influence spreads. And for students, it's a gateway into one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. VOA's Steve Mort reports from Rollins College in Florida, one of the many schools that are building closer ties with China.
Professor Teng Jimeng from Beijing's Foreign Studies University is one of many Chinese scholars invited to teach here. The China Center at Rollins offers around 20 classes in arts, culture and economics.
Rollins is working with U.S. and Chinese colleges on educational and cultural exchanges. Dozens of Rollins students, faculty and staff members visit China each year, and college director Lewis Duncan says cutting-edge technology is also helping build links. "A classroom in Shanghai and a classroom here at Rollins can be linked together in a way that the faculty member that is teaching our China history class may be a Chinese professor in Shanghai, teaching in real time a class here at Rollins."
The Chinese government and the U.S. State Department back the work of colleges like Rollins. More than 30 American educational institutions are operating in China.
At the same time, Beijing's so-called "Confucius Institute," named for the famous Chinese thinker, promotes Chinese language and culture in 23 countries.
For Rollins and other colleges, developing links with China is part of a broader effort to go global. Rollins is based in Florida, a state with much stronger ties to South America than Asia. But of the 1,700 students here, more than a hundred are taking courses at the China Center -- a sign that American students, like American businesses, recognize China as a serious power on the world stage (Source: Steve Mort, Voice of American, Jan 20, 2007).