The 2025 “Guling Yuan” China-U.S. Youth Health Dialogue brought together early-career doctors and medical students from the United States to China to explore common challenges and build people‐to‐people connections. Using a mixed-methods design, the study examines how participants perceived the dialogue as well as their perceptions of China. It combines matched pre-/post- dialogue surveys with in-depth follow-up interviews conducted six months after the exchange.
Given the small sample, the findings are illustrative rather than definitive. Even so, they point to a consistent pattern. The dialogue appears to have been more effective at strengthening interpersonal trust and cooperative framing than at changing overall attitudes toward China.
Key Quantitative Findings
- Overall attitudes toward China remained mixed. Positive and negative individual-
level shifts offset each other, producing no net median change. - Perceptions of Chinese behavior shifted modestly toward cooperation. After the dialogue, participants were more likely to view China as acting cooperatively rather than competitively toward the United States after the dialogue.
- Trust in Chinese institutions increased slightly but consistently. All observed changes moved in a positive direction, suggesting a meaningful, albeit limited, effect of direct engagement.
- Perceptions of U.S. media accuracy did not change. Short-term dialogue did not alter views of third-party information sources.
