{"id":9864,"date":"2025-10-18T14:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T14:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/9864\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T14:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T14:19:07","slug":"in-texas-a-student-trip-to-china-becomes-a-political-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/9864\/","title":{"rendered":"In Texas, a student trip to China becomes a political act"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">For Krislyn Massey, it all began with late nights watching Japanese anime as a child. That sparked a discovery of Chinese novels and a deep interest in studying Asia \u2013 an unlikely path for someone who grew up in a conservative family in Houston, Texas.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">She began learning Japanese and getting involved in student-run educational exchanges. One of those, Bridge Culture Exchange Academy, led her to attend a virtual conference in 2023 with students in China, strangers who soon became friends she wanted to meet face-to-face.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">By the time she was earning a master\u2019s degree in international studies, the 25-year-old was aware of the high-level tensions between Washington and Beijing. Still, she did not expect how carefully she would have to navigate the politics surrounding even a student trip to China \u2013 once a routine part of international study.<\/p>\n<p>Last November, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed an executive order on \u201chardening\u201d the state government against the Communist Party of China. Among several measures restricting engagement with China was one that <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/gov.texas.gov\/uploads\/files\/press\/EO-GA-48_Hardening_State_Government_FINAL_11-19-2024.pdf\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\">barred<\/a> public university and government employees from travelling to the country for \u201cprofessional purposes\u201d or accepting gifts from any institution associated with China.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The same order also discourages personal travel to China by state employees by requiring them to submit reports before and after any trip.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Massey knew she could not go as part of a programme through her school, the University of North Texas, which had already cancelled at least one faculty-led student trip to China by the time she decided to go. Her trip, scheduled for July of this year, was instead organised through a non-profit group called International Student Conferences (ISC), where she had a leadership role.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Krislyn Massey wears a cowboy hat to show off her Texas pride at Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China. Photo: Krislyn Massey\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/7e817da1-8746-459f-9e7a-2ba09fb8c2e9_22810d24.jpg\" title=\"Krislyn Massey wears a cowboy hat to show off her Texas pride at Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China. Photo: Krislyn Massey\"\/>Krislyn Massey wears a cowboy hat to show off her Texas pride at Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China. Photo: Krislyn Massey<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Krislyn Massey, it all began with late nights watching Japanese anime as a child. That sparked a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3258,9050,9056,9051,9047,9054,56,9055,9052,9048,9049,7035,9053,27,29,28,2001],"class_list":["post-9864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-abbott","tag-asia-pacific-economic-cooperation","tag-beijing","tag-beijing-review","tag-china","tag-chinese-communist-party","tag-houston","tag-isc","tag-krislyn-massey","tag-nanjing","tag-shanghai","tag-stanford-university","tag-suzhou","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}