How U.S.-China Cultural Exchange, Music, and the Arts Strengthen Diplomacy Beyond Government
International relations are too important to be left to governments. Nothing illustrates this point better than the history of the world’s most important bilateral relationship, between the United States and China. It was an unlikely friendly exchange that kicked off modern era U.S.-China relations through ping-pong diplomacy, and still today people-to-people exchanges are sustaining the relationship through its most difficult periods. On my recent trips to China, it seemed very possible that while officials in Washington and Beijing eye each other warily, the most potent forces shaping the relationship may well come from young people who know nothing about diplomacy but who may, paradoxically, be the best diplomats either country has to offer.
As a musician, I am proud to say that in this area, music and the arts have played a transformative role. For example, the Philadelphia Orchestra visited China in 1973 and has continued to tour in China regularly for over 50 years. Other major orchestras followed, and today the Juilliard School has a base in Tianjin where it trains musicians, many who aspired to a life in classical music based on the influence of those U.S. orchestral tours. Individual artists like Isaac Stern played key roles in developing relations through classical music. In 1979, the Chinese government invited Mr. Stern to perform and teach. Thousands of other musicians, famous and not-so-well known, have followed in his footsteps. In addition, major U.S. universities such as New York, Duke, and Princeton, have active programs in China. Many promote linguistic studies for Americans to learn Mandarin. These programs have endured everything from shifting political winds to the COVID pandemic. We need to not only support them as vehicles for learning and exchange, but also for dialogue and ideological/cultural understanding among youth.
For fifteen years, I’ve been flying across the Pacific, sometimes on behalf of the State Department as an Arts Envoy and sometimes as an opera singer who has had the privilege of performing at leading venues across China. One of my first engagements, in 2013, was playing the title role in Carmen at the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA). As the only non-Chinese in my cast, I sought ways to connect with my colleagues beyond the French musical score. It was at this time that I first heard the melody of a popular song, “我愛你,中國” (“I love you, China”). The costume seamstresses sang it during our lunch breaks, and though I couldn’t understand the words, I could feel the joy the singers poured into their untrained voices. The melody was fairly easy to pick up, and humming is a singer’s trick to avoiding learning words. Soon, during rehearsal breaks, I found myself humming it and receiving warm smiles from orchestral musicians and chorus members. The simple tune was helping me connect in a way that I didn’t expect.
Several years later, I was invited back to the NCPA to perform for the opening of the 2017-2018 season of the China National Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Chinese-born American conductor and composer Tan Dun. At his suggestion, I sang “I Love You, China” in Mandarin. With study, I’d learned that the lyrics convey the richness of China's rivers and mountains. It was only last summer, in July of 2024, that I discovered a significant tie between this song and another piece of music. During a program in Guangzhou, which was part of an Arts Envoy tour through the U.S. Department of State, I collaborated with two Chinese singers on a vocal concert. We decided to conclude the program with “I love you, China.”
After we sang, I was surprised as the lyricist of the Chinese song, 85-year-old Qu Cong, was invited to the stage. He told me that many years before, his father had participated in an agricultural exchange program with the United States. After he returned home, he told his son about his time abroad. Qu noted that he often hummed a melody. Qu was curious about the tune, and his father explained that the song told the story of America’s great rivers and natural beauty. This left a lasting impression on Qu. As he grew older and started his professional life in the arts, he learned that the song was “America the Beautiful.” Inspired, he found himself wishing China had a comparable song celebrating its natural splendor. Remembering his father, Qu Cong wrote the song I’d sung — “I Love You, China,” which, like “America the Beautiful,” celebrated his country’s natural landscapes. In other words, one of America’s most popular anthems inspired one of China’s, all set in motion by an exchange program in the first half of the 20th century.
The story of this song’s significance as an example of cultural exchange has stayed with me. I performed it in China once again, in Fuzhou at the China-U.S. Choir Festival. The event gathered nearly 30 youth choirs from both countries, with over 1,000 singers on the stage. Sharing the stage with me were over 500 American singers who’d traveled from Utah, Illinois, South Carolina, Texas, California, Washington, and Iowa. It was clear that these choral groups had spent months preparing and even learning some Mandarin phrases. They were eager to meet and collaborate with their Chinese counterparts. The Americans sang classical, gospel and jazz songs, all themed around the importance of friendship — “What A Wonderful World”, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”, and “Circle of Life” — all on the same program as “Kanding Love Song” and “Yi Folk Song” sung by nearly twenty choirs from all over China I was intrigued to hear the unique vocalizations from the Dongzu Dage Chorus representing Dong Ethnic Minority Group and the Chengdu University Chorus representing Yi Ethnic Minority Group. The stage was packed as all the singers came together at the end to sing “We Are The World,” a fitting ending.
The festival concluded with events in Beijing: a farewell concert at the China National Opera House in Beijing and a visit with a renowned Chinese folk singer, Madame Peng Liyuan, wife of President Xi Jinping.
Watching an American choir from Texas singing gospel music and seeing the enthralled Chinese reaction provided a powerful reminder that while traditional diplomacy may change how people think, the arts can change what people feel. As Madame Peng welcomed the American singers, I thought about what they might tell their children someday about this experience, just as Qu Cong’s father had told him about his own exchange experience.
Later this year, President Trump and President Xi will likely meet and take steps to further defuse tensions. That would be a positive step. But it will have more impact and be felt more deeply if it also includes a renewed commitment to cultural exchanges like the choral festival and the legacy of musical exchanges that have taken place since 1972. History makes it clear that ordinary individuals, tourists, artists, and businesspeople are the ones who are playing a central role deepening and redefining the ties between the two countries.
Where people lead, it turns out, governments will follow. More importantly, their nations will evolve and grow. To understand the future of international relations, the place to begin and study is the present state of the diverse, enduring and evolving links and exchanges between ordinary citizens — students, businesspeople, athletes, and artists. I hope our leaders are wise enough to harness them just as Chairman Mao and President Nixon did over 50 years ago.
As Lao Tse wrote, “To lead people, walk behind them.”
About the Author:
Carla Dirlikov Canales has won acclaim on leading stages around the world as a performer while also being recognized as an academic, advocate, and entrepreneur. Carla recently served the Biden Administration as Senior Advisor and Envoy for Cultural Exchange at the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Carla has been a Senior Fellow and has led courses at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government since 2022, and she is also a Visiting Professor at the Korbel School of International Studies. Carla has served as a U.S. State Department Arts Envoy since 2005.
Carla has been a member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities Turnaround Arts Program, was selected by Foreign Policy Magazine as one of its 100 Leading Global Thinkers and won the Medal of Excellence from the Sphinx Organization. Carla was also named one of Musical America’s 30 Movers and Shapers of 2018. In each case, she was the first opera singer ever to receive the honor.
Carla is the founder of The Canales Project, a non-profit arts and advocacy organization through which she created Hear Her Song, a musical celebration of distinguished female leaders. She is a life time member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She previously appeared in the Harvard ALI Social Impact Review with an article titled The Future of Cultural Diplomacy, which described cultural diplomacy and its benefits.