Alexandra StevensonGeverifieerd account

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been so disappointed in my life,” said Dexter Lensing, who left reluctantly. His suitcase sits in a dorm in Harbin. He didn't have time to fetch it and he's not sure when he'll be back because he has to finish his Phd in the US in the fall 2/

Ryan Trombly is another. She left for a long-planned holiday just days before China started quarantining cities. She didn't say goodbye to her friends because she had planned to return a week later. “It’s funny because it really came out of the blue for a lot of us." 3

For many foreign students like them, the outbreak has frozen or ended their opportunities to study a vast and complicated country.  It comes at a fraught time for China’s relations with the world, as it seeks to build itself up as a counterweight to American global influence 4/