Archive - March 9, 2020

The Peace Corps Breaks Ties with China The agency has always been viewed as removed from political spats. But the timing of the U.S.’s decision seems suspicious. By Peter Hessler (China 1996-98) March 9, 2020 The author, lower left, with other China 3 volunteers in front of the Forbidden City, in Beijing, in 1996.Photograph courtesy the author On the morning of January 17th, shortly before I was scheduled to meet with a hundred and forty Peace Corps volunteers in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, there was an unexpected announcement that the China program was ending. The Peace Corps had first come to the country in 1993, and as a volunteer from the early years I had been asked to speak at an in-service training that the organization was holding in a hotel near where I live. But by the time I arrived nobody was in the mood for nostalgia. The . . .