A contest where intelligence is the real winner

For almost half of her life Wang Yuchen lived in a land where the solemn ritual is to proudly stand for the Stars and Stripes, but now the ensign that flutters high above her head is the Five-Starred Red Flag.

On Jan 12, as if to confirm her allegiance to that flag, Wang became an unofficial ambassador for her country, as one of the five champions at the Miss World China Finals in Foshan, Guangdong province.

"I'm not here for the title but for a chance to make a contribution to building my country's soft power," Wang, 23, says in an interview with China Daily after her win, which means she may be chosen, from the five champions, to represent China in the Miss World contest in Thailand in October.

Wang, who is now back studying in China, was among 81 young women from 21 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, many of them college students, who qualified for the Foshan finals.

Wang left China at age 12 and studied in a private school in Boston before graduating with a degree in international political economy from George Washington University in 2019, and came back to study at Tsinghua University. Her academic specialty is the link between sea surface temperatures and salinity and El Nino and La Nina.

Her time overseas gave her a profound insight into how others see China, a grounding that may serve her well in her duties as an unofficial ambassador.