Henry Huiyao Wang on 5 ways China can attract US students back to its universities again
Henry Huiyao Wang on 5 ways China can attract US students back to its universities again
“From the easing of visas to a more international curriculum, China’s universities and wider society can do more to make US students feel at home."
Xi Jinping, the Chinese President, said in San Francisco in November 2023 that “China is ready to invite 50,000 young Americans to China on exchange and study programs in the next five years to increase exchanges between the two peoples, especially between the youth,” making attracting U.S. students a national priority.
Chinese experts have made various recommendations including from Peking University scholar Jia Qingguo, which I have covered.
My current employer, the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), has long advocated easier access to China and played a pivotal role in the establishment of China’s National Immigration Administration. Henry Huiyao Wang, the CCG president, “was vilified online as a traitor” in 2019 for what The Economist described as “a proposal to help a few foreigners settle in China.”
So Henry just published an opinion in the South China Morning Post on 5 ways China can attract US students back to its universities again, which accompanied a recent CCG report making similar recommendations primarily in Chinese.
If you need my two cents, I would say China should expand its 15-day visa-free travel to Americans - and Britons and Canadians - now that Australia and New Zealand have just got it. Or maybe Beijing could start with longer visa-free travels to Americans under 21 years old.
Amid the turbulence of China-US relations, a stabilising force has stood the test of time: exchanges between people, particularly educational exchanges. International students are a bedrock of ties, their experiences fostering understanding and building vital bridges between the two nations.
As the world’s leading destination for international students, the US has long attracted Chinese students seeking a top-notch education and cross-cultural experiences.
The recent report on international talent mobility, by the Centre for China and Globalisation (CCG), highlights the pivotal role of the US in shaping global talent flows.
Despite geopolitical tensions, Chinese enthusiasm for an American education remains unabated. Last year, the number of Chinese students in the US rebounded to 77.7 per cent of the pre-pandemic level in 2019. China remained the largest source of international students in the US, according to CCG research. This shows the unwavering appeal of American universities.
But educational exchanges should not be a one-way street. As China continues on its development journey, it is imperative to attract more international students, especially from the US. While China has made strides in this regard, there is still room for improvement.
In a worrying trend, the number of Americans studying in China has plummeted in recent years. US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns revealed at a Brookings Institution talk last December that the figure had fallen to just 700, a sharp decline from the 15,000 recorded six or seven years ago. “Last year [2022], we were down to 350 American students in all of China,” he noted.
This year, we expect to see an increase in the number of American students coming to China, including at US-China partnership campuses such as the Duke Kunshan University, NYU Shanghai, Wenzhou-Kean University, Tianjin Juilliard School and Hopkins-Nanjing Centre.
But there is still a stark imbalance in educational exchanges and this underscores the need for China to enhance its appeal as a study destination. Doing so would not only enrich its higher education landscape but also contribute to more balanced and robust exchanges between the people of both countries.
To achieve this, China can draw inspiration from the CCG report’s recommendations and take steps to create a more welcoming environment for international students.
First, streamlining visa policies and application processes would make it easier for American students to study in China. Introducing more flexible visa categories, such as internship visas for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students and talent visas for outstanding graduates, would incentivise more Americans to consider China as a study destination.
Second, China should strive to create a more inclusive environment for international students by encouraging an open and inclusive public attitude towards international students. It will deepen people’s understanding of their role in fostering cultural exchange, creating a more welcoming social environment.
Third, internationalising the curriculum and expanding English-taught programmes would cater to the needs and preferences of international students. Chinese universities should be encouraged to develop interdisciplinary and globally oriented courses that better align with the interests of American students.
Fourth, enhancing the living environment for international students is crucial. Efforts should be made to address practical challenges, such as facilitating mobile payments for foreigners and providing convenient internet access. Schools and communities can use their unique resource advantages to provide language training and cultural adaptation programmes for international students. Creating a more internationalised campus atmosphere and offering tailored support services would help international students feel more at home in China.
Fifth, promoting cultural exchange programmes and partnerships between Chinese and American universities would foster deeper understanding and collaboration. Encouraging joint research projects, faculty exchanges and student mobility programmes would create more opportunities for meaningful interactions between Chinese and American students.
While implementing these measures, China can also draw lessons from the US approach to attracting international students. The CCG report highlights the US strategy of offering scholarships, simplifying visa processes and providing employment opportunities for international graduates. By adopting similar practices and tailoring them to the Chinese context, China can enhance its competitiveness in the global race for talent.
Moreover, China’s recent efforts to boost international tourism provide a solid foundation for attracting more foreign students. In the first quarter of this year, inbound tourism in China exhibited a strong recovery, with more than four times as many foreign visitors as the same period last year, according to the National Immigration Administration.
The easing of travel restrictions and improvement of tourism infrastructure have made China a more accessible and appealing destination. Building upon these achievements, China can further develop its education tourism sector, showcasing its rich cultural heritage and modern advancements to potential international students.
As the CCG report emphasises, people-to-people exchanges are not only essential to promote understanding and friendship between nations but also to drive economic growth and innovation. By attracting more American students to study in China, the country can tap a diverse pool of talent, foster cross-cultural collaboration and contribute to the development of a more interconnected and cooperative world.
In a time of geopolitical challenges, educational exchanges serve as a powerful reminder of the shared aspirations and common humanity that bind us. By investing in exchanges and creating a more welcoming environment for international students, China can strengthen the ballast stone of its relationship with the US and pave the way to a brighter future of mutual understanding and cooperation.
Wang Huiyao is the founder of the Centre for China and Globalisation, a Beijing-based non-governmental think tank
What a great article, jammed packed with practical suggestions. Thank you Zichen Wang
Talking to prospective China students in South Africa, Australia and NZ, the question of lack of internationalised curricula and English-taught programmes has often been raised in those conversations. Subjective but qualitative.
Which leads me to suggest that policy makers should not fail to recognise that there is a large potential cadre of Western oriented, non US students.
英雄不问出处
This subtlety seems overlooked in many of the pieces I read from China policy blogs. The philosophies, cultural attitudes and attitudes of these predominantly English speaking people towards China often vary enormously to those in the US. This sublety is ignored Chinese policy makers and remains largely unkown among the general population.
As per the article, many are scared off because of the lack of facilitatiion of mobile payments for foreigners by methods and platforms they are familiar with.
Even moreso, the lack of convenient internet access to platforms they know and love is the final nail in the coffin.
People to people exchanges are the best vehicle to encourage authentic intercultural communication on the currently rocky road towards to the gates of the biggest, attractive and beguiling walled garden that is currently China.
I agree China should open up its universities to international students. It’s a missed opportunity to boost long-term productivity growth. I would not just focus on US students; students from the Global South have just as much to contribute in terms of domestic economic productivity, and even more in terms of solidifying China’s international relations with the Global South, and eventually diluting China’s dependence on the fickle Western countries.