Chinese Students: Isolated Global Citizens

Abstract

China’s rapid development over the past 30 years has underpinned its emergence not only as a key player in the globalised world but arguably also as the engine room of globalisation in regard to the mobility of goods, services and people. Central to China’s development and globalisation has been the pipeline of Chinese national students exported in the mass tertiary education market. The efficient and effective transformation of student exports into transnational earning actors serves several purposes at home and abroad in relation to family structure, prestige and overcoming gaps in local education provision. International Chinese students provide a direct match for the market needs of western democracies, who increasingly rely on the income provided by international students to make a significant contribution to the funding of universities. While there has seemingly been an alignment between supply and demand in international education, the transformative possibilities for Chinese international students have proven to be rather complicated and precarious across four crucial domains of security.