International education in China a ‘common good’
A new working paper by Dr Lin Tian and Professor Nian Cai Liu, has found that inward student mobility brings benefits to China and contributes global common goods flowing worldwide, which could also be regarded as a reason for the supportive national policies and strategies on international students in China.
The working paper explores the perceptions of people who are directly involved in international education in China and analyses their relevance to national policies.
The research is both people-concerned and policy-focused, addressing issues by investigating perspectives from people directly involved in the process and examining official documents related to inward international students in China.
Though there are also some tensions in the policies and practices for international students – such as employment issues – both the Chinese government and HEIs exert themselves to address these issues.
The paper suggests that international education in China, as an essential part of higher education internationalisation, is a global common good, which emphasises collective endeavour, shared participation, inclusion and responsibility.
The paper concludes with the caveat that international education in China is not flawless and further improvements need to be made in the future.