From Political Resource to Political Liability? International Student Mobilization in China

Higher educational cooperation has long been central to China’s foreign relations. This article examines the political ramifications of the exodus of international students from China during the COVID-19 pandemic. China introduced some of the world’s most restrictive entry requirements for international travelers, forcing most international students at Chinese universities to study remotely between the Spring semesters of 2020 and 2022. This affected the 221,700 foreign students who were enrolled in Chinese universities, 81,600 of whom were from African countries (Mulvey 2021; UNESCO 2022). Travel restrictions were barely eased until late in the spring semester of 2022, and the border was finally opened for most students during the fall semester of 2022 (Liu and Peng 2024). Some students missed five semesters of in-person classes, and others gave up on their studies in China altogether. Thousands of students campaigned globally for the right to travel to China, attend classes in person, and get the educational experience they had envisioned.