Three Types of Securitisation of China–Australia Student Mobility: A Systematic Literature Review

The evolving mobility of students between Australia and China offers a revealing lens through which to examine the intersection of international education, geopolitics, and global power dynamics. Once primarily an academic and economic exchange, international high education has become entangled with geopolitical competition, particularly amid intensifying U.S.-China rivalry. These dynamics have generated uncertainty for Chinese students overseas and destabilised long-standing educational ties with host countries such as Australia. Drawing on a systematic review of scholarly, policy and media sources, this paper situates China-Australia student mobility within its broader geopolitical context. The article maps out how international education has become a geopolitically significant domain shaped by economic interdependence, strategic statecraft, and evolving security narratives. It shows how historical soft power practices and asymmetric dependencies have transformed student mobility into a site of hidden, semi-, and overt securitisation. Integrating insights from soft power theory, complex interdependence, and adapted securitisation frameworks, the article argues that international education has shifted from a space of cultural and educational exchange to a strategically contested arena where economic, political, and security interests increasingly converge.