Opinion | Covid-19 collateral: foreign students locked out of China deserve compassion and consistency

Name: Repatriation of over 1.4 million Chinese students stranded abroad by Covid-19 creates dilemma
Uploaded: 2021-02-24T00:45:06.000Z
Duration: 2 min 31 s
Description: Repatriation of over 1.4 million Chinese students stranded abroad by Covid-19 creates dilemma

Beijing’s strict policies and visa restrictions, as part of its war on Covid-19, have affected tens of thousands of international students hoping to begin or resume studies in China

Online learning and other half measures will never replace the hands-on experience and cultural understanding that comes with studying in another country

Reading Time:4 minutes

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Curtis Chin

Published: 8:45am, 24 Feb 2021Updated: 9:32am, 24 Feb 2021

Sadly, in every war, there is collateral damage. Too often, that includes everyday people struggling to carry on with their lives amid conflict and disruption. That has certainly been the case as China’s war on the coronavirus has interrupted tens of thousands of international students hoping to begin or resume studies in China.

Many are from elsewhere in Asia and have been unable to enter the country because of mainland Chinese student visa restrictions and policies that have prioritised returning business executives over students. The persistence of Covid-19 cases in China has further added to the uncertainty for international students.

According to the Institute of International Education, more than 5.3 million higher education students were studying abroad in the 2019 school year. The US, UK and China were the top three destinations then, including nearly 1.1 million studying in the US, followed by 496,570 in the UK and 492,185 in China.

The quality and relatively lower cost of many Chinese higher education institutions have been a key draw. Scholarships and other support as part of China’s “soft power” efforts have also played a role in attracting students from across the Indo-Pacific region.

Of the nearly half a million international higher education students in China in the 2019 academic year, some 50,600 came from South Korea, followed by 28,608 from Thailand, 28,023 from Pakistan, 23,198 from India and 20,996 from the US. Come 2020, however, the disruption of the lives and studies of many of these and other students has become one more unintended consequence of China closing its borders.

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Repatriation of over 1.4 million Chinese students stranded abroad by Covid-19 creates dilemma

By late January 2021, China could claim its heavy-handed approach – from lockdowns and mass testing of entire cities to the forced removal of individuals with Covid-19 from family homes – had worked. More than a year since the first reported cases of Covid-19 emerged from Wuhan, China has officially reported only around 100,000 total cases and about 4,800 deaths.

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