Examining the higher education–migration nexus in China: Intellectual migration in an emerging destination

Abstract China has become Asia’s largest destination for international students. Yet extant research is still constrained by a relative topical homogeneity on themes such as international students’ reasons for choosing China and their academic adaptation. There is a paucity of information on how China’s education and migration policies facilitate or hinder overseas students’ enrolment and their status transition from education to labour migrants, as well as strategies adopted by students to navigate such transition processes. This article fills the void by adopting the intellectual migration analytical framework to deepen our understanding of China’s higher education–migration nexus. Drawing on data from interviews and policy documents, this study investigates how and why migrants come to China and move from one end of the spectrum (of being a student migrant) to another (of being a labour migrant) along the intellectual migration continuum. Findings demonstrate that China has nurtured a highly supportive policy environment to attract international students. These policies have a democratizing effect in enabling access to higher education, especially for students from the Global South. However, significant structural challenges persist, and a bevy of transition barriers hinders many international students’ transition to becoming skilled migrants. Such a reality highlights China’s elitist and restrictive transition framework, characterized by a calibrated demand for selected categories of intellectual migrants. Such a disconnect between attracting education migrants and difficulties faced by international graduates seeking access to China’s labour market has implications for future education migration patterns.