China hosted 442,773 international students in 2016. This figure represents an 11.4% increase over the year before and is based on data by the Chinese Ministry of Education (MOE), which released its latest statistics on foreign student enrolments in China.
With steady year-on-year growth, China is on a path to secure a prominent place among the world’s leading study destinations. Building on this success, China has recently demonstrated its intentions to capitalise on international students in the country as a source of global talent.
Policies to attract more international students into the workforce on graduation are being introduced by key cities, such as Shanghai and Beijing with the aim to attract graduates into key sectors of the Chinese economy.
China is clearly poised to enter the global war for talent, particularly in times when the country looks to strengthen its position as a global research and innovation powerhouse.
The latest Global Talent Competitiveness Index 2016-17 nevertheless suggests that the country can do more in this direction. Despite that China still outperforms other BRICS countries, the rank of China slipped this year to 54th (48th in 2015-16).
Although China attains an impressive place in the Index’s pillar related to Grow (39th in the Index), the country’s position on the Attract pillar, primarily concerned with the attraction of talent is performing poorly (100th in the Index).