Broken Desire: Chinese Students’ Abandonment of Overseas Study Amidst the Changing Global Landscape and Geopolitical Tensions

Abstract

As the broad field of international education experienced unforeseeable changes with the rising of geopolitical tensions amplified by the pandemic, the long-standing interest in studying abroad among Chinese students at top research universities has experienced a misalignment with the changing landscape and the new normality created by the global crisis. Drawing upon the intricate experiences and perceptions of 31 students from Chinese top research universities who have opted out of pursuing studies abroad due to the impact of pandemic and other global geopolitical tensions, this article investigates how the changing global landscape has shaken participants’ desire for mobility. Such desire has long been argued as a collective imagination of global higher education (Collins 2013). Our findings demonstrate how participants recalibrated their strategies in international political tensions and economic recessions at the macro level, with alterations in mobility infrastructure at the meso level. At the micro level, we find that many participants tended to reassess the symbolic value of international study and shift to a ‘calculative self’ which emphasises a more one-dimensional consideration of the economic return on their study abroad decisions. We consider that amid lasting turbulence in the global landscape, discussions centred on ISM have shifted from mobility to immobility, and the previously shared global imaginings of international education have undergone notable transformation.