Hong Kong
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For Chinese students, US university degrees were once considered “golden tickets” to the coveted work of their hometown. But many now find that geopolitics is blunting their ambitions.
The threat of Trump administration’s visa cancellation — shelved after a difficult trade call between the US president and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in early June — further exacerbating the already swirling uncertainty for US Chinese students.
And at home, some graduates have noticed that their experience abroad has been holding red flags with their employers. Employers are increasingly suspicious of graduates trained at foreign universities around the world.
With parents making large bills, some Chinese students are asking if it is worth studying abroad, especially if the domestic job market appears to support homemade talent.
Lean, a 24-year-old master’s degree from southeast China who had studied in the US for three years, dreamed of working on Wall Street until his student visa was suddenly revoked last July.
Lean, who studied economic statistics at a Chinese university, lost his visa under a legacy ban from President Donald Trump’s first term.
The move left Lian behind in China during a summer internship and forced him to jump into the “rat race” of the domestic job market.
The 70s application to state-backed banks and financial companies has not won him a role, and most people have not passed the first CV screening, Lian pointed out.
“There’s probably political sensitivity,” he said, asking CNN not to reveal which Chinese universities he studied because of the subject’s sensitivity.
Leanne believes his experience in the US is preventing him from entering the public sector and has applied for an unexpected challenge to his role in private companies.
“Being caught up in a conflict between the two countries has only made you powerless,” said Lian, whose job hunting was ultimately rewarded in March with an offer from a private company in Shanghai.
China’s job market is a broader group of foreign degree holders, both in the private and public sectors, especially in the US alumni, but not foreign graduates, despite their increasingly choosing to return.
Since XI took office in 2013, the annual number of overseas returnees rose steadily from around 350,000 to 580,000 in 2019, before it exceeded one million in 2021.
However, not all Chinese companies have given them an exciting reception during the intense nationalism and national security suspicions under XI.
In late April, Donmintzhu, chairman of China’s home appliance giant Glee Electric, told the shareholders’ meeting, “We will never use returnees because there are spies between them.”
“Subject spy” – the delusions that are usually seen in state-backed businesses – are particularly harsh from prominent private business leaders. And it shams the injury to Chinese foreign graduates like Lian, who say they are already not welcome in China’s public sector.
Since 2023, several states, including arguably the most liberal-oriented cities in southeastern China, have banned foreign degree holders from signing up for the “Xuandiaosheng” program.
In the same year, almost half of Chinese overseas students tried to enter state-backed businesses and government organs. It provided the “Iron Rice Bowl” job, and according to an annual report co-released by China’s Global Youth Summit and Leepin, China’s leading online recruitment platform, it was jointly released by Liepin.
“The public sector does not welcome international alumni,” said Alfred Wu, associate professor at Lee Quang Yi School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He pointed to widespread concerns about national security as a major driver.
Wu explained that the paranoia climate surrounding spying has become a “social norm” in China. This regularly tells us that foreign spies are everywhere, mainly thanks to social media campaigns by the Department of National Security (MSS), China’s powerful civilian spy agency.
In particular, foreign graduates have long been seen as “easy targets” adopted by foreign spy institutions by MSS, state media said.
A recent series of propaganda videos issued by the authorities’ social media accounts detailing how Chinese men were seduced by foreign spies while studying abroad, ultimately assisting in collecting classified state secrets.
For some Chinese employers, hiring domestic graduates not only means less security concerns, but also cheap and appropriate for local culture and markets.
Yuan Xin, a career development consultant in Shanghai, said some Chinese companies prefer “cost-effective” domestic students over those perceived to have a stronger work ethic and a better grasp of the local market.
“From what we saw, most students returning after a one-year master’s programme certainly don’t have strong research skills. Their job skills are exactly like that,” the original argued that the “screening mechanism” of national graduate programs is more strict than those used overseas.
In China, students must pass the highly competitive graduate entrance exam and study for at least two years before completing their master’s degree.
According to an annual survey by China’s leading recruitment platform, Zhilian Zhaopin, master’s degree holders have long dominated the returnee landscape, accounting for nearly 80% of all returnees last year.
Yuan said that Western alumni, where work-life balance is highly regarded, “doesn’t fit perfectly” with the domestic workplace culture, where the “996” schedule (6 days a week, 6 days a week) is common.
The international alumni said that the broad belief that local alumni were not either devoted or capable enough to attack Ezio Duan as a “stereotype” had a “real influence” on his job hunt last October.
Duane said he learned communications in the US for both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and landed three offers from around 400 formal recruitment applications. Similar complaints about excessive generalization have been widely shared by other graduates who have been returned online.
Having studied in the US for five years and focused on private companies in China, Duan sees “a wide range of pressures of long working hours” at home as a “real problem.” But after three years of missions in the US, Leanne, who was open to working for a state-backed company, said she “doesn’t resist much” the workplace culture in her hometown.
However, even the most intense Chinese international graduates may find it difficult to overcome the changing attitudes of domestic employers.
Wu, a Chinese public policy scholar, says employers have become more reluctant to hire foreign graduates like Duan and Lian under XI’s “inward-looking” policy.
“(XI) aims to build a relatively closed system due to the main story he sees as a harsh reality: the rivalry between China and the US,” Wu said.
Wu said the “inward-looking” trend has been open to the public since 2018, when XI abolished the presidential term cap, and since strengthening domestic “independence and security” amid the Chinese-US trade war.
“The emphasis on internal stability and control has, in many respects, been prioritized over previous commitments to reform and openness,” said students from abroad as an important embodiment of China’s “front door” policy.
“These benefits we thought we had six years ago have been completely eroded over the past few years,” said Communications alumnus Duan.
“That’s something I really didn’t expect.”
This article has been updated.
