International student mobility to China: The effects of government scholarship and Confucius Institute

Abstract

Government scholarship plays an active role in attracting foreign students and promoting higher education exports. As a culture and education platform, Confucius Institute is also likely to affect the number of foreign students in China. Using the data from 188 countries over the 2003-2018 period, we find globally both attract more international students to China. In addition, government scholarship has stronger impacts on degree-seeking students whereas Confucius Institute affects non-degree-seeking students more. At the continental level, government scholarship remains effective, particularly for degree-seeking students. Confucius Institute, however, display opposing impacts for different continents. As the number of the Institute increases in a country, there will be more foreign students if the continent is of higher income, geographically more distant from China, or culturally less exposed to China; and vice versa. Globally and for most continents, we observe Confucius Institute affects the positive effect of Chinese government scholarship. The results offer policy implications for government scholarship allocation decisions.