Is China Winning Hearts and Minds among Global South Students?

When Beijing Normal University economist Professor Hu Biliang, a dear friend who sadly passed away earlier this year, remarked during an interview that African students in China received an annual stipend of RMB100,000 (about US$13,000) and that this amount was ‘not too high’, it sparked an uproar online (The Initium 2020). Many Chinese netizens suggested that the money would be much better spent supporting impoverished children in rural China. Lost on many commentators was the fact that these education programs, which enable young people from countries in the Global South to study and live in China, play a crucial role in China’s public diplomacy efforts. The real question is whether China’s money is well spent in winning the hearts and minds of the Global South youth?

My colleagues and I explored this question by studying the experiences of Global South students who have participated in these state-sponsored education programs. Some of these programs focus on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and training students from BRI countries (for instance, at Beijing Normal University’s Belt and Road School), while others broadly target students from developing countries and aim to improve ‘South–South cooperation’ (such as Peking University’s Institute of South–South Cooperation and Development). To seek answers, we conducted an original survey among more than 900 students who were enrolled in these programs between 2020 and 2023 and followed the journeys of six who were still participating at the time of our interviews in 2023. Our findings show that these Global South citizens have developed a nuanced and complex understanding of China—politically, socially, and culturally. While they are generally positive about their experiences in China, their views are not uncritical; they highlight various problems that could hinder China’s attractiveness to international students and visitors, as well as its international standing.

Winning Hearts, Minds, and Tastebuds?

Reagan Kapilya comes from Zambia and has been living in China since 2017. When he was growing up, he did not know much about China but watched many kung-fu movies featuring Chinese stars such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Bruce Lee. Reagan decided to apply for an education program in China after one of his high school friends mentioned a visit to the country. As he told us in an interview, he was intrigued: ‘China is the number two superpower, and I wanted to go and see it myself.’ Following his adventurous spirit, Reagan eventually landed in Qinzhou—a small city in Guangxi Province that was unfamiliar even to many Chinese—and enrolled in a small regional college. His most memorable experience since arriving in China was an opportunity to appear in a blockbuster movie called Formed Police Unit (维和防暴队, 2024) alongside several famous Chinese actors, including Wang Yibo and Elaine Zhong. He described the experience as fun and noted that some of the movie stars were very nice to him.

At the time of our interview in 2023, Reagan was pursuing a Master of Public Administration in Zhuhai after graduating from college in Qinzhou and felt that the program was grooming him to become an ambassador of China to his home country. He hoped to stay and work for a few years in China before returning home, although he acknowledged that China could improve how its authorities dealt with foreigners who were Black. Having lived in Guangxi and Guangdong—two coastal provinces—he had developed a taste for Chinese seafood. His favourite Chinese food was hotpot.

Reagan is among half a million international students in China. Although not traditionally known for international education, China has recently overtaken the United States and the United Kingdom as the top destination for anglophone students from Africa, even though the number might be declining since Covid (Breeze and Moore 2017). According to the Chinese Ministry of Education, in 2018 China welcomed 492,000 foreign students from 196 countries, about 12.8 per cent of whom received some form of financial support from the Chinese Government (Ministry of Education 2019). The Chinese State calls this initiative ‘opening the education sector to the world’ (教育对外开放) and explicitly declares that its aim is to enhance China’s global influence (Ministry of Education 2020).

Has the goal been achieved? From 2021 to 2023, my research team conducted several rounds of surveys of students from the Global South enrolled in these programs. We received 907 valid responses from students from 92 countries, spanning Central, South, and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa. Respondents ranged from 18 to 40 years of age, with an average age of 27 years. About 72 per cent were male, and 15 per cent had studied outside their home country before coming to China. Most of the surveyed students were enrolled in master’s programs and their areas of study varied, from economics, public administration, and law to natural sciences and engineering. Only 18 per cent considered themselves to be fluent in Chinese, and 88 per cent considered themselves religious, with the majority being Muslim.

The responses were collected anonymously, and we asked the students about their opinions of and experiences in China. Among them, 87 per cent held a favourable view of the country, while only 31 per cent held a favourable view of the United States (we modelled this set of questions on the PEW survey by Silver et al. [2023]). A student from Yemen noted during a debriefing session that these results were not surprising, at least among the Middle Eastern students:

The United States has a very negative reputation in most Middle Eastern countries; China, on the other hand, is seen as mostly only involved economically, not politically, in this region … So, the support for China might not just be among students.

We also included an open-ended question on what they liked the most about China: ‘What are three things you want to bring back home from China?’ Their responses were diverse and fun to read. Many mentioned technology, highlighting mobile payment systems and tech products (for instance, super-apps such as WeChat, delivery services such as Meituan, bike-sharing providers, etcetera) as their top choices. Others valued cultural experiences, such as food, tea, and the friendships they made, as well as the Chinese work ethic. Economic policies and outcomes were also popular, with students noting China’s poverty alleviation programs, infrastructure, and more generally, the country’s development model. Finally, some appreciated aspects of governance, like public safety, anticorruption efforts, and ‘social management’ in general.

Because the term ‘China model’ popped up quite frequently in their answers, in a follow-up survey, we invited students to be more specific about what they mean by it. Using text analysis tools, I uncovered three key themes: first, students see the China model as a unique blend of socialism and capitalism, in which the state plays a key role in the economy. Second, they view it as particularly successful in lifting people out of poverty, driving economic prosperity, and leading technological advancements. Finally, many highlighted that the cultural element of this model is a deep-rooted commitment to hard work. While students have voiced various criticisms of China’s governance, as we will explore below, they generally had positive associations with the ‘China model’.

These answers echo communications scholar Maria Repnikova’s (2022: 50) observation that the Global South ‘embrace[s] China’s story of economic success and the idea of a shared development trajectory’. Similarly, political scientist Dan Mattingly and his co-authors (forthcoming) have noted that Chinese messages promoting its system appear successful especially around ‘growth and stability’.

Given the universal popularity of Chinese food among students, we thought it would be a fun exercise to ask during our in-depth interviews what their favourite was. The top picks included: hotpot (火锅, their absolute favourite), shrimp dumplings (虾饺), kung pao chicken (宫保鸡丁), and malatang (麻辣烫). Spicy Sichuan cuisine seemed to win their tastebuds. Many Muslim students also praised Chinese universities for the provision of Halal food; most campus dining halls have a Halal counter, and some even have separate Halal dining halls (清真食堂) for domestic and international Muslim students.

‘China Is the Best Place to Do Business’

While most students entered these programs ‘open-minded’, unfamiliar with China, and eager to explore, some came to China as ‘entrepreneurial pragmatists’. For them, a student visa provides a relatively easy opportunity to enter the country compared with obtaining a work visa. These students, who often have prior work experience in trade or other industries, come to China with a clear goal: seeking business opportunities.

Malek is one such student. Hailing from Aden in Yemen, he comes from an entrepreneurial family with historical ties to China: his father did business in Guangzhou in the 1990s and his uncle also dealt with China. His family moved from Aden to Saudi Arabia in the 2000s, and he studied in India before coming to China in the 2010s. Finding China richer in business opportunities than India, he regrets not coming sooner. With a clear goal of doing business, Malek used the opportunity to pursue a master’s degree in the country as a gateway to the Chinese market. Despite multiple offers from esteemed universities in various cities, he chose a university in Zhuhai for its proximity to Shenzhen and Dongguan—key international trade hubs. As a student, he began forming business relationships with Chinese factories, serving clients primarily in the Middle East. After graduation, he became a full-time businessman in international trade in China and, based on his WeChat posts, the business is going quite well.

While some students like Malek come with clear business goals in mind, others develop business interests and discover opportunities only after arriving in China. In our survey, as many as 83 per cent of the respondents were interested in finding job opportunities in China post graduation, hoping to stay in the country rather than return home immediately.

Learning to Live Inside the Great Firewall

Before coming to China to pursue a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree, Mexican student Maria spent one semester in the United Kingdom during her bachelor’s degree in international business and then worked for Deloitte in Mexico after graduation. Her fascination with Chinese culture began when she was seven or eight after seeing a Chinese New Year celebration on television. In school, she was often the only one interested in China. At college, she took Chinese lessons at a Confucius Institute in Mexico City and aspired to pursue a graduate degree in China, though she kept this plan from her parents; China seemed distant and very different from Mexico, with most of her friends opting to go to North America or Europe.

Maria noted that, unlike the independent approach in UK schools, Chinese universities provide more hands-on guidance to international students. She appreciated the generous scholarships offered by Chinese programs, which were more financially accessible than those in the United Kingdom or the United States. However, she observed that Chinese professors tend to lecture without encouraging much classroom discussion, unlike in Mexico, where teachers frequently challenge students with uncomfortable questions.

Like Maria, other international students do not shy away from talking about problems and challenges in China. Internet freedom is one such issue. After arriving in China, Maria quickly adapted to the new apps and even introduced WeChat to her sister for easy communication, because it was difficult to log on to apps like WhatsApp due to government censorship and control. A student from Vietnam named Tracy also mentioned the problem of access to stable and free internet (and we got cut off on Zoom while talking!). She said that this was pretty much the ‘only issue’ that confronted her in China, and otherwise China felt a lot like Vietnam culturally, to the point that she had become impressively fluent in Chinese in a short period.

To ensure we received balanced feedback, we asked our respondents to list ‘three things that China could improve on’. Their answers were diverse and candid. Many mentioned political rights and openness, pointing out issues like media freedom, work visa restrictions, racism, and political transparency. Various downsides of economic growth were also frequently mentioned, including inequality, pollution, and the quality of growth. On a more personal level, students noted difficulties with language barriers for non-Chinese speakers and instances of racism, particularly against Black people. Also, while they enjoyed Chinese food, they felt there was a lack of variety, especially on campus.

It is worth noting that students who are more sceptical of Chinese state narratives tend to be more aware of the problems mentioned above. Unlike the ‘entrepreneurial pragmatists’ who plan to stay in China after graduation, these cautious sceptics are more likely to move to countries with more political freedom once they complete their education.

China as a ‘Mutual Partner’

Disha, a vibrant and confident young woman from Bangladesh, was feeling the monotony of a demanding job in a law firm and sensed that she had reached a career plateau back home. Seeking a new direction, she learned about fully funded MBA programs in China from a friend and decided to give it a try. Her first semester was online due to the global pandemic, and she found the experience unsatisfactory. However, on arriving in China for her second semester, she quickly fell in love with the country.

Despite having been there for only a couple of months at the time of our interview, she was already thriving, making new Chinese friends, who took her on explorations around the city. She did find that some of her Chinese friends were less outspoken and straightforward than she and her friends back home, and she also realised quickly that there were other restrictions—for instance, on the internet. When asked whether these were problematic for her, she answered: ‘Do as the Romans do, right? I am very adaptive.’ She also appreciated the fact that three dining halls on campus had Halal options, and her favourite Chinese foods were chicken and shrimp dumplings in all forms: steamed, with or without soup, fried—‘I love them all!’ After completing her MBA, she applied for and was accepted into a PhD program in law at a prestigious university in Wuhan.

Disha viewed the relationship between China and Bangladesh as ‘mutually beneficial’, contrasting it with what she perceives as a ‘superiority–inferiority complex’ in the US–Bangladesh relationship. She dismissed the notion of Chinese investment in South Asia as a ‘debt trap’, arguing that developing countries are not victims but active participants capable of making their own informed decisions in global affairs:

We [developing countries] are not victims, and we should not be perceived as such. I am not very appreciative of the term, because we can be smart about it, we can read contracts and make our informed decisions. Nobody put a gun to our heads and ask[ed] us to sign anything.

Rethinking China’s Soft Power

So, how do these personal reflections and attitudes help us understand China’s soft power and educational public diplomacy efforts? As global perceptions of China become increasingly polarised, particularly in the West, a different narrative emerges from the Global South.

In the West, China is frequently characterised as a threatening authoritarian power undermining the ‘international norm of democracy and the legitimacy of democracy promotion efforts’ (Hyde 2020: 1194). The US Government is obsessed with framing the US–China competition as a ‘democracy versus autocracy’ binary. Although scholars based in Western institutions have called for a more nuanced understanding of China’s global ambitions, their answers usually come down to a focus on regime-type solutions such as ‘the best way to respond to China is to make democracy work better’ (see, for instance, Chen Weiss 2019).

However, the experiences of many of the youths we interviewed suggest an alternative perspective. Rather than viewing the world through a binary lens of ideologies or regime types, these individuals are assessing various models of development. For them, the appeal of China’s state-centric development model presents a practical alternative to Western market-led approaches. They seem to view China’s foreign policy towards the Global South as ‘pragmatic and non-interventionist’, in contrast to what they perceive as the more critical and ideologically driven narratives from the West. This perspective is further exemplified by a student from Pakistan, whom I will call Halima, who argued that South Asia should manage its own affairs independent of Western influence and welcome the presence of diverse international partners like Russia and China.

These perspectives are shaped by a mix of the students’ educational experiences in China and the realities of their home countries. While their views on development models and foreign policy often align with Chinese state narratives—partially due to how these narratives are embedded in their academic programs—our interviews revealed a more complex picture. Indoctrination alone does not fully explain their stance. Rather, students critically evaluate the Chinese State’s narrative against alternative models, drawing on their own observations of foreign involvement in their home countries. Ultimately, they arrive at their conclusions rather thoughtfully.

It is important to recognise that these views extend beyond just the young and impressionable. International relations scholar Lina Benabdallah (2020) notes in her book that China has successfully positioned itself as a peer rather than a superior power, particularly in its interactions with African states. By presenting itself as a developing country on equal footing with its African counterparts, China has made power dynamics less overt, which contributes to its success in these engagements. A Nigerian diplomat, for example, highlighted the fact that African delegations ‘were treated [as] equals, with respect and care, by their Chinese host when visiting China’ (Benabdallah 2020: 12), reinforcing this perception of equality.

In the short term, it appears that China’s narrative is gaining traction among some youths and elites in the Global South. However, as Rahman and Byler (2022) suggest, a comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness of Chinese soft power requires an examination of how these strategies are adapted and perceived over time within recipient countries. The long-term success of China’s educational public diplomacy in genuinely winning hearts and minds remains to be seen.

Featured image: Graduation photo of a Master’s Program in Public Administration, specific to students from the Global South. Source: Reagan Kapilya, 2023.

References 

Benabdallah, Lina. 2020. Shaping the Future of Power: Knowledge Production and Network-Building in China–Africa Relations. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Breeze, Victoria, and Nathan Moore. 2017. ‘China Has Overtaken the US and UK as the Top Destination for Anglophone African Students.’ Quartz, 30 June. qz.com/africa/1017926/china-has-overtaken-the-us-and-uk-as-the-top-destination-for-anglophone-african-students.

Chen Weiss, Jessica. 2019. ‘A World Safe for Autocracy? China’s Rise and the Future of Global Politics.’ Foreign Affairs 98(4): 92–108.

Hyde, Susan D. 2020. ‘Democracy’s Backsliding in the International Environment.’ Science 369: 1192–96.

The Initium. 2020. ‘中国教授称每年给非洲留学生10万“不算多”惹争议, 你如何看“奖学金外交” [Chinese Professor Sparked Controversy by Stating that Giving 100,000 Yuan Per Year to African Students in China “Is Not Much”; What Is Your View on “Scholarship Diplomacy’’]?’ 端傳媒 [The Initium], [Singapore], 11 March. theinitium.com/roundtable/20200311-roundtable-zh-african-students-scholarships.

Mattingly, Daniel, Trevor Incerti, Changwook Ju, Colin Moreshead, Seiki Tanaka, and Hikaru Yamagishi. (Forthcoming). ‘Chinese State Media Persuades a Global Audience that the “China Model” is Superior: Evidence from a 19-Country Experiment.’ American Journal of Political Science. doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/5cafd. 

Ministry of Education. 2019. ‘2018年来华留学统计 [Statistics About Foreign Students in 2018].’ 12 April. Beijing: Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/gzdt_gzdt/s5987/201904/t20190412_377692.html.

Ministry of Education. 2020. ‘教育2020收官系列新闻发布会 [The 2020 Education Concluding Series Press Conference].’ 22 December. Beijing: Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. www.moe.gov.cn/fbh/live/2020/52834.

Rahman, Sadia, and Darren Byler. 2022. ‘China’s Soft Power, Counter-Localisation, and the Role of Stateless Uyghurs in Turkey.’ Made in China Journal 7(2): 74–79.

Repnikova, Maria. 2022. ‘The Balance of Soft Power: The American and Chinese Quests to Win Hearts and Minds.’ Foreign Affairs 101(44): 46–51.

Silver, Laura, Christine Huang, and Laura Clancy. 2023. China’s Approach to Foreign Policy Gets Largely Negative Reviews in 24-Country Survey. Report, 27 July. Washington, DC: PEW Research Center. www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/07/27/views-of-china.