This Day, That Year

Editor’s note: This year marks the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening-up policy.

An item on Dec 5, 1998, in China Daily shows that 43,712 international students from 160 countries had studied in the nation the previous year.

In sharp contrast, statistics from the Ministry of Education indicated that the total number of foreign students significantly increased to 489,200 last year.

With the deepening of reform and opening-up as well as the Belt and Road Initiative, a series of preferential policies drafted by the government for overseas students contributed to the remarkable rise in their numbers.

In addition, economic factors drawing students to China include the low cost of living and the availability of scholarships as well as the safety and security of the cities.

The number of international students in China has been expanding.

Figures from April from the Ministry of Education showed China has become the top education destination for Indian students, with 18,171 in 2016, surpassing for the first time the figure for the United Kingdom, with Chinese language and medicine being the two top majors of choice.

Overseas interest in Chinese culture has seen a surge.

An estimated 17,500 Italian students were studying Chinese in high school, according to a report by the Italian Ministry of Education in October last year.

The number of Mandarin learners in Russia has grown hugely in the past 10 years, from 17,000 in 2007 to 56,000 last year, according to a survey of a regional linguistics research center in Russia.