China suspends study in Taiwan over cross-strait relations

On 9 April 2020 the education ministry of mainland China announced that it would stop sending mainland students to study in Taiwan for the rest of the year, despite the fact that students studying on the island were able to continue their studies if they wished.

On 26 January the Taiwanese government had already temporarily barred entry of mainland students. The announcements on both sides noted the reason for their actions was prevention and control of COVID-19.

However, according to the notice from the Chinese government, current cross-Taiwan Strait relations were also taken into consideration in the decision. These decisions suggest that cross-strait student mobility in higher education has halted for the time being.

Background

Cross-strait student mobility began in the 1980s. Under the open door policy, the mainland government allowed Taiwanese students to take the National College Entrance Examination or gaokao and enter selected universities with lower admission requirements.

During this period, Taiwanese students were seen as overseas Chinese students, were required to pay higher tuition fees and were separated from local students.

The mainland government began to incorporate higher education as part of its engagement strategy in the 1990s and 2000s. In 1996, Taiwanese students became eligible for scholarships, on-campus accommodation and multiple university admission channels.

In 2005, they were charged the same fee as mainland students. In 2006, the mainland government recognised the qualifications awarded by Taiwanese universities. In 2007, a quota system was created for accepting graduate students from Taiwan, as well as Hong Kong and Macau.

There was imbalance in cross-strait student mobility during this period. Although the mainland was active in recruiting students from Taiwan, Taiwan was rather conservative in response.

However, there was a breakthrough in 2011. In that year, the Kuomintang (KMT, also known as the Chinese Nationalist Party) government in Taiwan recognised qualifications awarded by 41 universities on the mainland and set an annual recruiting quota of 2,000 for mainland students. In 2013, the number of recognised universities increased to 111. This meant that Taiwanese universities were allowed to recruit mainland students.

Although the Taiwanese government opened its higher education system to mainland students, it simultaneously imposed the ‘three restrictions and six prohibitions’ (sanxian liubu) policy.

This restricted the number of recognised mainland universities, the number of inbound mainland students and the types of qualifications that mainlanders could pursue in Taiwan. In addition, mainland students were prohibited from gaining scholarships and professional qualifications, working and staying in Taiwan after graduation, receiving additional scores that overseas Chinese students could receive in examinations and taking Taiwan’s civil service examinations.

Some of these restrictions and prohibitions were subsequently relaxed and removed. Nevertheless, mainland students are still not allowed to stay in Taiwan for employment after graduation and medical qualifications awarded by mainland universities are still not recognised in Taiwan.

Spill-over effects on cross-strait relations

The decisions regarding promoting cross-strait student mobility involve various considerations. Some would consider recruiting mainland students to be a way to respond to the oversupply of higher education brought about by the low fertility rate in Taiwan.

Nevertheless, given the situation of mutual opening and recognition, the number of Taiwanese students studying on the mainland was larger than the number of mainland students on the island.

From the perspective of the mainland, the focus seems to be on the spill-over effects of student mobility on cross-strait political relations.

In fact, the past two decades has witnessed the emergence and deepening of social and economic integration across the Taiwan Strait. According to neo-functionalist logics, growing integration in economic and social aspects, including higher education, should lead to peace, political convergence and even reunification.

In Taiwan, from the viewpoint of those who favoured closer ties with the mainland, the policy of recruiting mainland students not only encouraged peaceful interactions and built mutual trust across the two sides of the strait, but also served as a way to promote Taiwan’s political ideologies and values on the mainland.

However, there were opposing voices on the island who see mainland students as a potential threat to the security and stability of Taiwan. This explains the policy of restrictions and prohibitions.

From politics to mobility

So what is behind the current suspension of cross-strait student mobility?

One issue is that the positive spill-over effects proved weaker than expected. Instead, the effects seem to be negative, as the past few years have witnessed growing concern and anxiety over integration with the mainland in Taiwan. This resistance to the mainland’s influence somewhat explains why the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the general elections in 2016 and 2020.

Under the DPP’s rule, political tensions across the Taiwan Strait have become more apparent. The tensions can be revealed by the number of mainland students in Taiwan. In 2011, Taiwanese universities recruited 928 students from the mainland. The number reached a peak of 3,019 in 2015 under the KMT’s rule but began to drop after the DPP returned to power in 2016. The number of enrolments decreased to 2,259 in 2019.

This development challenges the overarching assumption of the functionalist theory.

Nevertheless, adopting a neo-functionalist approach, the mainland government has developed various patronage policies for promoting cross-strait integration in different aspects, particularly in the economic sphere, in the past two decades.

It is worth watching whether and how cross-strait political frictions will further undermine social and economic ties between the mainland and the island.

In the higher education arena, it is important to pay attention to whether and how the rights and interests of students studying across the strait will be looked after within the current context of cross-strait tensions.

Dr William Yat Wai Lo is associate professor at the department of international education of the Education University of Hong Kong.