With their parents footing the hefty bill, some Chinese students are asking if studying abroad is now worth it, especially when the domestic jobs market seems to be favoring homegrown talent.
Lian, a 24-year-old master’s degree graduate from southeastern China who spent three years studying in the US, had dreams of working on Wall Street – until his student visa was abruptly revoked last July.
Lian, who studied Economic Statistics at a Chinese university, lost his visa under a legacy ban from President Donald Trump’s first term, which effectively denies US visas for Chinese students and researchers from universities believed to be linked to the Chinese military.
The move stranded Lian in China during his summer internship, forcing him to dive into the “rat race” of the domestic jobs market.
None of his 70-something applications to state-backed banks and financial firms landed him a role, with most not even passing the initial CV screenings, Lian noted.
“There are likely political sensitivities at play,” he said, asking CNN not to disclose which Chinese university he studied at because of the sensitivities of the subject.
Lian thinks his experience in the US hindered his entry into the public sector – and made applying for a role in a private company unexpectedly challenging.
“Being caught up in the dispute between the two countries just left you helpless,” said Lian, whose job-hunting finally paid off in March with an offer from a private firm in Shanghai.
China’s job market – in both the private and public sectors – isn’t specifically shunning graduates from the US only, but a broader group of foreign degree holders, even though they are increasingly choosing to come back .
Since Xi took office in 2013, the annual number of overseas returnees has steadily increased from about 350,000 to 580,000 in 2019, before surpassing 1 million in 2021, according to data from the Ministry of Education and the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing-based think tank.
But not all Chinese companies gave them a rousing reception at a time of intense nationalism and national security suspicions under Xi.
In late April, Dong Mingzhu, chairwoman of China’s home appliances giant Gree Electric told a shareholder meeting that the company “will never use any returnees because there could be spies among them” – a comment criticized on social media and state media for “stigmatizing” and “stereotyping” the returning cohort.
The “spy suspicion” – a paranoia usually found in state-backed firms – is especially jarring coming from a prominent private business leader. And it adds insult to injury for Chinese overseas graduates like Lian, who say they already feel unwelcome in China’s public sector.
Since 2023, multiple provinces, including arguably the most liberal-minded Guangdong in southeastern China and major cities like Beijing, have barred foreign degree holders from signing up to the “Xuandiaosheng” program, a government recruitment initiative that selects elite graduates to groom as future senior cadres for the government and the ruling Communist Party.
“The public sector is becoming less welcoming to overseas graduates,” said Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He pointed to widespread national security concerns as a key driver.
Wu explained that a climate of paranoia surrounding espionage has become a “social norm” in China, largely thanks to a social media campaign by the Ministry of State Security (MSS), China’s powerful civilian spy agency, which regularly tells citizens that foreign spies are everywhere.
