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International Student Recruitment as an Exercise in Soft Power: A Case Study of Undergraduate Medical Students at a Chinese University

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International Students in China

Abstract

This chapter explores the experiences of a group of international students taking a medical degree at a university in Central China. At the heart of the Chinese soft power campaign is the promotion of knowledge of and affection for ‘Chinese culture’, and we examine the extent to which our students develop in these two respects during their time in the country. Data was primarily gathered through interviews over a period of four years. Our findings are that while many students did develop affection for China, this was always severely limited by many negative educational experiences and the limited contact they had with Chinese students. We propose, however, that an ‘alumnus effect’ may embody a manifestation of soft power, but this requires further empirical investigation.

The research is funded by the Ministry of Education China (MoE, 15YJC880078).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The degree was in ‘Western medicine’ as the students targeted for recruitment largely wished to practice in their home countries rather than in China; some ‘Chinese medicine’ was included in the curriculum however.

  2. 2.

    There were few African students taking this degree at CU and identifying the specific home countries of those in our sample might compromise their anonymity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Foreign Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

    Mei Tian

  2. University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China

    John Lowe

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  1. Mei Tian
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  2. John Lowe
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Correspondence to Mei Tian .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Fred Dervin

  2. Confucius Institute, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Xiangyun Du

  3. International Affairs, Turku University of Applied Sciences, Turku, Finland

    Anu Härkönen

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Tian, M., Lowe, J. (2018). International Student Recruitment as an Exercise in Soft Power: A Case Study of Undergraduate Medical Students at a Chinese University. In: Dervin, F., Du, X., Härkönen, A. (eds) International Students in China. Palgrave Studies on Chinese Education in a Global Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78120-4_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78120-4_10

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