Learnings from HE exchange in China

The trip was funded and organised by Providence Academy, which coordinates UK-China higher education exchanges, alongside the 48 Group. We were joined by student leaders from other Russell Group universities, coordinated in part through KCLSU.

Imperial is one of the most internationally diverse universities, and our approach to representation must reflect that. Around one in four Imperial students are Chinese nationals, so understanding the higher education system they come from and the communities they rely on is relevant to representing and supporting our community.

We want to be clear about what this piece is. It’s not a political endorsement of the Chinese higher education system or of the government that shapes it, and it’s not a set of fixed conclusions about any students. Our observations are initial, and we recognise the limits of what we could see over seven days.

With that said, there is genuine learning potential on both sides. We would welcome the chance to discuss these reflections with our wider student body, and particularly with our international students, whose experiences we are always trying to understand better. If something here resonates, or if you think we have missed something, we would like to hear from you.

We took some practical questions, such as how Chinese students understand the role of a students' union, and how can they engage. What does advocacy look like in a system where student organisations work very differently? What can we learn from how Chinese universities approach sport, wellbeing, and campus life? What is the impact AI is having on students’ educational and academic experience?

Seven themes emerged that we think are directly relevant to our work at Imperial:

The sections that follow work through each in turn.

Student voice and advocacy

Chinese universities have student associations that organise campus life and cultural events. Leadership is not reached through our system, and these bodies are not structurally positioned to challenge the institution on behalf of students. The Communist Youth League plays a significant role on campus, and membership is aspirational for many students. We note this because it explains something we observe at Imperial: the idea of a students' union as an independent body that holds the university to account can feel unfamiliar, even uncomfortable, to students who have never encountered it.

When we raise a difficult question with Imperial, we’re not being adversarial. We’re doing diplomacy on students' behalf, through proper channels and formal standing. That framing needs to be communicated clearly.

If you want to think about this more, it’s worth looking up Pitkin's theory of representation and the distinction between descriptive and substantive representation. It’s a useful lens for understanding exactly where the two models diverge.

AI and the innovation ecosystem

China's 2017 national AI plan set a target of global leadership by 2030. It has shaped research funding and curriculum design across Chinese higher education. We visited the AI Genesis Community in Beijing's Zhongguancun district, where over 100 AI companies operate in a single building cluster, surrounded by many universities and nearly 2,000 AI firms. The boundary between research, commerce, and government has been deliberately dissolved, which means that when the government identifies a sector as strategic, the whole system moves, and that’s not how things work in the UK.

Many Chinese students arrive at Imperial having grown up in an educational culture that frames technological development as civic contribution, and that was really interesting too.

On robotics: the high-profile public displays of humanoid robots are deliberate soft power, but the more significant work is less visible. AI diagnostic devices are already operating in community health centres in Beijing, handling many conditions and redirecting patients away from overwhelmed hospitals. The same infrastructure and ambition behind public presentation is being applied to problems that matter considerably more.

Sport as educational infrastructure

Every undergraduate at the universities we visited is required to participate in at least one sport as part of their degree. Physical development sits within the academic mission rather than alongside it. If you want to understand the philosophy behind that, it is worth reading about the Five Educations framework (wuyu).

Many students in the UK may never overcome the initial barrier to physical activity without structural support. The question for us is whether we can make physical activity a genuine default at Imperial rather than an optional extra, particularly for students who may not have a tradition of recreational sport in the UK sense.

The CSSA

The CSSA has documented connections to the Chinese Embassy's Education Section, and concerns have been raised in various countries about some branches being used to monitor student speech or apply pressure around certain events. We are aware of those concerns, and we take them seriously, though we have no reason to believe they reflect the situation at Imperial.

What we do know is that the CSSA does welfare and community work that formal university structures cannot match. Pre-departure WeChat groups, airport pickups, orientation support in Mandarin, and a peer community that already understands the transition a new student is navigating. Our approach is to engage with them openly and make sure their members know that the union is a space that belongs to them too.

Green spaces and sustainability

Peking University covers roughly twice the area of Hyde Park. It has a lake, gardens, forests, and residential districts. Access to green space is simply the condition of daily student life.

We cannot retrofit that onto South Kensington. But it reframes the question of whether green space as a student welfare priority has already been answered by design in Chinese higher education. We should be clearer about our own answer.

China's environmental framework also operates differently. Beijing monitors annual "Blue Sky Days" as a KPI that cascades through universities, government departments, and businesses alike. In 2025, China recorded its best-ever air quality figures.

Wellbeing

This was for us one of the most significant practical findings of the trip. Both models could learn from each other and benefit from collaboration. The UK model feels largely reactive: counselling waiting lists grow as disclosure rates rise, and institutions mostly catch students after they have already deteriorated. The Chinese campus model invests in prevention. Mandatory sport, dormitory communities, collective purpose, and rich campus life are designed to reduce the prevalence of distress in the first place and not just respond to it.

Some international student groups arriving at Imperial may carry a wellbeing model built on collective support and community embeddedness. They then enter a university environment that is more individualised and less structured. Understanding that transition matters for how we design and communicate our welfare provision, and why some students might not engage with what we currently offer.

The harder question for us is how we can shape the social architecture of student life at Imperial in ways that make distress less likely, not just responding to it when it arrives.

We look forward to continuing to strive for a nurturing and welcoming environment for all.