As ideological suspicion rises, China’s pragmatic pipeline of talent outpaces a divided and distracted West.
In a world increasingly characterized by intellectual competition, China’s performance-oriented society and Confucian education system are outperforming the faltering Western system. This is reflected in the steadily improving global rankings of Chinese universities, the country’s impressive innovative strength, and its growing technological leadership.
By Choice or Circumstance? Chinese Students Abroad Face Suspicion as Spies
With China’s rise to scientific superpower status, its universities – and their students – are changing the global educational landscape.
China’s most talented students secure places at the country’s best universities, while wealthier but academically weaker individuals prefer Western educational institutions. Once the gold standard of global education, however, Western universities are losing their appeal to Chinese families, even those who can afford to send their children to Western universities.
According to the British magazine The Economist, studying abroad is no longer “sexy” for Chinese people. (Screenshot of the headline from The Economist).
When I asked a professor at Tsinghua University – Asia’s most prestigious university – why Chinese students continue to study abroad, he gave me a remarkably honest answer:
“First, many of them are students who did not get into one of China’s elite universities. Second, their families can afford the high tuition fees at American universities – a luxury that most Chinese households cannot afford.”
In a symbolic milestone, a Chinese student was selected to deliver the commencement speech at Harvard University’s 2025 graduation ceremony – the first in the institution’s nearly 400-year history. Meanwhile, an Indian-American student at MIT gave a speech to her fellow students that attracted a lot of attention.
The reactions on Chinese social media to these two events could not have been more different.
The Indian-American student was praised for showing solidarity with the victims of the genocide in Gaza – even though she faced disciplinary action from her university. The Chinese student, on the other hand, faced a wave of criticism on the internet. Her speech, in which she pointed out the lack of menstrual hygiene products in poor countries but did not mention the massacres in Gaza, was met with applause at Harvard but with contempt in her home country.
Her compatriots believed that she had been accepted at Harvard University, an institution where she had uncritically adopted the prevailing politically correct narratives, not because of her intellectual abilities, but because of her privileged background.
ETH Zurich: The end of academic neutrality and freedom
In addition to the rise of China, the West is facing deep political and ideological divisions as well as economic challenges. Against this backdrop, concerns about Chinese students as potential security risks are growing louder.
Even the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, one of Europe’s leading scientific institutions, is not immune to such reservations. In Switzerland, where neutrality has long been a thorn in the side of the political and media elites – not just since the Ukraine conflict – there are plans to further restrict “Chinese influence” at this university and elsewhere. At the same time, there are plans to hire a large number of American professors.
Tsinghua vs. ETH Zurich: A story of two giants
ETH Zurich has always been one of the world’s best universities for science and technology. It ranks 11th worldwide in the Times Higher Education World University Ranking 2025.
Meanwhile, Tsinghua University continues its meteoric rise.
In the ShanghaiRanking “Global Ranking of Academic Subjects,” Tsinghua now ranks 8th in engineering and technology—far ahead of ETH Zurich, which ranks 15th.
Although ETH Zurich enjoys an excellent international reputation and has a high proportion of foreign students, the size and development of Tsinghua are impressive. It has more students, a broader faculty, significantly higher endowment assets, and a growing influence on the global academic stage.
Meritocracy with Chinese characteristics
To understand the Chinese education system, one must understand the country’s general philosophy of government. Few are better qualified to do so than Professor John L. Thornton, former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia and honorary president of the Brookings Institution. Thanks to his long-standing relationships with the Chinese leadership, Thornton has a unique perspective.
“The Chinese Communist Party functions more like a meritocratic elite than a traditional political party—similar to the historical mandarin class,” Thornton explains. ”Admission to the CCP—or to Tsinghua University, which educates about half of China’s top politicians—requires exceptional achievement. Of the 10 million high school graduates each year, only 3,000 are accepted into Tsinghua University. This is not unlike the US military, where generals rise through decades of performance-based promotions. Chinese leaders know each other well, have held real responsibility, and must meet high performance standards. However, when Americans hear ‘communist,’ they often resort to Cold War reflexes. In reality, China operates a technocratic meritocracy rooted in a 2,000-year-old examination culture.”
Thornton also notes that China is very proud of having lifted 800 million people out of poverty—the largest reduction in poverty in human history. This achievement is now shaping a new political focus on “shared prosperity,” which aims to curb the extreme inequality that threatens social stability in both China and the West.
A tale of two systems: Western mistrust vs. China’s open-door policy
While Chinese students abroad are increasingly viewed with suspicion, Beijing is taking a very different approach. China continues to welcome large numbers of international students, even though it is aware that some of them may have been sent by foreign governments to spy or cause unrest. Intelligence agencies such as the CIA, for example, use social media to recruit Chinese nationals.
Despite these potential risks, China remains committed to expanding global academic exchange. The “Study in China” initiative aims to accept more than 500,000 international students annually starting in 2025, with priority given to high-performing applicants seeking a degree. To facilitate this, China has significantly simplified the visa process for short- and long-term study programs.
General suspicion: The University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Bavaria has made blanket accusations of espionage against Chinese students with Chinese scholarships and expelled them from the university. This was preceded by accusations from activists of the dubious research portal “Correctiv” (screenshot from the Süddeutsche Zeitung).
China’s universities operate in a highly competitive environment and prepare their graduates not only for jobs at home, but also for leadership positions around the world. The country’s dynamic and competitive markets, which have produced world-class companies, reflect this competitive spirit. Naturally, they benefit from well-educated university graduates.
As the Harvard Business Review has observed, many of these companies are no longer just catching up, but are now setting global standards.
Beyond the espionage stories
China’s academic institutions are no longer overshadowed by their Western counterparts. Universities such as Tsinghua continue to rise in global rankings while helping to shape the next generation of global decision-makers.
The presence of Chinese students abroad and the increasingly competitive position of Chinese universities should not be viewed solely through the lens of espionage or mistrust. In a world where China is a leader in most areas of technology, Beijing should be more concerned about intellectual property theft than its increasingly lagging Western competitors.
The West’s defensive stance reflects a broader global shift—an emerging academic and technological rivalry in which knowledge, not ideology, has become the most valuable commodity.
So this is not a security threat. Rather, it is a challenge—and an opportunity—for the West to rethink its own educational priorities in a world where intellectual capital defines power and influence.