Last year was a pivotal year in the Australia-China university relationship. 2025 marked a symbolic beginning of a new ‘mature’ era of the relationship. The emphasis clearly shifted from Australian institutions prioritizing international student recruitment, to a more targeted strategic engagement including research and a focus on complementary interests. Both sides have established clearer ‘rules of engagement’ and there is momentum to build a more sophisticated approach to understanding our different systems and engaging productively in our national interests.
The relationship is moving past its frantic, early growth and into a period of ‘hardwood’ maturity—one that is less about rapid expansion and more about the structural integrity of shared research and evidence.
The nature of Chinese international students coming on shore to Australia continued to change last year. As of late 2025, 76 percent of Chinese enrolments in Australia are in the higher education sector, with a growing percentage in master’s and doctoral programs, rather than undergraduate business degrees.
More Chinese students are returning home than ever before. The Ministry of Education announced in December last year, that 495,000 students returned to China after studying abroad in 2024, representing a year-on-year growth of 19.1 percent.
These shifts in Australian approaches to China, and in Chinese student decision-making are the result of strategic policy making in both countries, alongside broader national labour market and socio-economic priorities.
To solidify this new phase of our bilateral education and research relationship, Universities Australia Chair, Professor Carolyn Evans Vice Chancellor of Griffith University, led a significant and symbolic delegation of Vice Chancellors and senior university leadership to China in October.
The delegation was structured around three of the key research priorities agreed by Prime Minister Albanese and Premier Li Qiang when they met in Beijing for the 10th China-Australia Annual Leaders Meeting in July: agritech, the green transition and aged/health care. This rooted the visit to be firmly in agreed-upon areas of safe cooperation and shared national priorities.
Rather than delegates visiting education agents and promoting Australian universities to potential international students, they visited major Chinese companies conducting world-changing innovation in our three priority fields such as Mindray, BGI and BYD. Roundtables were held with Chinese university leaders and officials to discuss research, education and employability in these three fields. An Australian alumni event in China’s tech capital – Shenzhen – focused on career development in our priority areas.
The 2025 delegation was a means to demonstrate that international university relationships are fundamental to our national productivity, to engaging with world-leading technology, to forecasting future labour market and skills needs and to understanding where gaps lie, where risks lie and where our national interests may diverge.
In 2026 this maturing momentum will continue.
Here are three trends to watch out for:
- Innovation policy is key to China’s future – including student choice
The 15th Five-Year Plan released in October last year came as China seeks to complete a transition towards an advanced, innovation-led economy. In this latest plan, industrial policy will take precedence over innovation however, in this framing it is clear that China expects science and technology to serve industrial development. China continues to signal significant year-on-year increases in national investment in R&D and technical self-reliance will remain a priority.
In looking at where the future jobs in China will be, and what students will look to study, look at where R&D and innovation funding is being directed. This trickles to student choices via tech company recruitment drives, official messaging around future industries and growth areas, and increases in government approvals for universities in China to offer courses in these fields.
- A new era of Transnational Education in China
In the last days of 2025, the Ministry of Education announced a record-breaking number of approvals for Joint Education Institutes and Joint Education Programs. Australia received eight of these approvals – sharing third place with the US and Italy. This marks an historic peak in the number of new China-Foreign cooperative education approvals.
These joint institutes and programs are no longer solely located in the wealthy eastern provinces, with approvals stretching to the west, central and northeastern China. Again, they are strongly oriented towards national priority areas such as health sciences and green technologies.
This flurry of new approvals is the culmination of several years of China working to ‘clean up’ its transnational education engagement, and to ensure that foreign cooperation is mutually beneficial and high quality. It also signals that transnational education has become a core component of China’s educational opening-up policy.
- Understanding what is shaping Chinese lives is as important as policy-watching
While Australia’s media places emphasis on reporting and commenting on China’s politics and geopolitical relationships, it can be easy to be blind to the shifting personal ambitions, challenges and experiences of Chinese young people and their families. The shadow of the pandemic continues to shape lives China, and the impact of geoeconomics is felt in the daily lives of many people.
In 2025 a record 13.4 million Chinese students registered sat the National College Entrance Exam. We will continue to see record numbers each year until its projected peak in 2032 when 17 million students are expected to take part in the exams before a projected sharp decline. Competition at China’s top universities remains fierce, and job opportunities are incredibly tough for many graduates. The reported youth unemployment rate remains staggeringly high at 16.9 percent.
The Chinese middle classes are continuing to display financial reticence to spend big during a time of continued economic uncertainty. With over 90 percent of Chinese students studying abroad being self-funded, this means that cost-of-living and the cost of studying abroad are increasingly important to Chinese families.
The post-COVID desire for career stability continues and record numbers of educated young Chinese people are sitting the National Civil Service Examination, yet only one out of the 100 will go on to secure an entry-level government role.
Chinese young people are truly digital natives – driving forward as first-users of technology such as AI, the low-altitude economy driven by e-commerce and are the world’s most sophisticated users of social media.
Understanding how to engage with China and Chinese universities means understanding the everyday lives and pressures of Chinese middle classes.
The Year of the Horse, 2026, will continue to be a transition year for both the Australia-China bilateral relationship and our university relationship. As we enter this new chapter of university engagement, success will be measured by our ability to remain adaptable to shifting regulations, yet anchored by a calm, evidence-based pursuit of shared knowledge.
