China will allocate more resources to developing talent in areas such as international communications, organisation and the law, announced by Education Minister Huai Jinpeng recently.
The purpose of the strategy is to produce more people who can serve the national agenda, Huai told a press conference, adding that efforts must be made to guide the students in loyalty to the Communist Party.
“We will work hard on nurturing high-quality human resources in the fields of archaeology, intangible cultural heritage, foreign-related law, international organisations and international communication,” Huai said.
To increase its international influence, Beijing has actively pushed for bigger roles in international organisations and for leadership roles in key institutions such as the International Court of Justice, World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
But its efforts to expand its influence through state-funded news organisations and a network of Confucius Institutes have been hit with a series of setbacks as increasingly concerned Western governments seek to curtail their influence.
But Huai said Chinese language teaching has spread in more than 180 countries and regions worldwide, with a total of nearly 200 million people learning and being able to use the language.
He also said investment in both advanced basic sciences and high-level applied technologies has increased since one of the key challenges China is facing is in technology.
The education ministry has established 288 teaching bases in 77 universities and has trained over 30,000 students in basic sciences to create a talent pipeline network, according to Huai.
It is also planning to build 18 new engineering and medical schools, as well as 12 schools for future technologies and 50 for modern industries, according to Huai.
Additionally, the world’s largest vocational training system is producing about 10 million skilled workers each year. Meanwhile, around 700,000 students go abroad to study each year, and now there are more than 1.3 million Chinese students in more than 100 countries.
The Chinese government has established several state funds to sponsor the students’ studies, though a majority of them are supported by their parents or self-financed.
Huai said since 2012, over 80% of Chinese students who studied abroad have returned to China. In comparison, in 2010, only about 134,800 returned.
Chinese postgraduate students are facing increasing scrutiny in countries such as the United States and some of its allies in sensitive scientific and technological fields. In some cases, students from certain universities deemed to have close ties to the Chinese military and government have been banned.
