Rule-breaking foreign students in China will be punished, education ministry warns

China’s education ministry has made clear that overseas students can expect severe punishment if they break the rules, after a number of controversies involving foreigners studying at mainland universities.

An unnamed senior ministry official said rules for overseas students should be broadly the same as for the local Chinese cohort, and that universities “should seriously punish foreign students if they violate those rules”, Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily reported on Saturday.

The official said the education ministry had taken a firm public stance in response to heated online discussions in China over a string of incidents involving overseas students.

Shandong University apologised a week ago after massive online criticism for its buddy programme, which matched each of its foreign students with several local students of the opposite sex on campus.

And, earlier this month, an Egyptian studying at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in southeast China was captured on video tussling with a police officer who stopped him for violating traffic rules by taking a woman passenger on his electric bike. The university, based in the provincial capital of Fuzhou, later described the student’s behaviour as “vicious” and said on its website it would “put him under observation” as punishment.

The People’s Daily article also addressed a widespread perception in China that international students receive preferential treatment – in addition to the general scholarships and grants they receive – with different standards of dormitories, classrooms and canteen conditions, as well as test papers, compared to their domestic counterparts.