Overseas students returning home in search of better career prospects

Editor's note: China's rapid economic and social development, along with rising racism and economic woes in the West, has been prompting an increasing number of Chinese overseas students to return home in search of better career prospects, writes a veteran journalist with China Daily.

Statistics show that more than 1 million students studying abroad returned to China last year, a sharp increase from 777,000 the previous year. Although the COVID-19 pandemic which brought the world to a standstill and disrupted their studies overseas is said to be the main reason for the increasing number of overseas students returning to China, it should be noted that the "return home movement" has been popular among Chinese students for the past decade or so.

Two figures prove the trend: while about 134,800 overseas Chinese students returned home in 2010, the number increased to 580,300 in 2019, just before the pandemic broke out, in search of better career prospects.