China's Ministries of Education, Foreign Affairs and Public Security jointly issued new regulations for foreign students on June 5, 2017. The new regulations mandate that foreign students pursuing higher education diplomas in China will have to take compulsory courses in Chinese. They require universities and colleges to teach international students about China’s laws and regulations, plus its institutions and traditional Chinese culture and customs and require international students majoring in philosophy and politics to take compulsory political theories courses. The regulations state they were made to “regulate schools’ admission, the cultivation and management of international students and for the convenience of international students studying in schools in China”. The regulations ban any form of religious activities on campus, such as preaching or religious gatherings and say that schools should respect the customs and religious beliefs of foreign students, but are not allowed to provide any venue for their religious activities. International students who do not live in school dormitories are required to register their address with police in the neighbourhood.

Universities and colleges are now also required to have “instructors” for foreign students, following a similar practice of employing “political instructors” for Chinese students. University political instructors have long been tasked with political education and overseeing Chinese students’ ideological teaching, but the regulations do not mention this aspect of the role for instructors overseeing foreign students. The instructors are tasked to “understand international students’ needs in their studies and daily life, and provide services in providing information, counselling and recreational activities”. The regulations do not apply to students from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

(Comment: More than 442,000 international students were studying in China last year, an increase of 11 per cent on 2015, according to the Ministry of Education. More than 70,000 came from South Korea, followed by the United States, Thailand, Pakistan and India).