Interest among Danish students in studying in China has dropped after COVID-19 and growing geopolitical tensions, according to Morten Laugesen, director of the Sino-Danish Center in Beijing.
Fifteen years ago, China was “the place” Danish universities wanted to be.
“When I started in 2009, China was the country you wanted to get to as quickly as possible because this was where the future was,” Morten Laugesen, director of the Sino-Danish Center (SDC) in Beijing said to ScandAsia.
The Sino-Danish Center is a university collaboration in Beijing where Danish, international and Chinese students study together.
Today, the situation looks very different, he explains.
“Then the world slowly started changing a little bit when Donald Trump became president the first time in the US and started having a very special narrative about the Chinese.”
“And then came COVID.”
Three years of online teaching
For three years, the university collaboration operated almost entirely online while China remained closed to most international students.
“We had three years with online teaching,” Morten says.
“Our whole sales argument was that students should come out and experience another culture and study together with young people from a completely different background.”
“Suddenly it was all just happening behind a screen in Ballerup or Horsens.”
Fewer students want to move abroad for years
That changing atmosphere has also affected students’ willingness to move abroad for longer periods. The center’s two-year study programs have become more difficult to attract students to.
According to Morten Laugesen, many Danish students who study abroad typically choose stays lasting one semester rather than full two-year programmes.
Because of that, the Sino-Danish Center is now looking into creating shorter study programs in China in hopes of attracting more students.
Still, he believes living in China gives students experiences impossible to get at home.
“China can really shake you,” he says.
“The language is different, the food is different, the climate is different. Everything surrounding you is different.”
People come home surprised
At the same time, he believes the general conversation about China in Europe has become far more negative.
“There is much more ‘us versus them’ now,” he says.
Many students arrive in China with a very different image of the country than what they actually experience.
“It is remarkable how many people I hear from after they have been here who come home genuinely surprised by the China they experienced.”
Despite the tensions surrounding China, Morten still believes Denmark needs stronger knowledge and cooperation with the country in the future, especially in areas such as technology, research and innovation.
“If we want to remain as good at the things we have traditionally been good at in Denmark, then we need to cooperate with people who are just as good as us, or better.”
