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臺灣往中國的高等教育學生流動：推拉因素
Student Flows from Taiwan to China in Higher Education:
Push-Pull Factors
Chapter 1. Introduction 1.1. Introduction
Since the 1949 retreat of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or
Guomindang, hereafter KMT) to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese Civil War, the island of Taiwan and the Chinese mainland have been locked in political conflict characterized by little to no high-level interaction between the governments of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC). While the ROC government exercises de facto sovereignty over the islands of Taiwan, Penghu, Matsu, and Jinmen, the PRC enjoys a much larger share of diplomatic partners internationally and power to prevent Taiwan from pursuing de jure independence via a “One China Principle,” by which the PRC will not tolerate an independent Taiwan and will strive for the island’s unification with the mainland.
While political relations between the two governing systems in Taiwan and mainland China have remained cold and official contact between the two nonexistent, interaction and movement between the people of the two sides today has never been easier. With the lifting of martial law in Taiwan came a lifting on a ban to travel to mainland China; since then, both formal and informal cooperation between China and Taiwan has been in social and economic realms, such as trade, investment, cultural links, and education exchange.
However, challenges still abound in the Taiwan-China relationship: a growing sense of Taiwanese national identity and a consolidating democracy in Taiwan contribute to preventing spillover of economic interdependence into policies that bring China and Taiwan closer together. Differences in size and development in the Taiwanese and Chinese economies stoke fears in Taiwan that economic dependence on China will result in the hollowing out of Taiwan’s economy or coercing Taiwan into unwanted unification.
On the other hand, the rapidly growing Chinese economy provides many opportunities for Taiwanese businesspeople and professionals to gain more than on their home island.
Integration with China’s economy is a phenomenon that Taiwan’s people recognize as politically sensitive but carrying many economic rewards. Despite changes in political
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leadership, political outlook, and national identification in Taiwan, the island’s
relationship with China remains a salient issue in the minds of those who interact with the mainland.
The focus of this thesis rests upon this increased integration despite perceived political risk in the China-Taiwan relationship. While much scholarly attention is paid to the perspectives of Taiwanese businesspeople in China and their effect on broader issues in cross-strait relations, much less research has focused on Taiwanese students who study in the Chinese mainland. While Mainland Chinese universities have been open to
recruiting Taiwanese students since 1985, the volume of Taiwanese students enrolling in universities in China has increased over the 2010s.1 These cohorts of Taiwanese students in Mainland universities form a “linkage community” between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. These communities have the potential to forge understanding and mutual trust between China and Taiwan. Understanding their decision process in choosing the Mainland for study may reveal more about larger dynamics in the cross-strait relationship and the development of international student mobility.
1.2. Research Motivation and Approach
My motivation for choosing this topic and completing a thesis in this area are twofold. Firstly, my professional and academic interests in both cross-strait relations and education stretch back many years to my time as an undergraduate student. Having researched topics in cross-strait relations, worked with international students, and been an international student myself, I am motivated to pursue a thesis that combines my past experiences and professional interests. This may allow me to bring a unique perspective to the topic of education exchange in cross-strait relations and serve as a basis for further studies on the role and significance of cross-border student mobility.
Secondly, studies of cross-strait movement and migration over the past several years tend to focus on Taiwanese businesspeople in China or cross-strait tourism and their role in cross-strait relations. These studies are especially important for understanding economic interdependence between China and Taiwan. However, I have found that little research has been done regarding the movement of students, whose motivations for traveling to the other side may differ from those of businesspeople and tourists. What can
1 William Yat Lai Lo, “The Political Economy of Cross-Border Higher Education: The Intra-National Flow of Students in Greater China,” in Misa Izuhara, ed. Handbook on East Asian Social Policy, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013, pp. 452-471.
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this cohort of Taiwanese students in the Mainland tell us about the larger state of cross-strait relations? Through document analysis, and interviews with professionals in the cross-strait education industry, and questionnaires with prospective graduate students, this study aims to glean a more complete picture of conditions in Taiwan and mainland China that drive cross-strait interactions, migration, and integration among the people of both sides.
The research approach for this thesis is interdisciplinary by nature, drawing from the fields of demography, international relations, and political economy, education, and policy. This includes two main theoretical frameworks to conceptualize cross-border student mobility and cross-strait integration between China and Taiwan. The first framework involves theories of migration and individual decision-making processes.
Everett Lee’s theory on migration guides individual decision-making in the context of migration.2 Building off the migration literature, Mazzarol and Soutar’s work on international student mobility forms the “push-pull” framework that operationalizes student decision-making processes.3 These models are grounded in the marketization and liberalization of higher education that creates a higher education marketplace in which students choose institutions to invest their financial and personal resources for future professional and social opportunity (see Chapter 2). The second framework involves the specific case of China-Taiwan relations, specifically frameworks of mobility and
integration between the people of the two sides in the absence of warm governmental relations. Yung Wei’s conception of multi-system nations and linkage communities provides the theoretical context for the importance of people-to-people ties for the future of cross-strait relations and integration (see Chapter 3, section 3.1.3).4 The cross-strait migration of students potentially creates a linkage community of Taiwanese students in China who understand and have a stake in the peaceful development of cross-strait relations.
1.3 Research Question and Objectives
This study aims to answer the following research question: what pull factors in mainland China and in push factors in Taiwan motivate Taiwanese students to migrate to
2 Everett S. Lee, “A Theory of Migration,” Demography, vol. 3 no. 1, 1966, pp. 47-57
3 Tim Mazzarol and Geoffrey N. Soutar, “‘Push-Pull’ Factors Influencing International Student Destination Choice,” International Journal of Educational Management, vol. 16, no. 2, 2002, pp. 82-90.
4 Yung Wei, “From ‘Multi-System Nations’ to ‘Linkage Communities:’ A New Conceptual Scheme for the Integration of Divided Nations,” Issues and Studies vol. 33, no. 10 1997, pp. 1-19.
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China for higher education? Conversely, are there reverse push factors in China or positive pull factors in Taiwan that students weigh in their choice of graduate school location?
The objectives of this research are twofold. Firstly, this study aims to identify and contextualize the social, economic, and/or personal factors Taiwanese students consider in their decision of whether to pursue graduate studies in mainland China. Secondly, this study attempts to tie these considerations into the larger body of work on cross-strait economic relations and the role of students in integrating the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. More specifically, this study frames these considerations in terms of the push-pull framework. Following frameworks of migration proposed by Everett S. Lee, Mazzarol and Soutar, and Li and Bray, this study defines both positive and negative push factors in both Taiwan and China that may affect student choice in graduate school location.5
Regarding the “push” side of the push-pull framework, this study examines the push factors associated with Taiwan as well as with China. Following other literature on student mobility, push factors include conditions at home that motivate a person to move elsewhere. Push factors may also include negative conditions in the destination locale that make that destination unwelcoming.6 For the purposes of this study, “push” factors will be characterized as the negative factors within Taiwan that make students feel the need to move somewhere else to pursue an advanced degree, which may include the
dissatisfaction with salary levels or opportunities for professional advancement in Taiwan. Push factors can also work in the opposite direction, which in this case would include negative aspects of life and studies in mainland China that Taiwanese students consider that could also alter their decisions, such as perceptions of academic and social freedom in China or the quality of a Mainland graduate program as compared to a local Taiwanese one.
On the other hand, “pull” factors make up the attractive traits or perceptions of the destination that draw a person there, or the positive aspects of home that may prevent a person from leaving. In this study, “pull” factors comprise of the benefits, both real and perceived, of mainland China as a destination for Taiwanese students. Conversely, pull factors operating in the opposite direction include the positive aspects of not migrating for
5 See Everett S. Lee, op. cit., pp. 47-57; Mazzarol and Soutar, op. cit., pp. 82-90, and Mei Li and Mark Bray, “Cross-Border flows of students for higher education: push-pull factors and motivations of mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong and Macau,” Higher Education, vol. 53, 2007, pp. 791-818.
6 See Everett S. Lee, op. cit., pp. 47-57; Mazzarol and Soutar, op. cit., pp. 82-90, and Mei Li and Mark Bray, op. cit., pp. 791-818.
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graduate studies and staying in Taiwan, which may include proximity to friends and family or the general ease of staying in one’s home locale to study. Through open-ended questionnaires with Taiwanese graduate students currently studying in the Mainland as well as interviews with professionals familiar with cross-strait advanced studies, this thesis aims to identify and describe prevalent “push” and “pull” factors motivating Taiwanese students to study in China.
After identifying the various factors pushing these students out of Taiwan and pulling them toward mainland China for higher education through this two-way push-pull framework, the second objective of this thesis is to evaluate whether these factors
contribute to the formation of a “linkage community” of Taiwanese students in China, as formulated by Yung Wei and Shu Keng for gauging cross-strait integration.7 Do these Taiwanese students choose to study in China out of a desire to understand and identify with the other side, or are their economic and social prospects after graduation their main concern? While current studies have focused largely on cross-strait business and tourism flows to apply the linkage community framework, the same framework can apply to the movement of students, whose purpose for migration differs from both cross-strait entrepreneurs and tourists.
1.4. Research Methods
This thesis focuses narrowly on economic, political, legal, and personal factors affecting the decision-making process of Taiwanese students enrolled in graduate programs in the PRC and takes a variety of qualitative methodological approaches to examine this phenomenon. This study employs a document analysis of secondary source materials such as books, journal articles, and periodicals. Primary source documents for analysis include ROC and PRC law and government papers regarding Taiwan and China’s political relationship, economic interactions, and higher education systems.
Because in-depth studies of Taiwanese students in mainland China are currently scarce, this study uses semi-structured interviews and open-ended questionnaires with higher education professionals and Taiwanese graduate students in mainland China to supplement the document analysis. Two semi-structured interviews occurred in Taipei.
One interview was conducted with Dr. Chun-liang Huang, Secretary General of Chinese
7 See Yung Wei, op. cit., pp. 1-19; and Shu Keng, “Integrating from Below: Observing the ‘Linkage Communities’ across the Taiwan Strait,” European Research Center on Contemporary Taiwan Online Paper Series, no. 1, 2007, pp. 1-18.
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School of Future Education Society (中華未來學校教育學會), whose experience and expertise in the area of cross-strait education provided insight and context for the questionnaire responses. The second interview took place with a Taipei-based professor (who wished to remain anonymous) whose experience with graduate students in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields provides a counterpoint to evidence of increasing cross-strait student mobility. These interviews focused on the market for cross-strait education as well as their own perceptions of students’ motives to study in mainland China. With the interviewees’ permission, our conversations were recorded for my own playback and analysis purposes only. Recordings may be destroyed at the end of the study at the request of the interviewees.
Dr. Huang Chun-liang assisted in locating willing participants for the open-ended questionnaire. Questionnaire respondents included students currently enrolled full-time in graduate programs in China. Willing respondents received a virtual, open-ended
questionnaire in both English and Chinese in the form of a Microsoft Word document that was then sent back to me by email. Questionnaire items focused on factors that students consider when making the decision to go to mainland China for graduate studies.
Questionnaire items were framed in terms of students’ rationales for applying to graduate school (1) outside of Taiwan and (2) in mainland China. While upwards of 30
questionnaires were sent, this study yielded eleven valid responses. Questionnaire respondents remained anonymous in this study.
Because few studies have explored student flows from Taiwan to China, students’
self-formulated responses served as primary data and as a starting point for analysis based on secondary sources, placing student responses in the context of social and economic literature. Despite the small sample size that limits the applicability of the data to the larger population of Taiwanese students in China, the questionnaire response data
uncovered directions in the analysis for which academic documentation is more plentiful.
The analysis connects the micro-level rationales for cross-border graduate study from the student questionnaires with the macro-level trends and developments in cross-strait political, economic, and educational relations.
1.5. Chapter Outline
This thesis consists of six chapters examining the motivations and decision-making process of Taiwanese students considering attending universities in the Chinese
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mainland. Chapter 1 introduces the topic and themes of the thesis, including research approach and objectives, research methods and hypotheses, and limitations of the study.
Chapter 2 provides a literature review covering the expansion of higher education, which includes its massification, marketization, and internationalization that has occurred in tandem with increased economic globalization and liberalization. Chapter 2 also presents the push-pull framework of student mobility and reviews previous studies that apply the framework to cross-border movement of students in higher education.
Chapter 3 provides an overview of cross-Taiwan Strait relations between the PRC and ROC. This chapter includes theories and frameworks of cross-strait relations as they relate to this thesis particularly the divided nations framework, integration theory, and the linkage community framework. The chapter also provides a brief political and economic history of China and Taiwan’s relationship. Chapter 4 explores the landscapes and development of higher education systems in Taiwan and China, respectively. Chapter 4 also reviews interactions happening in higher education across the Taiwan Strait today and conceptualizes China as a destination for foreign students rather than its historical role as a significant source of international students.
Chapter 5 presents the findings of this thesis, which are the specific economic, social, and personal factors students consider in their decision to pursue higher education in China. This chapter includes interview findings and questionnaire results that distill the various factors into two themes. These findings are then discussed within the larger literature of cross-strait economic relations, development of higher education, and the linkage community framework. Chapter 6 concludes the thesis with implications of this research on Taiwan and China. The chapter also discusses areas for further research on higher education links between China and Taiwan.
1.6. Hypotheses
This thesis focuses heavily on Taiwanese students’ perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of studying in Taiwan versus in China. Since the research objectives mentioned above for this study are twofold, two main hypotheses guide this thesis:
Hypothesis 1. Taiwanese students consider economic and social challenges associated with life in Taiwan as well as the economic advantages of studying in China when deciding where to pursue and enroll in higher education.
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Hypothesis 2. While the cohort of Taiwanese students in China do fit the definition of a linkage community across the Taiwan strait, their individual reasons for studying in the Mainland are less related to their preferences for Taiwan and China’s political future than to their perceptions of professional and economic advancement after graduation.
These hypotheses are based in existing frameworks, theories, and evidence of cross-border student mobility as well as the current state of relations between Taiwan and China. Several studies in recent years have shown that increased economic integration in trade and business openness between China and Taiwan has thus far failed to spill over into warmer political relations between the two sides’ governments. Considering evidence of cross-strait integration among the Taiwanese business community in mainland China, this thesis hypothesizes that the flows of graduate students from Taiwan to China follow a similar pattern. Results from interviews and questionnaires with Taiwanese higher
education professionals and graduate school applicants to Mainland Chinese graduate programs provide supplemental data needed to test these hypotheses and reveal which factors are common among this pool of students considering mainland China as a destination for graduate study.
1.7. Limitations
While the purpose of this study strives to cover the topic of student flows from Taiwan to China as thoroughly as possible, a few limitations may be identified. Firstly, the qualitative nature of this research aims to identify common factors among Taiwanese students driving their decision-making. Measurement of the relative importance of each factor will not be included in this study. Moreover, the results obtained in the present study cannot be applied to the whole population of Taiwanese students in mainland China. Secondly, this study deals extensively with students’ perceptions rather than the reality of economic, social, and political conditions in Taiwan and China, since students’
decision-making process is based largely in their perceptions of macro-level conditions as well as personal factors. While current data and evidence on economic and political relations between Taiwan and China will be considered in this study to illustrate the relative quality of life between China and Taiwan, this thesis does not necessarily
compare or evaluate whether students’ perceptions of the costs and benefits of studying in China are well-founded or match the reality of current cross-strait relations. Finally, the
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scope of respondent selection has been limited to Taiwanese students to Mainland graduate school programs rather than applicants to undergraduate or exchange programs.
As graduate school applicants tend to be older, more experienced, and more independent
As graduate school applicants tend to be older, more experienced, and more independent