Shanghai is situated on China’s central coast and is the country's biggest city and a global financial hub. Its heart is the Bund, a famed waterfront promenade lined with colonial-era buildings. Across the Huangpu River rises the Pudong district’s futuristic skyline, including 632m Shanghai Tower and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, with distinctive pink spheres. Shanghai has been described as the "showpiece" of the booming economy of mainland China.

Why?

Top source country:

459,800 Chinese students went abroad in 2014 – an 11.1% growth in outbound mobility over the year before. In the Outline of China’s National Plan for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010– 2020), the government announced its objective to develop initiatives to further stimulate Chinese students to go abroad for their studies.

Government support and funding:

In the past two decades, the Chinese government has greatly facilitated studying abroad with various measures such as introducing a simplified procedure for obtaining a Chinese passport and by giving more freedom in the exchange and transfer of Chinese and foreign currencies. Studying abroad is actively promoted by government-sponsored financial support schemes. They are administered by the China Scholarship Council (CSC), which annually sponsors around 7,000 Chinese students.

Bilateral relations with leading markets:

As part of the national strategy to encourage outgoing student mobility, the Chinese government has placed a strong focus on creating education links with other countries, which has resulted in national-level education agreements.