Today, if you open up Reddit and happen to be interested in higher education and international students, you will almost certainly come across the typical question: Why don’t Chinese students integrate more? When you start browsing the answers, many attribute this to language barriers, as Chinese students have few opportunities to speak English when they are in China. But is it really that simple?

If you walk around the streets or campuses in London, you will see Chinese students everywhere. At first glance, you may see them as united, reserved and quiet. However, as time goes by, you begin to notice something strange: Most Chinese students seem to stay among themselves. 

It is even difficult to find a Chinese student speaking English with non-Chinese students. You may think this is because they prefer to remain close to their own groups in their spare time. But in class, the pattern remains the same. 

They seldom talk and often seem reluctant to participate; if they do, it is usually in the first class of a module, when they are required to give a self-introduction. Even in this case, most of them only state their name and nationality. It is rare to hear anything about their interests, future plans, why they chose the course or anything beyond that.

Language is not the problem

You might assume that they face a language barrier. However, in many European countries, new arrivals such as immigrants or refugees tend to interact with locals proactively, even when their command of the language is extremely limited. With broken sentences, gestures and improvised expressions, they gradually attempt to build everyday connections. 

By contrast, almost every Chinese student who comes to the UK is required to obtain an English language certificate to prove that they are able to study here, which means their language proficiency is higher than that of many new arrivals. Therefore, the underlying reason Chinese students do not speak English is not that they are unable to speak, but that they choose not to speak. But why?

A degree, not an experience

For many Chinese students in the UK, especially those enrolled in one-year master’s programs, integration is never part of the plan. Most come from wealthy and well-connected families in China, and their career paths and future plans have largely been arranged by their parents before they study abroad. 

In their eyes, studying abroad is less about experiencing a different world than simply obtaining a shiny credential they can brag about once they return to China. Under these conditions, learning how to live and integrate into another society is totally unnecessary, given that most will return to China once their studies are finished. Considering that many of these students treat studying abroad merely as a tool and seldom integrate into local society to practice their English, their language proficiency often fails to improve when they return home. 

There is a term in China called shuǐ shuò (“水硕”) used to refer to these students who study overseas for a one-year master’s program but whose academic and linguistic levels remain low after the year of study. In this view, such Chinese students are seen as privileged, silver-spooned kids, but not necessarily outstanding. Many people in China believe obtaining a degree in the UK is largely a matter of money rather than intelligence.

You might raise a further question at this point. Even if these Chinese students return to China after their studies, wouldn’t engaging with new people, embracing different views and cultivating memorable friendships still be worthwhile? Why, then, do many Chinese students choose to spend that year in relative isolation, remaining largely within their own social bubble instead? To understand this behavior, we need to move beyond individual choice and look at the issue from a deeper ideological perspective.

Defensive nationalism

Returning to the question raised on Reddit, why don’t Chinese students integrate more? This discussion has now been reposted on RedNote, a Chinese platform similar to Instagram. Many Chinese students are clearly unhappy with the question, and their responses basically fall into two camps.

The first asks: “Why should we integrate? Why don’t you integrate with us instead?” The second assumes bad faith, believing that people outside China look down on Chinese people, making genuine friendship impossible. Although these two arguments appear different, they actually reflect the same unconscious ideology: defensive nationalism.

So what is defensive nationalism? It assumes that the outside world is fundamentally unfriendly and that dignity must therefore be protected before any perceived enemy reaches the border, turning engagement into something to be avoided. Defensive nationalism is invisible. 

It does not present itself as radical patriotism or open hostility toward others. Instead, it quietly plants fear and a sense of threat in people’s minds, making them afraid to express themselves. Many Chinese students, often unconsciously, come to internalize this ideology after years of being taught that China has been under siege and that the outside world is hypocritical and hostile. 

Almost every person who grew up in China is familiar with the phrase “imperialism will never abandon its ambition to destroy China” (帝国主义亡我之心不死), which portrays the Western world as a permanent enemy and frames relations between China and the West as an existential zero-sum struggle. As a result, many Chinese people are deeply cautious about the world beyond China. 

When these students go abroad, many do not come to see the world from a different perspective. Instead, their existing biases are often reinforced. What they encounter is not a colorful world, but one in which even a glance, a tone of voice or a moment of silence can be misread as discrimination or hostility.

Safety in silence

Integration is no longer a neutral or positive act, but a risky one: Speaking aloud may incur judgment, engaging too much may expose weakness and adapting to another society can feel like lowering oneself. Consequently, they come to see withdrawal as the safest response, shielding themselves behind defensive nationalism.

Behind this shield, they can find a sense of security in unfamiliar environments and redefine silence as a form of self-respect. And this is precisely what we see today: A large number of Chinese students rely almost entirely on Chinese-language media and social circles, enabling them to live physically outside of China while remaining at home spiritually.

Learning to belong

As an international Chinese student myself, when I first came to London, I felt nervous and overwhelmed. I often missed the jokes of street performers, as the rest of the audience laughed. Walking into an Italian restaurant, I felt embarrassed when it came time to order, as I could not make sense of the menu, despite it being written in English. 

In both seminars and everyday interactions, I sometimes struggled to follow what my classmates were saying. At that moment, I had two options: to remain within the comfort of my own community, or to push myself forward — to listen, to speak and to try to understand. I chose the latter because I understood that these moments of discomfort were not failures, but part of the process itself. 

I came to realize that progress does not begin with confidence, but with courage — the willingness to speak imperfectly, to misunderstand and to laugh a second later than everyone else. One day, without even noticing it happened, I realized I was no longer standing at the edge of other people’s lives, watching as an observer. I was already inside them.

[Zania Morgan edited this piece]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.