A Strategic Study On The Market Development Of Chinese Higher Education Under The GATS System

With the acceleration of development of trade in services, more and more countries, both developed and developing has realized the increasing importance of service sector in economy. Meanwhile, services trade, in practice, should obey all rules of GATS (General Agreement Trade on Services) which is an important component of WTO system. According to GATS, education service is a kind of commodity in the educational market, which is accepted by many countries like USA, Britain, and Australia, etc. These countries pay much attention to the development of international educational market, for instance, governments provide good macro-environment, and schools try their best to supply excellent services. In so doing, those countries gain plenty of economic and political benefits and schools build up their brand in this process. It is expected that trade in education has huge potentials and will develop faster in the years to come.However, in China at present while academic quarters still engages in a debate on whether education is a commodity or not; overseas education has been highly regarded among parents and their children; at same time, many foreigners are keen on pursuing their advanced education in Chinese campus; in addition, a large number of students take to education services through Internet. All these phenomena show that Chinese education has integrated into international educational market. Since its WTO accession in 2001, China has to carry on the commitments to education services. That means Chinese education not only has to adapt to the trend of education internationalization, but also has to strengthen its competitiveness in the world education market.This paper targets at Chinese higher education, analyzes the GATS rules, characteristics of education services and current conditions of Chinese higher education in attempt to propose some practical suggestions on the adjustments for trade in education. Besides, the paper also studies the merits of European and American higher education trade, which is deemed helpful to Chinese education internalization. Specifically, the paper mainly covers five parts:the overview of trade in education services;the development of international trade in higher education;the development of trade in Chinese higher education;the SWOT analysis of Chinese higher education; andthe development strategies for trade in Chinese higher education.