Cityzenship: How Are Cities - not Nations - Remapping China's International Education and Returnees.

Studying abroad is often described as a journey between countries: leaving China, going to a host country, usually a “developed” western country, then returning. This brief argues that, for many Chinese graduates who studied overseas, the key question is not only which country they go to, but which city they can build a life in after they come back. Returning to China is rarely a simple homecoming; it often means trying to settle in megacities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, where good jobs, services, and status are concentrated. The brief introduces the idea of “cityzenship” to show why a city lens is crucial for understanding return migration to China’s megacities. On the one hand, these cities offer a sense of belonging and membership tied to lifestyles many returnees associate with “developedness”, a concept often used to compare countries, but increasingly used by returnees to describe city-level differences within China. On the other hand, megacity governments actively attract returnees through talent programmes and hukou pathways that recognise overseas degrees as administratively legible markers of “quality,” speeding up settlement or widening eligibility so international credentials can be converted into city-based rights and access to public services.