- Baiyu Liu is a BSc Computer Science student studying at King’s College London (KCL). He has been elected President of the King’s College London Students’ Union (KCLSU) in March 2025. His election marks the first time a Chinese student breaks into Student Union leadership in a major London Russell Group university. In this article, Baiyu writes about his thoughts on Chinese representation in student leadership.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my time as an undergraduate student at KCL and I will look back fondly on my experience and the positive imprint the university has left on me. As I leave my undergraduate studies and move on to my new role as President of the KCLSU, I can’t help but reflect on my time. What went well, and what could be improved about university offerings to students, especially Chinese students.
Chinese students form one of the largest international student groups in the UK, yet they are strikingly underrepresented in leadership, governance, and public discourse. Until my election at King’s College London Students’ Union, there was not one East Asian President in its 150 year history. This highlights the stark imbalance of Chinese representation in student leadership at universities in the UK. We believe this underrepresentation must be addressed in order to keep UK universities competitive in attracting Chinese international students, whose tuition fees form a large part of British university income.
At King’s College London, out of the 23,000 international students, over 7,000 are Chinese. However, despite being a third of the international demographic and a fifth of the total student demographic, there is a virtually non-existent Chinese presence in the Students’ Union or senior leadership. Even with the commendable efforts of KCL’s leadership and our renowned Student Union, there is still much more to be done to bridge the gap.
We have identified two major factors that have led to this lack of leadership representation: a lack of existing minority representation and a lack of cross-cultural interaction. In the past, there have been discriminatory beliefs about Chinese students ‘keeping quiet’ or ‘keeping to themselves’. My election is a wake-up call – UK universities’ reliance on Chinese students’ tuition fees and treatment of them as merely consumers must come to an end. I picked up the mantle of leadership not because it was absent among the Chinese community, but because nobody had envisioned that a Chinese student could be an SU President.
Due to the Chinese culture of deference and Confucian principles, which value social harmony above individual agency, many Chinese international students do not believe they are empowered to speak out or stand up for their communities. They have very few role models or trailblazers – they couldn’t see themselves being student leaders.
There is of course also an element of the self-fulfilling prophecy of the bigotry of low expectations. The stereotype of Chinese students as being ‘hardworking but quiet’ rears its ugly head when many previous student leaders have presumed that students will simply accept what they are told and the changes the SU intends to make. They do not expect Chinese students to put up a fight.
As Chinese international students often cluster and stay within their own circles, they are often apathetic to the wider happenings of the Student Union. This effectively creates a distance between them and the policymaking processes in channelling their student voice.
The wider implication of the lack of Chinese representation is that their concerns are not always adequately addressed. One example at KCL is the issue of Digital Graduation Certificates (DGC), wherein the time discrepancy between receiving their degrees and having their physical certificates shipped to them in China leads to graduates missing out on crucial job application windows. For many years, Chinese students at KCL have suffered in silence as they have missed job opportunities due to the lack of DGCs. We do not believe this is an oversight from KCL’s administration, but instead simply that they did not know this was a problem.
Authentic Chinese food is absent in our kitchens, despite the sizable Chinese demographic. Many international students find the whitewashed Asian food disagreeable to their palates, whilst calls for food reform often fall on deaf ears. Similarly, hot drinking water dispensers are still unavailable for Chinese students who are not accustomed to drinking cold water.
These problems, combined with many others, lead to Chinese students questioning whether they ought to study in the UK at all, which already costs far more than Chinese universities. UK universities, it should be noted, are also beginning to fall behind in STEM fields, which Chinese parents are becoming increasingly more aware of. It is thus in the best interests of UK universities to maintain a competitive edge in the Chinese higher education market.
We believe it is imperative that we diversify the Student Unions of UK universities and empower Chinese international student voices. Although KCLSU is a start, it must not be the end. We hope more Chinese students could be emboldened to run for Student Union positions across this country.
KCL is one of the greatest academic institutions in the world, with a great diversity of students from different backgrounds and cultures. The world-class staff of the university and the student union have done great work in enriching and fostering inclusivity. We believe that King’s could serve as a beacon to the rest of the country moving forward, especially in uplifting student voices within the Chinese community. I envision a world where all students, regardless of nationality, can see themselves in top leadership positions and have their voices heard. I hope to see Chinese students not just study in UK universities, but also help to shape them.