Since 2004, China has been offering undergraduate medical courses in English and has over the years emerged as a destination for foreign students, many of them from the subcontinent. Through a combination of word-of-mouth and an informal network of private educational consultants, thousands of aspiring doctors in India have opted for a Chinese medical degree. Over the years, fierce competition back home and limited medical seats have pushed more students to consider India’s neighbor as an option which has become an emerging player in a market that has traditionally been dominated by Russia and other east European countries.

Drawing on this specific story of the journey of hundreds of Indian students seeking a medical degree in China each year, the talk will look at the broader ways in which India and China interact across different fields. It was an Indian medical student returning from Wuhan to Kerala who was identified as Patient Zero when India began tracking Covid-cases in early 2020. The talk will follow the lives of students over the course of the pandemic as they make sense of online education, strict border control, and vaccine requirements. The talk will also touch upon information gathering and reporting in China, and the difficulties of looking in from outside. It will provide an understanding of the ecosystem in which Indian foreign reporting operates.

Speaker

Sowmiya Ashok
Independent Journalist
Former Correspondent, The Hindu and The Indian Express

Sowmiya Ashok is an independent journalist based in Chennai. She has worked as a correspondent for two prominent Indian dailies The Hindu and The Indian Express.

In 2019, she was the Beijing correspondent for The Indian Express where she attempted to tell stories that go beyond the official bilateral frame. She has lived and worked in the US, China, and Australia and her work has been featured in several Indian and international publications. She writes about politics, culture, history, and the ways in which China and India interact away from geopolitics. Currently, she is learning Mandarin at the National Taiwan University in Taipei.