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Neither world leaders nor leading medical professionals would have anticipated the adverse impacts of the global health crisis resulting from the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic on multifaceted aspects of contemporary society. Set against the broader political economy context, this Special Issue focuses on examining the impacts of the present global health crisis on higher education development. Addressing the major objective of the Special Issue, this article chooses the theme of reimagining higher education in the post-COVID-19 era, critically examining Chinese students' desires and motivations for overseas learning. Based upon a few waves of surveys conducted since 2020, after the outbreak of the pandemic, this article assesses the impacts of the unprecedented global health crisis on Chinese students' future overseas study plans. Having experienced various forms of disruption during the COVID-19 period, this article also critically reimagines higher education development in the post-COVID-19 era.

Under the knowledge-based economy, higher education plays an important role in cultivating talents and enhancing national competitiveness. Compared with other countries, China is a latecomer in the expansion of higher education but has undergone considerable transformation from elite to massification in a short time since 1998. Most important, China's higher education expansion is not limited to the undergraduate level but includes junior college and postgraduate education. This dramatic development in higher education is also simultaneously affected by marketisation and decentralisation. Moreover, the unprecedented growth and achievements of the reform drew scholars' attention to this inspired case of the consequences of educational expansion. However, few studies analyse higher education expansion policies. This study analyses educational policies since 1998 to understand how the move to mass higher education was achieved through marketisation and decentralisation with the strong control of the central government. Drawing on policy analyses, this study suggests that the higher education expansion in China exhibits the characteristics of the East Asian model, which is shaped by the strong nation-state structure with instrumentalism.