Annual review of a Chinese Government Scholarship: what the Ministry's page says

Yes — it can stop. The Ministry of Education's English page dated 17 September 2009 says that anyone approved to study in China for more than one year takes part in an Annual Review; failing it means suspension of the scholarship for the following academic year or termination. Separately, students who fail to register without the institution's prior consent are treated as having given up enrolment, and the scholarship is automatically withdrawn.

What the annual review covers

The annual-review section of the Ministry's 2009 page states the rule this way: under the Measures for the Annual Review of Chinese Government Scholarship Status, scholarship students approved to study in China for more than one year must take part in the Annual Review. The institutions undertake the review comprehensively, covering study performance, attitude towards study, attendance, behaviour, and awards or penalties, among others.

The page then refers readers to those attached Measures for details. This summary rests only on the page's own sentence; the Measures themselves are not reproduced here, so nothing further about them can be stated from this source.

What passing and failing lead to

Result of the Annual Review	Stated consequence
Pass	The student is qualified to have the scholarship for the following academic year.
Fail	The scholarship is suspended for the following academic year, or terminated.

The page names no score threshold, attendance percentage or penalty scale for any of the five areas listed above.

Registration, and why it matters here

Item 2, Registration, of the same page says international students must arrive at and formally register in the institution at the time specified in the Admission Notice. Anyone unable to register before that time must ask permission from the institution directly. Anyone who fails to register without the institution's prior consent will be considered as voluntarily giving up enrolment, and the scholarship will automatically be withdrawn.

This is a different route from the annual review: the withdrawal follows from non-registration, not from assessed performance.

What the 2018 Quality Standards require of universities

The Quality Standards for the Higher Education of International Students in China (Trial), issued as the attachment to Ministry of Education notice 教外〔2018〕50号, are addressed to higher education institutions and are trial standards. Section 13.1 (fund management and guarantee) provides that institutions shall formulate an international-student scholarship management system under relevant state regulations, shall use scholarship funds on the principles of being standardised, reasonable and efficient, shall stress the incentive and value-guiding role of scholarships, shall strictly control the academic and conduct requirements for scholarship recipients, and shall establish a mechanism of periodic review and dynamic adjustment. The Chinese text above is rendered here in this site's own English translation.

Section 13.1 names no interval for that periodic review, no criteria and no list of consequences.

How old this page is, and what applies now

The English page carries the date 17 September 2009 and reads as writing of its own time. Read it as background rather than as the procedure in force. The review that applies to you is the one your university publishes, along with whatever the China Scholarship Council publishes for your category — that is where the current dates, criteria and forms come from.

Suggestion: when your admission documents arrive, note the registration date and the consent route in writing, keep a copy, and ask your institution's scholarship office to confirm in writing which review rules apply to your intake. If the criteria are published, read them early in the first semester rather than in the review week.

Questions people ask

Does failing the annual review always end the scholarship?

No. The page sets two possible consequences for failing — suspension of the scholarship for the following academic year, or termination — without saying which one applies in which case.

What happens after a year of suspension?

The page states the consequence as suspension "for the following academic year". The annual-review sentence states nothing about whether the scholarship is restored after that year.

Who carries out the review?

The institutions, according to the annual-review section of the 2009 page: they undertake the review comprehensively. Section 13.1 of the Quality Standards in turn requires each higher education institution to establish the mechanism of periodic review and dynamic adjustment.

Sources

• Application for the Scholarship of Chinese Government, Ministry of Education of the PRC, English website (en.moe.gov.cn), page dated 17 September 2009
• Quality Standards for the Higher Education of International Students in China (Trial), Ministry of Education of the PRC (moe.gov.cn), issued as the attachment to notice 教外〔2018〕50号

Checked 11 October 2026

This page is an unofficial summary; it is not published by or affiliated with the Ministry of Education, the China Scholarship Council, CHSI or any university, it is not legal advice, and where the official text or the current notice of the university or authority handling your case differs, that official text or notice prevails.