Writing your thesis in English in China: Order No. 42, Article 19

Yes, if your degree education is delivered in that foreign language. Order No. 42, Article 19 states that an international student who receives higher degree education through a foreign language may write the degree thesis in the corresponding foreign language; that the abstract shall be in Chinese; and that whether the defence uses a foreign language is decided by the university. The university's own published rules then go further, under section 6.4 of the Quality Standards and Article 22 of the Degree Law.

The English wording on this page is this site's translation of the Chinese text.

The three rules in Order No. 42, Article 19

The Measures for the Administration of Schools Recruiting and Educating International Students — Order No. 42 of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Public Security, which entered into force on 1 July 2017 — deal with teaching language and thesis language in the same article.

Point	Order No. 42, Article 19
Teaching	A higher education institution that meets the conditions may offer programme courses taught in a foreign language for international students.
Thesis	An international student receiving higher degree education in a foreign language may write the degree thesis in the corresponding foreign language.
Abstract	The abstract shall be in Chinese.
Defence	Whether the degree thesis defence uses a foreign language is decided by the university.

Three details inside that article carry most of the weight:

The permission follows the medium of instruction. Article 19 speaks of an international student who receives higher degree education through a foreign language; Article 19 does not address the thesis language of a student whose programme is taught in Chinese.

The abstract is fixed, not optional. The verb in Article 19 is a requirement: the abstract shall be in Chinese. This is the one part of the thesis language question that the Measures settle directly rather than leaving to the university.

The defence is the university's decision. Article 19 states that the university determines whether the defence may be held in the foreign language. A thesis written in a foreign language therefore does not, by itself, settle how the defence is conducted.

One more point about the wording: Article 19 refers throughout to "a foreign language" and then to "the corresponding foreign language". It names no language, and Order No. 42, Article 19 gives no list of languages.

What section 6.4 of the Quality Standards adds

Section 6.4 of the Quality Standards for the Higher Education of International Students in China (Trial), issued with Ministry of Education notice 教外〔2018〕50号, has two parts, and like the rest of the standards it is addressed to higher education institutions: it states what an institution shall do.

The first part has two sentences:

• A higher education institution shall encourage and support international students in China in writing their degree theses in Chinese.
• The institution's degree evaluation committee shall, in accordance with the Measures for the Administration of Schools Recruiting and Educating International Students, set the specific requirements for the language used by international students in China in writing the degree thesis and in the defence.

The direction of travel is towards Chinese. But note where the duty sits: the first bullet places the duty on the institution, which shall encourage and support writing in Chinese; the provision that speaks to the language a student may use is Order No. 42, Article 19.

The second bullet is the one to act on. The specific language requirements for both the writing and the defence are set by your university's degree evaluation committee, which acts in accordance with Order No. 42. That is where a rule about English is actually made for your case.

Your thesis goes through the university's normal stages and checks

The second part of section 6.4 requires the institution to organise the review, the sending of the thesis out for review, the defence and the other stages of international students' degree theses in a standardised way, and to carry out academic misconduct screening, blind peer review by peer experts and degree thesis spot checks in accordance with the university's uniform requirements.

Read plainly: an international student's thesis passes through the stages the university applies generally — review, external review, defence, misconduct screening, blind peer review and spot checks — because section 6.4 ties them to the university's uniform requirements rather than to a separate track. Writing in a foreign language is one of the things the committee regulates; it does not remove the thesis from those stages. Section 6.4 sets out no exemption from them for a thesis written in a foreign language.

Who publishes the detailed standard

Article 22 of the Degree Law of the People's Republic of China, which entered into force on 1 January 2025, states that the degree-awarding institution shall, on the basis of the conditions in Articles 18 to 21 of the Law, in light of its own academic evaluation standards, adhering to a scientific evaluation orientation, and after fully soliciting the views of the relevant parties, formulate specific degree-awarding standards for each discipline and programme and publish them.

Two things follow. First, the detailed standards are the institution's to write and to publish, discipline by discipline and programme by programme. Second, Article 22 refers to the conditions in Articles 18 to 21 of the Degree Law; this page quotes Article 22 only, so those conditions are not set out here.

Put together with section 6.4, this is where your answer is written down: the language requirements set by the degree evaluation committee, published as part of the institution's own degree-awarding standards. This site does not publish admission rates, does not name universities and cannot tell you what any one university has decided; the current published version from the university handling your case is the thing to read.

Planning around it — a suggestion, not a rule

The five steps below are a planning suggestion. None of them is a legal requirement.

• Confirm the language of instruction recorded for your programme in the university's published admissions materials.
• Find the thesis and defence language requirements set by that university's degree evaluation committee.
• Read the degree-awarding standards the institution publishes for your discipline or programme.
• Ask your graduate school which office issued the current version.
• Plan the Chinese abstract from the beginning, and check whether the university states a length for it.

Questions people ask

May I write my master's thesis in English in China?

Yes, where Order No. 42, Article 19 applies. An international student receiving higher degree education through a foreign language may write the degree thesis in the corresponding foreign language, and the abstract shall be in Chinese. Article 19 names no language and gives no list of languages; it refers to the foreign language in which the student receives degree education.

Does the abstract have to be in Chinese?

Yes. Order No. 42, Article 19 states that the abstract shall be in Chinese. This applies where the thesis itself is written in a foreign language.

How long must the Chinese abstract be?

No length is stated in the provisions set out on this page. Order No. 42, Article 19 requires the abstract to be in Chinese but gives no length for it, and section 6.4 of the Quality Standards gives no length either. The specific requirements for the language used in writing the thesis are set by the university's degree evaluation committee under section 6.4, so any length requirement would come from the university's own published standards.

Can I defend the thesis in English?

Order No. 42, Article 19 does not decide this: it states that whether the defence uses a foreign language is decided by the university. Under section 6.4 of the Quality Standards, the degree evaluation committee sets the specific language requirements for both the writing and the defence, acting in accordance with Order No. 42.

Does an English-language thesis skip any of the checks?

Section 6.4 of the Quality Standards requires the institution to organise the review, the sending of the thesis out for review, the defence and the other stages in a standardised way, and to carry out academic misconduct screening, blind peer review by peer experts and spot checks in accordance with the university's uniform requirements. Section 6.4 provides no exemption from those stages for a thesis written in a foreign language.

Where do I find the rule that applies to me?

Two provisions point to the same place. Article 22 of the Degree Law states that the degree-awarding institution formulates and publishes specific degree-awarding standards for each discipline and programme. Section 6.4 of the Quality Standards states that the degree evaluation committee sets the language requirements for the writing and the defence. Ask the university handling your case for the current published version.

Sources

• Measures for the Administration of Schools Recruiting and Educating International Students (Order No. 42 of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Public Security) — Ministry of Education of the PRC (moe.gov.cn)
• Quality Standards for the Higher Education of International Students in China (Trial), issued with Ministry of Education notice 教外〔2018〕50号 — Ministry of Education of the PRC (moe.gov.cn)
• Degree Law of the People's Republic of China — Ministry of Education of the PRC (moe.gov.cn), text sourced from the National People's Congress website

Checked 11 October 2026

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