The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), as the core multilateral agreement under the World Trade Organization (WTO) legal framework, first explicitly incorporated “educational services” into the scope of international trade in services. This transformation redefined cross-border higher education from a traditional cultural exchange activity to a trade-regulated conduct governed by international trade law, thereby profoundly reshaping the global landscape and governance paradigm of higher education. Based on a systematic interpretation of GATS provisions regarding sectoral classification, four modes of supply, and core principles such as market access, national treatment, most-favored-nation treatment, and transparency, this article analyzes the differentiated impacts of GATS rules on the marketization process, institutional models, quality assurance systems, and educational sovereignty of higher education worldwide. This paper takes China’s specific commitments on higher education services outlined in its WTO accession services schedule as a reference. It assesses China’s existing domestic legal system, which takes the Regulations on Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools as the core. The study further pinpoints several institutional flaws, such as low legislative rank, unregulated blind spots in cross-border education supply, and insufficient quality supervision mechanisms. Finally, this paper puts forward targeted paths for legislative improvement. These include optimizing foreign-related education laws, perfecting mechanisms for translating international treaties into domestic law, and reinforcing quality assurance and student rights protection. Such measures strike a balance between fulfilling international obligations and defending national educational sovereignty, thereby offering references for advancing the legal governance of China’s educational opening-up.
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Wang, S. (2026) The Impact of GATS Rules on Global Higher Education and China’s Legislative Response. Global Education Bulletin, 3(3), 10-16. https://doi.org/10.71052/grb2025/KPZL3997