Politics and Chinese

Politics and Chinese is a combination with striking contemporary relevance. Politics provides the frameworks for understanding how power is organised, how states behave in the international system, and how domestic and foreign policy decisions are made and contested. Chinese, spoken by more people than any other language in the world, opens access to a country and a set of societies whose political development, economic weight, and diplomatic activity are among the most consequential in contemporary international affairs.

At the University of Manchester, this four-year full-time programme develops your analytical understanding of world politics alongside genuine proficiency in Chinese. You will study political theory, comparative politics, international relations, and specific topics in global politics, while your Chinese language studies take you from wherever you start toward professional fluency in reading, listening, speaking, and writing. The intercultural perspective the language dimension provides is not simply an add-on: it shapes how you understand political questions by giving you access to how they are framed and debated in a very different political and linguistic tradition.

A sandwich year gives you professional experience, and work placement opportunities are integrated throughout.

Graduates pursue careers in diplomacy and the foreign service, international organisations, think tanks focused on Chinese and Asian affairs, journalism, international business with a China dimension, and government departments concerned with trade, security, and international relations. The combination of political analysis and Chinese language proficiency is one of the most distinctive and sought-after in the contemporary labour market for internationally focused roles. Postgraduate study in Chinese studies, international relations, and political science is a natural progression.