Through a variety of programmes, including exchange programmes and summer schools, students benefit from a rich international experience offered by mobility in terms of personal growth and career development. Degree mobility refers to those who relocate abroad to obtain a degree, while credit mobility means students go abroad for a ‘short‐term study exchange’ (Riaño & Piguet, 2016). Internationally mobile students are conventionally divided into two groups. For universities across the world, the core goal of mobility is to create an international academic experience for their students. Student mobility is an important indicator for the degree of internationalization. In this context, coupled with the stress of geopolitical instability, the growth in Chinese student mobility may be entering a period of contraction, which may exert profound impacts on a global scale. As Chinese universities are promoting internationalization at home, the number of virtual programmes available to Chinese students will surge. Online mobility may be viewed as a complement or alternative for Chinese institutions when the COVID‐19 crisis is over. The study suggests Chinese students appreciate the flexibility and economic advantages of virtual mobility but also express concerns on several limitations. The mixed methods design used in this study is characterized by an initial quantitative phase of data collection and analysis, followed by a phase of qualitative data collection and analysis, with a final phase of integration or linking of data from the two separate strands of data. This article reports on the integrated findings of an exploratory sequential mixed methods design to understand benefits and challenges of virtual mobility at a Chinese university and future projection of outbound student mobility. As COVID‐19 drastically affects cross‐border mobility, virtual mobility emerges as a viable alternative to cope with the crisis.
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