Applying for a China scholarship under 18: the guardian documents the rules ask for
Sources checked · Unofficial summary
If you will be under 18 when you apply, expect one extra item in your document list: proof of a legal guardian in China. The Application Guide for Chinese Government Scholarship asks an applicant under the age of 18 to submit the legal documents of his or her legal guardian(s) in China, and the same requirement appears in the guidebooks for the ASEAN-China Young Leaders Scholarship and the Chinese Trade Unions Silk Road Scholarship.
None of these documents says which piece of paper counts as that proof, and none gives a form to fill in. What they do give is the exact wording you have to satisfy, and that wording differs slightly from programme to programme.
What each notice asks for
| Official document | Under-18 requirement, as written on the page |
|---|---|
| Application Guide for Chinese Government Scholarship | "An applicant under the age of 18 shall submit the legal documents of his/her legal guardian(s) in China" |
| Guidebook to the ASEAN-China Young Leaders Scholarship | "Valid documents of your legal guardians in China (only required for applicants under the age of 18)" |
| Chinese Trade Unions Silk Road Scholarship | "Valid documents of your legal guardians in China (only required for applicants under the age of 18)" |
| Application Guidelines for International Chinese Language Teachers Scholarship 2025 | "Applicants under 18 shall provide certified documents of designation signed by their entrusted legal guardians in China" |
Read those as four separate requirements attached to four separate programmes, not as one rule stated four times. The International Chinese Language Teachers Scholarship wording is the most specific of the four: it asks for certified documents of a designation, signed by entrusted guardians. The CGS guide, the ASEAN-China Young Leaders Scholarship guidebook and the Silk Road page ask only for valid or legal documents of guardians in China and do not state that anything must be certified or signed, so do not assume the ICLT wording applies to them.
The CGS page carries no publication date and no academic year. The Silk Road page gives no academic year and no deadline date. The ASEAN-China Young Leaders Scholarship page gives no application deadline date; its focal point list is headed "As of 2026".
The regulation behind the requirement
The scholarship documents do not explain why a guardian in China is needed. The rule sits in the Administrative Measures for the Enrolment and Education of International Students by Schools, Order No. 42 of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Public Security, in force from 1 July 2017 (Article 48).
Article 38, in the Chinese original:
第三十八条 学校招收未满十八周岁且父母不在中国境内常住的国际学生，须要求其父母正式委托在中国境内常住的外国人或者中国人作为该国际学生的监护人，并提供相关证明材料。
A reader's translation, not an official one: where a school admits an international student who is under 18 and whose parents do not reside permanently in China, the school must require the parents to formally entrust a foreign national or a Chinese national who resides permanently in China as the student's guardian, and to provide supporting documents.
Two details in that wording matter for applicants. The obligation is placed on the school, not on you. And it is framed around parents who do not reside permanently in China; the scholarship notices themselves state the requirement without that condition, so the safer reading is to prepare the guardian documents whenever you are under 18, and to ask the admitting institution which form it wants.
What none of these documents specify
The official texts are silent on several points applicants usually need:
- Which document counts. No notice names a certificate, letter, notarisation or template.
- Who can serve as a guardian, beyond "legal guardian(s) in China" or, in the ICLT text, "entrusted legal guardians in China".
- How a guardian is found or appointed.
- Whether the guardian must live in the same city as the host institution.
- At which moment your age is measured. The notices say "under the age of 18" or "applicants under 18" without stating whether the age is checked at application, admission or enrolment.
Where the official text does not say, this page does not fill the gap from another programme's rules.
The age floor for the International Chinese Language Teachers Scholarship
The ICLT is the one programme here that sets a minimum age. Its 2025 guidelines, dated January 2025 and written for programmes starting between July 2025 and March 2026, required applicants to be aged between 16 and 35 on 1 September 2025. Applicants for a Bachelor's degree were to be younger than 25 under most circumstances, and the maximum age for in-service Chinese teachers could be extended to 45.
So for that cycle the guardian question could only arise for 16- and 17-year-olds: below 16 you did not meet the eligibility age, and from 18 the guardian documents were not asked for. Those dates belong to the 2025 cycle and have passed; treat them as that cycle's dates rather than as current ones.
The CGS guide's document list does not state a minimum age, and nothing in the material used here gives an age floor for the Chinese Government Scholarship programmes.
Questions people ask
Do I need a guardian if my parents live in China?
Order 42 Article 38 describes the entrustment requirement for students whose parents do not reside permanently in China. The scholarship notices state the guardian-document requirement for applicants under 18 without that exception. Because the two texts are written differently, prepare the documents and confirm the position with the admitting institution.
Is the guardian requirement the same for all four programmes?
The requirement appears in all four, but the wording is not identical. Three ask for valid or legal documents of legal guardians in China; the ICLT guidelines ask for certified documents of designation signed by entrusted legal guardians in China.
Does any notice tell me which documents to upload?
No. Each notice names the category of document and stops there. The ICLT guidelines add that host institutions may require additional documents.
What is the minimum age for the Chinese Government Scholarship?
The document list in the CGS application guide does not state one, and the material used for this page gives no age floor for those programmes.
Sources
- Application Guide for Chinese Government Scholarship, China Scholarship Council (Campus China, campuschina.org)
- Guidebook to the ASEAN-China Young Leaders Scholarship, China Scholarship Council (Campus China, campuschina.org)
- Chinese Trade Unions Silk Road Scholarship, China Scholarship Council (Campus China, campuschina.org)
- Application Guidelines for International Chinese Language Teachers Scholarship 2025, Center for Language Education and Cooperation (CLEC, chinese.cn)
- 《学校招收和培养国际学生管理办法》(Administrative Measures for the Enrolment and Education of International Students by Schools), Order No. 42, Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China (moe.gov.cn)
Checked 10 October 2026.
This page is an unofficial summary written by China Scholarships Index, is not published by the China Scholarship Council, the Center for Language Education and Cooperation or the Ministry of Education, and where it differs from the official notice, the official notice prevails.