1 Introduction

Since the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up, the Party and people have made great achievements, and China has created an unprecedented economic miracle. With the rapid development of China's economy, more and more Chinese students go abroad and fly to study all over the world, hoping to do something academically, acquire new knowledge, open up new horizons and break through new fields in the new environment.

However, the "three major problems", namely, different languages, different cultures and different laws, have had a great impact on students' normal life, and have become obstacles and fetters for Chinese students studying abroad. Among them, legal issues are often ignored by people, but they are often attacked unexpectedly by overseas students(Wang Feihui,2012).However, it is regrettable that the protection of the labor rights and interests of Chinese overseas students always lacks sufficient attention. In view of this situation, when the Australian Chinese Federation of Trade Unions organized the preparation of the Report on the Development of Australian Chinese Community in 2018, a special topic was set up to investigate the employment situation of overseas students in Australia and relevant legal care. The report points out that the employment situation of Chinese overseas students is not optimistic, the legal care for overseas students at home and abroad is not in place, overseas students fail to obtain enough relevant knowledge, and there is no place to seek help when encountering legal problems. However, the report does not give clear guidelines on how to determine the legal care needs of overseas students and relevant policy support.

Through a series of investigations, this paper finds out the crux of the relevant problems and puts forward specific solutions, aiming at helping overseas students solve the legal problems encountered in their studies, work and life, and improving their working conditions and living conditions. Therefore, the Australian Institute of Management Leadership organized some students from Southwest University of Political Science and Law's internship class in Australia to form a research group. Taking Chinese students inAustralian as an example, they collected relevant data by collecting questionnaires online and offline, and combined with the search and summary of relevant documents and materials. On this basis, we analyze the data and draw a comprehensive and rigorous conclusion, so as to put forward some suggestions and programs for the reference and basis for the relevant state departments to make policy, and also provide a guide for the volunteer activities related to legal popularization.

2 Overview of the Contents of the Australian Chinese Community Development Report 2018

2.1 Problems in the work of overseas Chinese students in the report

• Chinese students studying abroad need more policy attention. Chinese students are not considered as a vulnerable group in Australia, which is inconsistent with the working conditions of overseas students in Australia. Trade unions and FWO have not paid more attention to them.

• Chinese students are weaker in dealing with their employers. Limited by language ability and other reasons, they mostly work in groups with the same cultural background, and they lack fighting when faced with unfair treatment. What's worse, quite a number of overseas students don't even realize that they have been treated unfairly. They regard overtime work as a part of their outstanding ability and the difference between them and other ethnic groups. Not only do they not resist, but they take overtime work and low pay for granted, thus gaining the appreciation of employers and thus causing vicious competition in the labor talent market.

• The contact between Chinese overseas students and other labor groups is not close enough. In the communication with other groups, Chinese students are conservative, and the proportion of trade union members among them is extremely low, and they rarely contact with other groups. This leads to the lack of support for Chinese students' groups in disputes with employers, and the bargaining power is entirely in the hands of employers.

2.2 Conclusion of the Report

First of all, the employment situation of Chinese overseas students is not optimistic, and the employment rate and jobs are far from the previous expectations of overseas students. Secondly, Chinese students have insufficient understanding of labor security, which is influenced by the past living environment, living habits and ethnic groups, which leads to a large number of Chinese students being unable to get due remuneration and security. According to the survey report, the work done in this field at home and abroad is quite limited, and overseas Chinese students can't get enough relevant knowledge, so naturally they can't seek help.

The report pointed out that to solve these problems, we must strive for more attention from all walks of life: we should not only seek the support of relevant departments of the Australian government (such as FWO53, Immigration Bureau, etc.), but also clarify the seriousness of the relevant problems to China and request China to provide more relevant education for students studying in Australia.

3 Investigation on the Relevant Legal Situation of Chinese  Students Studying in Australia

In order to deeply understand the situation of foreign students encountering legal problems in Australia, the research team designed a questionnaire, which was mainly distributed offline and online. Among them, the offline mode is mainly distributed in Queensland University, Sydney University, Queensland University of Technology and Bond University; The online way is to push it through the official WeChat public account "Australian Chinese Service" of the Australian Chinese Federation of Trade Unions through WeChat Questionnaires, and forward it on the official WeChat public account of Queensland University, Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University.

A total of 401 questionnaires were collected online and offline in this survey, and the following analysis is based on these 401 survey data.

For the first question, among the 401 people, 88 people answered "Yes", accounting for 21.9% of the total number. That is to say, one out of every five Chinese students studying in Australia has received unfair treatment in renting a house, including the landlord failing to fulfill his obligations in accordance with the lease contract, being cheated by the landlord or being unfairly treated in terms of rent. Some students said that they had no experience in renting a house, but many friends who rented a house had similar experiences and suffered unfair treatment.

When working, whether they were treated unfairly,  the  number  of  people  who answered "yes" was 25.4% (102 in total), and the number of people who answered "no" was 299, accounting for 74.6%. Of course, many foreign students who had no working experience were included. From the data, we know that the proportion of people who are unfairly treated during working is even higher than that of renting a house, and almost one in every four people is unfairly treated by the employer when working, such as wage arrears, low wages and salaries, and increased working hours without pay. From this point of view, it is very common for Chinese students studying in Australia to be treated unfairly when renting and working.

In the answer to this question, the investigation team set multiple choices, with 18.5% choosing FWO, 16.5% choosing Fair Trading, 11.5% choosing Legal Aid, and 65.1% having never heard of it. More than 60% of the respondents knew nothing about the above three legal institutions. This is a terrible phenomenon. Overseas students studying in Australia have never heard of institutions that

protect their own interests. At the same time, they suffer unfair treatment in renting or working, but there is no solution. From this data, we can see that the demand of overseas students in Australia to receive relevant legal care is increasing day by day. In addition, it is extremely urgent to publicize relevant legal institutions.

In the answer to this question, the investigation team still set multiple choices, among which 9.7% chose FWO, 8.7% chose Fair Trading, 11% chose Legal Aid, 49.6% chose family and friends, 48.9% chose schools and institutions, and 19% chose people who never thought about it. It can be concluded that when overseas students suffer unfair treatment, nearly half of them will choose to seek help from family and friends or school institutions, and the number of people who consciously seek help from relevant institutions is very small, which shows that the popularity of relevant institutions among international students is low, and the publicity of relevant institutions is not strong enough, which has little impact on international students, so that international students do not have the awareness of seeking help from relevant institutions due to unfair treatment. This fully proves that we need to vigorously publicize relevant institutions among international students to make them have a place to go when they suffer unfair treatment.

These two questions ask whether Chinese students have received training. Taking time as the dividing point, before going abroad, 78 people chose "Yes", accounting for only 19.5% of the total number, and 323 people chose "No", accounting for 80.5%. Less than a quarter of the total number of Chinese students have received training on legal issues in schools or institutions before going abroad, which means that three quarters of Chinese students have not entered any relevant legal knowledge and rights protection knowledge into their knowledge system before coming to Australia, which makes them more likely to  be  unfairly  treated  in  renting  and working after coming to Australia. After being unfairly treated, they also don't know which institutions to turn to for help and how to protect their own interests. The number of people who have received training after going abroad is 71, which is almost the same as that before going abroad, which shows that attention paid to this aspect abroad is far from enough.

It can be seen that no matter before or after going abroad, most students have no chance to understand this knowledge at all, and the occlusion of information is the biggest reason why students have no place to seek help when they encounter legal problems.

The seventh question of the questionnaire is based on the fifth question. From the fifth question, we can know that the number of people who have received training in law-related fields before going abroad is 78. The investigation team divided the contents of legal training into two parts: prevention and relief. In essence, it is the difference between beforehand and afterwards. 77 out of 78 people know how to take precautions, almost 100%. Therefore, from this data, almost all the trainings will tell you how to take precautions, which is a good phenomenon. However, when we focus on relief, only 47 people get this information. On the basis of training, only 60% of people know how to provide relief when their rights are violated, which is far from enough.

The last question is a subjective one, which is a multiple-choice question. The investigation team wants to know the expectations of the respondents, that is, when they want to get this information more. The above data show that the number of people who want to receive legal care in schools before going abroad, institutions before going abroad and organizations or associations after going abroad is about 40%. Surprisingly, 56% of the students hope that the school after studying abroad can provide them with this training. Overall, 401 people chose 676 options, and on average, everyone chose about 1.7 items independently. This result shows investigators' strong desire to know legal knowledge, but it also reflects their serious lack of knowledge in this field. To sum up, whenever training is organized, it is a way for students to obtain information. To the best of our ability, the more such training will be, the better, and more and more students will benefit.

According to the survey data of this group, among the 401 Chinese students surveyed, 88 said they had suffered unfair treatment in the process of working, accounting for 21.9%, and 102 said they had suffered unfair treatment in the process of renting a house, accounting for 25.4%. However, 65.1% of the people have nothing to do with FWO, Fair Trading, Legal Aid and other institutions that can provide legal assistance. After being treated unfairly, only 9.7% will consider going to FWO for help, 8.7% will consider going to Fair Trading for help, and 11% will consider Legal Aid.

It can be seen that there are several major problems for overseas students in Australia. First, the scope of victimization is large. Chinese students studying in Australia suffer from unfair treatment in renting and working. Second, the lack of legal knowledge propaganda. At present, the publicity audience is small and the degree is shallow. Most students have not received legal training, and have insufficient knowledge of FWO, Fair Trading and Legal Aid. There is a gap between international students and legal institutions. This is closely related to the inadequate publicity of legal institutions and the inaction of some educational institutions. Third, people's trust in the law and its related organizations is not high enough. When encountering problems, they are more inclined to seek help from school, family and friends, and it is difficult to take up the weapon of law and correctly safeguard their own interests.

4 Characteristics of Legal Problems Faced by Overseas Chinese Students

4.1 Hiding

Among the three major problems faced by foreign students, language problems and cultural problems are commonplace, so students pay more attention to and prepare for them. However, legal problems are often ignored by teachers, classmates and parents, which leads to the situation that legal problems often give students "cold arrows". And as far as the reality is concerned, the lack of knowledge about legal differences is not the most serious. The most serious situation is that students did not anticipate the existence of legal risks, that is, the lack of our so-called "legal awareness". The lack of professional legal knowledge can be solved by asking school institutions, asking government agencies for help, and hiring professional lawyers. However, the lack of legal awareness makes the above-mentioned remedies fundamentally lose their premise.

4.2 Sudden

Unlike other problems that cause headaches for international students, such as final exams and class speeches, no one can predict when and where legal problems will appear before they appear. This leads to the sudden occurrence of legal problems.

4.3 Lack of help

The most prominent feature of international students is the word "studying abroad". Studying abroad means Chinese citizens studying abroad. This characteristic often makes students fall into the dilemma of "no matter what": the Chinese government cannot provide direct help because it has no jurisdiction in foreign countries, and it is difficult for foreign governments to achieve real equal protection in practice because foreign students are not their own citizens. In addition, due to the differences in foreign government management systems and the lack of domestic life experience, it is even worse for overseas students who are at a loss when they encounter legal problems.

4.1 Severity of consequences

Legal problems rarely occur in people's life, but once they occur, they are likely to be a serious problem. International students often encounter situations in which exploited students receive less wages, students who have been maliciously detained by their landlords have suffered considerable property losses, and students who have stolen their bags have to buy a new pair of mobile phones. These losses are all called "visible losses". "Visible losses" are often better compensated, because most of them are material, and the only difference is how much material corresponds to wealth. However, what is more worrying, which people often can't see or think of, is "invisible loss". For example, there was a student whose employer forced her to work overtime, and she was dismissed if she didn't work overtime. Because students cherish this precious opportunity, they are humble, and finally they fail in their studies and are expelled from school.

5 Analysis of the causes of overseas Chinese students' legal difficulties

5.1 The degree of legal care for overseas Chinese students by relevant state departments is not enough

According to the investigation of the legal aid for international students by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education of China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China has no systematic content and has not taken relevant measures, and has not popularized legal knowledge in advance and provided legal relief afterwards. In contrast, China's Ministry of Education has a special study abroad service center directly under the Ministry of Education, which is responsible for studying abroad, and has a special pre-trip training section for legal care for overseas students, which will popularize legal knowledge and prevent safety for overseas students(Liu Guofu,2009). In addition, searching related papers on CNKI, the number of valid papers on the safety of studying abroad is 5, mainly related to the safety status and preventive measures of studying abroad.

As far as the current retrieval situation is concerned, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not issued relevant documents to emphasize legal assistance to international students, nor has it popularized legal knowledge for international students before going abroad, nor has it provided corresponding solutions for students studying abroad to encounter difficulties; Although the Ministry of Education has set up a special website for studying abroad to serve international students, it has also held corresponding publicity and promotion activities for studying abroad, but the substantive effect is not obvious.

Therefore, to sum up, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education have failed to pay enough attention to and take effective measures on how to seek legal assistance for overseas students, popularize their legal knowledge and enhance their legal awareness. This leads to the students' lack of legal awareness and knowledge, so that they are at a loss when they encounter legal disputes and do not know how to seek legal assistance, thus falling into legal difficulties.

5.2 Pre-service training for overseas Chinese students in Chinese universities hardly involves legal aid

The research team randomly selected universities of various types and regions in China to conduct pre-service training for overseas students. At present, the overseas study training programs of Chinese universities are mainly implemented through the overseas study training base of the Overseas Study Service Center of the Ministry of Education and strategic partner universities.

According to incomplete statistics, in 2018, the Study Abroad Service Center went deep into universities and held 92 on-site training sessions in 28 cities of 18 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, with nearly 35,000 people attending the on-site training sessions. According to Ai Hongge, deputy director of the Study Abroad Service Center of the Ministry of Education, in the annual work report, due to the introduction of multimedia means, more training contents and interactions are completed on the Internet or even on mobile phones. The number of people who receive online training has reached more than 2.6 million throughout the year, 87.5% longer than last year.

It can be said that the pre-service training for overseas students has been greatly popularized. However, the training mainly covers consular protection, Chinese and Western cultures, foreign etiquette, safety precautions, mental health, Chinese and Western medicine health care, etc., and hardly involves the legal aid for overseas students. Among the 20 universities surveyed, only the pre-service training of East China Normal University involves "local laws". It can be said that, at present, the section of "Legal Aid" is blank in the pre-trip training for overseas students in various universities in China.

5.3 The degree of legal care for overseas Chinese students in institutions studying abroad is not enough

The investigation team selected 20 domestic well-known institutions for studying abroad for their degree of legal care for international students. The survey results show that the legal care for international students in domestic institutions for studying abroad is inadequate. China's study abroad institutions were established late, and most of them were small in scale. Their services were limited to study abroad planning, document writing, etc., which could not fully meet the needs of international students. In addition, considering their own interests, most overseas institutions think that popularizing students' legal knowledge will not bring too many benefits to the company, but will increase the company's expenditure. Compared with the two, overseas institutions are reluctant to invest money to popularize special legal knowledge for overseas students. Although some overseas study institutions will provide pre-service training for overseas students, half of them do not inform students of their legal rights abroad. There are even fewer institutions that can inform students of legal remedies for working and renting. Only a few large-scale study abroad institutions and study abroad databases, such as New Oriental Future and Xintong Study Abroad, mention the care of working outside the home.

6 An effective way to solve the legal dilemma of overseas Chinese students

6.1 Relevant departments should issue policies and provide legal services

According to the above survey results, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has no regulations on legal aid for overseas students, nor has it taken action when overseas students face legal problems; China's Ministry of Education has set up a study abroad service center directly under the Ministry of Education, which provides overseas students with training including entry instructions, national conditions and safety precautions. However, the training focuses on safety precautions and does not involve legal aspects. Therefore, in such a current situation, it is difficult for Chinese students to get legal aid from China in a broad sense. At the same time, legal aid for non-nationals in various countries is relatively limited and expensive, and Chinese students are generally unwilling to seek local legal aid. Therefore, if the Chinese authorities can't provide relief channels, most Chinese students who can't help themselves can only passively accept the fact that their rights and interests have been infringed.

In this situation, it is suggested that the relevant departments can adjust their policies as soon as possible, add manpower to overseas institutions such as embassies and consulates, and provide legal services for local ordinary Chinese, so as to help overseas Chinese better understand and abide by local laws, and at the same time help them better safeguard their legitimate rights and interests. Chinese embassies abroad provide information and assistance to local Chinese enterprises and individuals investing in Australia in the form of intermediary service agencies. However, for those individuals with weaker overseas ability, especially those young international students, the legal services provided by overseas departments will provide them with much-needed help. In view of this, I hope that the relevant departments can introduce policies to provide local legal consulting services to overseas Chinese students through embassies and consulates, so as to help Chinese students better safeguard their rights and interests, and help them finish their studies more smoothly and build their motherland(Liu Jiaen,2017).

It is suggested that overseas institutions provide the following services for overseas Chinese citizens:

• Consulting services for local common laws. Overseas embassies and consulates can provide local legal training for overseas personnel or join new relevant staff to provide legal consulting services for overseas Chinese, so as to cope with the legal difficulties encountered by overseas Chinese(Yang Zhoushuang,2011).

• Add corresponding sections to the official website to provide consulting services for citizens online. The use of official websites can improve the credibility of services and alleviate the common concerns of people seeking help(Sun Qun,2008).

• Launch the official APP to provide legal assistance to overseas students and other Chinese in need, and adapt to the development trend of artificial intelligence, and use AI technology to provide users with convenient and quick preliminary consulting services. Taking this opportunity, the APP can also provide a channel for overseas Chinese to seek legal relief. At the same time, relying on this platform, relevant institutions can integrate other service contents and provide better services for overseas Chinese.

6.2 Colleges and universities should cover the legal sector in pre-service training and carry out activities to popularize legal knowledge

According to the data, the pre-service training for international students has become more popular in colleges and universities. However, according to the investigation of this group, the training mainly covers consular protection, Chinese and Western cultures, foreign etiquette, safety precautions, physical and mental health, etc., and hardly involves the legal aid for international students abroad. Among the 20 colleges surveyed, only the pre-service training of East China University of Political Science and Law involves "local laws". It can be said that, at present, the section of "Legal Aid" is almost blank in the pre-trip training for overseas students in various universities in China. However, the questionnaire of this survey set the question "When do you want to receive legal care from relevant parties?". The data shows that 36.4% of the people want to receive legal care before going abroad, which shows that this demand cannot be ignored.

Therefore, it is suggested that colleges and universities should include legal aid in pre-service training. Pre-Service training is an important way for "prospective foreign students" participating in the school exchange program to obtain information about the countries to study abroad. Therefore, in order to let foreign students have a general understanding of the laws of the countries to study abroad and form a legal awareness of safeguarding rights, it is necessary to add legal aid to the pre-service training to guide students to pay attention to the laws of the country, especially those closely related to their lives and rights. To achieve this, teachers in charge of international communication should be organized to learn the basic knowledge of safeguarding rights abroad, and then the knowledge can be accurately transmitted to students. The specific forms that can be adopted are: adding legal contents to the reminders of the pre-trip meeting, making legal teaching plans for overseas students and holding lectures to popularize foreign laws.

Considering the diversity of ways to study abroad, in addition to the exchange programs in schools, international students may go abroad through other institutions of study abroad or apply by themselves. Not all international students need pre-service training. Therefore, in addition to pre-service training for some international students, schools should also carry out a series of activities for all students to popularize foreign legal knowledge and strengthen students' awareness of rights protection. Specifically, we can recruit volunteers in schools or from all walks of life, make publicity brochures on legal rights and interests, push articles on WeChat public account (refer to similar achievements of the project team before), and hold relevant lectures, so that all students who intend to go abroad have the opportunity to learn about foreign laws(Stewart E. Fraser,1984).

In addition, the relevant departments can make use of the mature volunteer system to publicize the law by recruiting volunteers in domestic universities and other related groups, so as to reduce the risks of related problems before overseas students go abroad and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of overseas students.

6.3 Overseas study institutions should intensify the popularization of legal knowledge.

According to our questionnaire survey, interviews and information collection of relevant overseas study institutions, we find that domestic overseas study institutions have not done enough to popularize the law. Taking Australia as an example, according to the data collected from local questionnaires, among 401 questionnaires, 21.9% of Chinese students have been treated unfairly when renting a house, and 25.4% of Chinese students in Australia have been treated unfairly when working. The actual proportion should be higher than the statistical proportion, because not all students who fill in the questionnaire have experience of working and renting a house. If the scope is narrowed to students who have experience of working and renting a house, the proportion of unfair treatment may increase. However, when the students are treated unfairly, 49.6% of the students will choose to ask for help from their family and friends, and 65.1% of the students have never heard of Fair Work Ombudsman, Fair Trading and Legal Aid, which can solve the problem of unfair treatment. In addition, we also learned that only 19.5% of the students who had received training in legal issues before going abroad, and only 17.7% of the students who had received similar training after going abroad.

Therefore, institutions studying abroad should provide students studying abroad with manuals of relevant legal knowledge or hold lectures to popularize relevant knowledge. In addition, overseas study institutions should introduce Fair Work Ombudsman, Fair Trading and Legal Aid, which can solve the problem of unfair treatment of students, to overseas students in advance, so that they can know how to rely on such reliable institutions when they encounter legal problems.

7 Conclusion

Overseas students have frequent legal problems and increasing demand for legal help. However, the current situation that government agencies have no policies, universities have no popularity, and foreign schools have no obligation makes international students in a "three-no-care zone", and they can only face complicated foreign legal problems by their own efforts. Based on the investigation and study of the legal difficulties faced by overseas students in Australia, this paper summarizes the legal problems and their characteristics, analyzes the reasons why overseas students frequently encounter legal problems from three aspects: state departments, universities and institutions for studying abroad, and puts forward some suggestions on how to effectively avoid international students from falling into legal difficulties. In a word, there is a long way to go for the legal care of Chinese overseas students. It is hoped that the relevant departments can provide reference and basis for the relevant state departments to make policies according to the suggestions and plans of the investigation team, and help the overseas students solve the legal problems encountered in their studies, work and life, and improve their working conditions and living conditions.

Acknowledgment

9 students from Southwest University of Political Science and Law formed a group to undertake data collection, data processing and other related works, they are Zhang Qian, Wu Wenwen, Li Chaoqun, Lu Shangyang, Li Yingli, Liang Yuhan, Chen Peinan, Lan Yuexin, Zhong Rui ,hereby express the most heartfelt thanks!

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