Having friends from both the P.R.C. and Taiwan piqued my interest in Asian history and politics, not to mention things international in general. My belief in international education is rooted in personal experience, beginning with my friendships with international students while an undergraduate and continuing through graduate school and then five years of living abroad in Asia. Education, among other things, is supposed to help students understand reality. Also, working or studying abroad has shown me the value of getting outside of one's own cultural context. Months or years away from everything that is familiar forces one to learn not to take things for granted.
Unconscious assumptions come to the surface and have to be reconsidered.
Other ways of communicating or solving problems, as well as other value systems, have to be recognized, if not totally accepted. I also want to mention relationships between international students or other expatriates. The interactions and friendships that occur among such persons, in my view, is as important as the interaction between them and the host culture. Both types of interaction significantly shape the lives and futures of the learners and the world in general. That's a hard question to answer simply because the international scene is so unpredictable.