This article tracks the changes in the directions of the international flow of Chinese human capital between the 1870s and 2000s. Although many studies on international academic flow adopt the pull-and-push approach, this article argues that the direction of human capital flow is not determined solely by an individual's choice when faced with a pulling or pushing force; it can also be affected by people's psychocultural perception of overseas study, the international relations between host and source countries, the nation state's higher education policy, and social changes in both the domestic and the global contexts. China's experience exemplifies the potential of a developing country's success in influencing the distribution of internationally mobile students and in altering its status in the world system from that of a country on the periphery to that of one approaching the core.