"WHERE is the Australian section?" we asked at one of the smartly branded, well-attended British stands.

"Oh, it's tucked down in the back corner." Sure enough, there were 19 Study in Australia-branded booths, but unlike the buzzing aisles of the British, American and Canadian sections many of the Australian marketers were left talking to each other.

Welcome to China's biggest international student mart, the China Annual Conference for International Education. It's one of two held each year (the other is in March) that tour China's six biggest cities to provide information on offshore universities, colleges and schools to the 170,000 or so students who will leave to study overseas next year.

But, increasingly, Australia is not on the shopping list.

"I have decided to go to England for my business degrees," Zhou Lifei told the HES. "Immigration is being cut in Australia and degrees from England and the US are better regarded in China than those from Australia."

Wu Jian, who is planning to study art design, is keen to go to England or France.

"Australia's school fees are very expensive," she said.

It's a similar story all over the show. A few are interested in Australia but more are keen on our growing number of competitors.

If the $18.6 billion a year golden goose that is the Australian education export sector is not yet dead, it is certainly in need of life support from Australia's policy and marketing doctors.

Projected numbers from China, representing nearly 30 per cent of all international students, look like falling and falling fast. Monash has estimated an 8 per cent to 11 per cent fall in enrolments next year but education agents in China, who recruit upwards of 90 per cent of all non-thesis-based places, are estimating a fall in demand of anywhere between 10 per cent and 40 per cent for universities and even higher for vocational and English-language colleges.

University of Western Australia chancellor Michael Chaney said the three-month or longer visa processing times are also turning off students. They can walk away with a visa to Canada in just two weeks.

Australia's universities and colleges were heavily lobbying the federal government in the lead-up to last week's visit to Beijing and Shanghai by Tertiary Education Minister Chris Evans. Yet the implications go beyond higher education funding in Australia. For China, our most important trading partner and source of foreign investment, it goes to the heart of our developing relationship with the country.

Paul Glasson, the chief China representative on the Australia China Business Council, said a reduction in Chinese students coming to Australia will have an impact on long-term business links between the two countries, He said foreign students are a source of capital through investments by their families and deeper cultural and business links that cannot be emulated any other way.

Senator Evans was also keen to talk up such links. "We are very much focused, not just on the fact that China is now our largest trading partner but on how we deepen and broaden the relationships," he said.

"Education is a fantastic bridge in seeking to have those broader cultural ties and understandings."