Rising China, New World Politics and International Relations in Higher Education

Abstract

China emerges to be as a new world power has been one of the most important geopolitical events in the 21st century. China’s ascent in the world system is the result of a combination of factors since it reoriented on production within global capitalism in the late 1970s. After four decades of rapid development, the country has been deeply integrated into the global community, repositioning itself as the new powerhouse for manufacturing, production and technology. Enormous amounts of scholarly work focused on this topic since the turn of the 21st century. Scholars debated the changing international politics, the shifting global economic gravity, the geopolitical rivalry between the United States and China, and the seemingly arriving Asian century. However, little has been researched regarding the nexus between the changing global political economy and international higher education. What would the rise of China bring to the global higher education sector? Scholars in this panel are genuinely interested in exploring this important yet largely under-researched topic. As such, the panel attempts to advance understanding between evolving world politics and international higher education through its investigation of the changing role and status of China in global politics, revealing the effects of the wider structural and hegemonic power transition on knowledge production and academic relations, and higher education reconfiguration at multiple scales across different contexts. This panel invites paper to examine the role of higher education in shaping, unfolding, and constructing the Chinese globalization project. Papers examine the Belt and Road Initiative – what does it mean for higher education, specific attention are given to imagining and building Asian regional higher education networks. It also reviews higher education policy and development on the New Silk Road via the theoretical lens of cultural political economy to conceptualize the multi-faceted properties of education in constructing region-building. Transnational higher education is turning into a key feature in the Greater China’s higher education system, recent development will be explored regarding the role of transnational law in mediating third-space regulations that transcend national frontiers against the backdrop of Covid-19 and geopolitics. In addition, China’s active involvement and contribution to global public good through its emerging donor identity in the context of South-South collaboration and substantiable development goal is critically analyzed. Finally, the panel revisits world-class universities, and shows how a research-intensive tertiary institution develops its strategy to cope with both global challenges and local demands for meeting its institutional targets. These five papers have jointly presented a snapshot of the “globalized” higher education landscape, with a focus on China and the changing global-regional-local power dynamics. As China approaches from a semi-peripheral position to core in the global knowledge system, it is urgent and timely to devote our attention to the rapidly changing scene of international higher education, whilst engaging with foreign policy, political economy and international relations alongside our scholarly enquiries. The panel brings both well-established and emerging scholars together, generating valuable insights for tackling future challenges, enabling sustainable higher education development, and guiding better-informed policymaking.

Title	Details
Building Global Higher Education Networks through the Belt and Road Initiative	View Paper Details
A non-DAC scholarship: knowledge, space and capacity of China’s higher education provision in the global South	View Paper Details
Knowledge, power and geopolitics of transnational higher education	View Paper Details
The research-intensive university in a glonacal higher education system: The creation of the world-class university in China	View Paper Details
Understanding Education on China’s Belt and Road Initiative: A Cultural Political Economy Approach	View Paper Details