The Dispatch
Partners in Rivalry
While the battle between the US and China for the position of world superpower intensifies, a surprising partnership has developed in joint campuses and transnational education.
By Gauri Kohli
In Brief
- Despite escalating US-China rivalry, joint venture universities and transnational education collaborations demonstrate a resilient, pragmatic approach to academic exchange.
- Both nations leverage these ventures for strategic gains. China imports high-quality pedagogy and retains top talent, while the US recruits students, deepens expertise, and maintains crucial soft diplomacy channels and global research networks.
- These institutions function as vital "contact zones" and "living laboratories", blending American pedagogical innovation with Chinese scale and strategic support. Their sustainable success hinges on shared governance and mutual benefits.
Even as Washington and Beijing compete over trade, technology, and security, American and Chinese universities are finding ways to keep the doors of collaboration open through joint venture universities (JVUs) and transnational education partnerships.
These include Duke Kunshan University, set up by Duke University and Wuhan University; and New York University (NYU) Shanghai, jointly established by New York University and East China Normal University, which are navigating the political pressure due to calculated and pragmatic strategies by both sides.
Other examples of Sino-US collaboration are Wenzhou-Kean University and the Hopkins-Nanjing Center.
"Solutions to sustainable development goals require close Sino-US cooperation, especially in higher education."
“The very presence of a US Secretary of State at NYU Shanghai in 2024 underscored the soft diplomacy value of these institutions, even during periods of strained relations."
Decades of Academic Diplomacy
Chinese and US universities have an enormous responsibility in the midst of Sino-US tensions, says a 2021 paper titled ‘Sino-US Relations: Universities Entering the Age of Strategic Competition,’ by the UK-based Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE).
Academic cooperation between the US and China began in the late 1970s, leading to a major increase in exchanges that continued for decades. A vibrant period of exchange coincided with major reforms in Chinese higher education and a surge in US university tuition. As a result, international students, especially from China, became a vital source of revenue for many American institutions and for research in the US.
As economic ties strengthened over the following decades, cooperation grew, though not without occasional tensions. “In the late 1990s and early 2000s, an intellectual renaissance in academic exchange coincided with extensive reforms in Chinese higher education, including its mass expansion and the rise of Sino-foreign campuses,” says the CGHE paper.
While tuition fees at Ivy League Universities surged by 1,400 percent from 1980 to 2020, making them less accessible, international students, especially from China, became a vital source of revenue. This mutual need for collaboration sparked a new era of joint ventures, officially sanctioned by China’s 2003 Law on Sino-foreign Cooperation in the Running of Educational Institutions, opening the door for new US-China campuses.
While these campuses have more reporting requirements in China, they have maintained enough autonomy to secure US degree accreditation.
“Solutions to sustainable development goals require close Sino-US cooperation, especially in higher education,” says the CGHE paper.
Pragmatism Over Politics
Amid a broader geopolitical scenario where politicians in both countries discuss decoupling, the sustained success of academic collaborations shows a deeper, practical arrangement.
Dr Denis Simon, former Executive ViceChancellor of Duke Kunshan University and an expert on US-China higher education, explains that since the early 2000s, China’s Ministry of Education (MoE) has viewed joint cooperation in running schools as a controlled mechanism to import high-quality curricula, pedagogy and research capacity without ceding full regulatory authority.
This policy framework, most recently updated between 2019 and 2024, signals Beijing’s continued commitment to this model even as the political environment hardens.
For their part, American universities are not simply pursuing financial gain. Dr Simon highlights their core mission to recruit and educate top Chinese talent, deepen China expertise across various disciplines, promote faculty collaboration and sustain globally distributed research networks.
“The very presence of a US Secretary of State at NYU Shanghai in 2024 underscored the soft diplomacy value of these institutions, even during periods of strained relations,” Dr Simon tells QS Insights Magazine, referring to US top diplomat Antony Blinken’s campus visit in April last year.
Dr Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President of the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing, agrees, describing the collaboration as a “dual logic” where soft diplomacy and pragmatic necessity are fused.
He argues that these academic exchanges preserve crucial channels of dialogue, help cultural understanding and mitigate the risk of misperception. The latest approvals from China’s MoE, which saw 23 new Sino-US partnerships announced in May this year - an increase from the previous year - serve as tangible evidence of this continued governmental support.
According to the British Council, China’s MoE has recently approved a significant batch of new transnational education partnerships, the first since 2022. This brings the total to 113 new ventures, including 69 joint programmes and 44 joint institutes. Among foreign partners, the US leads with 23 partnerships, followed by Russia (13) and the UK (11).
Local governments in China, such as those in Kunshan, Suzhou and Shanghai, are also key drivers of this collaboration. They view these universities as essential anchors for high-skilled ecosystems, investing significant resources in land, operating support, and political sponsorship.
“For these cities, the universities are a visible signal of ‘global city’ status and a strategic investment in human-capital and economic development,” says Dr Simon. The political utility of these campuses, as both Dr Simon and Dr Wang suggest, helps them function as rare US-China “contact zones” that serve pressing domestic needs on both sides.
“Joint research projects, shared resources and the training of young scholars generate tangible benefits in terms of scientific output, innovation, and global knowledge production,” notes Dr Wang.
He points out that future cooperation will likely be “more selective and regulated.” However, extensive collaboration continues in areas of common global interest such as public health, climate change, the humanities and basic science between the two countries.
One of the primary motivations for American universities is to attract top-tier Chinese students who complete their undergraduate studies at a joint venture campus and then pursue a graduate degree in the US, which greatly benefits American faculty, according to Dr David Zweig. A Professor Emeritus at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and an expert on Chinese politics, political economy and foreign relations, says, he adds: “From China’s perspective, this arrangement addresses a key national security concern by providing undergraduate students with a Western-style education without them ever having to leave the country.”
He clarifies that this benefit is limited to undergraduate training, as many of these students will still proceed to graduate studies overseas.
Balancing Academic Freedom and Governance
The success of these institutions hinges on a delicate balance between attracting top international faculty and students and operating within China’s legal and political framework. “At times, JVUs appear as compliance-heavy but remain very resilient ‘islands of cooperation’. They are designed to keep operating through rivalry, precisely because they serve local development and national talent goals,” says Dr Simon.
He notes that retention impact is real. “High-achieving Chinese undergraduates increasingly choose JVUs, then proceed to elite global graduate programs reducing overseas undergraduate outflows while preserving international mobility later.”
These institutions, through internal charters and handbooks such as those at DKU and NYU Shanghai, commit to academic freedom and open inquiry, while also emphasising compliance with PRC law.
However, as Dr Simon explains, academic freedom operates within certain boundaries, as each institution is required to have a Chinese party committee and a Chinese-majority board, a legal requirement. This structure, while seemingly a constraint, often acts as an accelerator and is often more flexible than meets the eye. Party committees and senior Chinese leaders help secure facilities, visas, and permits, ensuring the institutions remain compliant while fulfilling their educational mission.
Joint ventures offer an educational experience distinct from traditional Chinese and American universities. They combine English-medium instruction, a liberal arts curriculum, and an emphasis on critical thinking. As Dr Wang describes them, they are “living laboratories” that blend “American pedagogical innovation with Chinese scale and strategic support.” This unique model attracts top Chinese students who want a globally-recognised degree and a more interactive learning environment while remaining in China.
Both Duke Kunshan and NYU Shanghai reported record application numbers in 2024-2025. The model also serves as a domestic alternative for students who would have previously studied abroad, as Chinese enrolment in the US has fallen from a peak of approximately 372,000 to 277,000, amid geopolitics and visa friction.
“US study abroad to China remains far below pre-2012 levels. JVUs are one domestic substitute for students who would previously have gone overseas for study,” says Dr Simon.
These joint ventures function as “springboards” to global academia and industry, with their graduates showing extraordinary placement into top-tier universities. “The three key factors for this are English language competency, critical thinking, and global awareness,” he adds.
Claus Soong, China analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin, says such collaborations can create a relatively less restrictive space that boosts exchanges and interaction between Chinese and international students. “Even within a censored environment, such collaborations can still promote meaningful academic and also personal exchanges among students from different cultural backgrounds,” he adds.
Elaborating on the governance structure of Sino-foreign cooperative universities, Dr Wang says that these operate under the principle of “shared governance and mutual benefit.”
Decisions are made by a board of both Chinese and international members, ensuring compliance with local regulations while preserving academic autonomy. “The structure aligns the institution’s direction with national education strategies while safeguarding academic autonomy. Professional teams independently handle daily teaching, research, and management.”
A Sustainable Model?
The long-term sustainability of this collaboration is a key question. Dr Zweig expresses surprise that the US Congress has not yet “gone after these schools,” a testament to their resilience.
While US legislative proposals and visa restrictions and China’s own Data Security Law add friction, both governments have thus far refrained from broad, definitive actions that would shut down these partnerships.
Dr Simon argues that the model’s viability rests on a “conditional yes,” based on key factors: clear Chinese policy support for “high-quality” cooperation, strong student demand, and excellent graduate outcomes that align with both countries’ talent needs.
Dr Wang shares this optimism, seeing the model as not only sustainable but on the cusp of significant growth. Despite this optimism, the long-term sustainability of the model hinges on its ability to navigate complex issues of governance and funding.
“Depending on the governance structure - how funding is structured and how decisions are made - a balance of power within the governance system will be essential for sustaining collaboration for addressing the interests of both sides,” says Soong.