The Dispatch
Red Dragon’s soft push
China’s recent expansion of international education offerings has seen many significant rewards, but this strategy also comes along with its own fair share of roadblocks.
By Gauri Kohli, Contributing Writer
"China is expanding its offering in international education to boost its global influence."
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In the last two decades, China has maintained a strong focus on internationalisation of higher education through dynamic and ambitious policies. Experts believe that this is part of a broader strategy to build political influence, nurture future leaders, attract top talent and ultimately promote soft power. Through fast-increasing ties between Chinese universities and foreign institutions, China appears to be on a path to expand its overseas influence.
This is where the Chinese government’s initiative, the One Belt, One Road (OBOR), gains prominence. Launched a decade ago, it aims to expand China’s partnerships and influence throughout Asia, Europe and Africa. Although the initiative is meant to develop two new trade routes connecting China with the rest of the world, OBOR goes beyond just infrastructure.
This initiative is backed by a US$50 billion investment and its framework includes an element focused on joint education programmes between Chinese institutions and foreign partners.
What China seeks to gain
Michal Bogusz, Senior Fellow, China Department at the Centre for Eastern Studies, a Warsaw-based think-tank, says China wants to increase its influence in developing countries. “They are counting on the multitude of students to return to their countries full of stories of PRC power and development. Students’ contacts and language skills will also help the expansion of Chinese companies in these countries.”
The think-tank conducts research on the political, economic and social situation in Central and Eastern Europe, Balkans, Caucasus and Central Asia.
Futao Huang, Professor at the Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University, Japan, who has taught and conducted research in several Chinese universities, agrees. “China is expanding its offering in international education to boost its global influence not only in the economy but also in culture and education.”
Besides taking in more inbound international students and setting up globally-ranked universities and programmes, Chinese universities have also been using the OBOR to convert traditional one-way transnational education to a two-way model. What this means is that over the last few years, Chinese universities have been actively engaged in establishing overseas branches, international joint colleges and collaboration with foreign universities.
of Sino-foreign partnerships established in past 10 years in fields of science, engineering, agriculture and medicine.
countries and regions with Confucius Institute/Classroom
countries with Chinese degree recognitions
It is interesting to look at how these two-way TNE initiatives contribute to the country’s soft power strategy. The government funds hundreds of Confucius Institutes around the world for the advancement of Chinese language and culture. At the same time, there has also been a constant focus on China becoming an important study destination.
At the domestic level, China has also expanded the offerings of these transnational institutions and programmes from Master’s level to junior colleges that offer shorter programmes at undergraduate level. Moreover, transnational vocational and technical programmes have also been developed in association with foreign institutions.
In the field of research, China has attracted more universities from the US, the UK and Australia, to collaborate with its local universities and jointly build branch campuses that provide graduate programmes in China.
For example, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the University of Manchester came together to offer the Doctor of Business Administration programme; Tsinghua University and the Australian National University created the Master’s in Management with a focus on innovation and technology.
Initially, these TNE programmes and institutions were limited to Chinese students, but now these are being opened up to several branch campuses and transnational institutions so that they can enrol international students from partner universities and across the globe.
What statistics say
As per the country’s Ministry of Education (MoE), 65 percent of Sino-foreign partnership education programmes and institutes established in the past 10 years have focused on the fields of science, engineering, agriculture and medicine.
International students from 195 countries and regions studied in China during the 2020-21 academic year.
A total of 159 countries and regions have opened Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms, and China has signed degree recognition agreements with 58 countries.
Analysing the impact of the OBOR, Professor Huang says there has been a rise in the number of language and training programmes in relation to the initiative provided by Chinese campuses. The number of students from the OBOR partner countries has also rapidly increased.
“By 2028, Thailand will send the largest number of students to China, followed by Pakistan. One of the important reasons is that both Thailand and Pakistan have maintained a long-standing and good relationship with China,” he adds.
Looking at student numbers, in 2018, there were nearly 500,000 international students studying in China, with over 60 percent of all in-bound international students coming from Asia and the Pacific region. The top 15 source countries were Korea, Thailand, Pakistan, India, the US, Russia, Indonesia, Laos, Japan, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Bangladesh, France, Mongolia and Malaysia – out of which 11 have signed Belt and Road agreements with China as of January 2020.
According to China’s education plan for 2035, an important part of modernising the education system is strengthening efforts on “opening up”, that is, international cooperation and exchange.
In terms of spendings, the budget for supporting both inbound and outbound international education had increased significantly over the last few years. In its 2017 budget plan by China’s MoE, spending on central government scholarships for Chinese students studying abroad increased by 9 percent to £37 million in 2017, while the budget for scholarships for overseas students studying in China grew by 20 percent to £54 million. In both cases, the reason given was an increase in student numbers.
The MoE’s 2019 budget saw a 36 percent increase in outbound study abroad funding and an 18 percent increase for inbound studies.
In Beijing’s Plan, the city is set to achieve education modernisation by 2035, and by 2050, its education system aims to align with that in other developed countries.
The MoE’s 2019 budget saw an 18 percent increase for inbound studies.
Creative strategies to attract students
Scholarships are a major part of the Chinese government’s strategy to attract these students. The Chinese Government Scholarship Programme sponsored more than 420,000 international students to study in the country’s universities from 2003 to 2018. Besides the scholarships, international students also have access to financial aid schemes by the provinces and universities.
“The Chinese authorities offer very attractive scholarships and provide opportunities to study technical subjects. This is beneficial not only for the students themselves and the countries sending them, but also for China itself, as it gains technical staff in these countries already familiar with Chinese technical standards. This also facilitates the expansion of Chinese companies in these countries and facilitates the adaptation of Chinese standards,” says Bogusz.
The number of inbound international students from OBOR countries who are funded by the Chinese scholarship has increased rapidly. Since 2016, the Chinese MoE additionally added the Silk Road Scholarship and offered 10,000 government scholarships to OBOR countries each year. This step was aimed at encouraging more students from these countries to study in China.
There are other factors that attract students too. Sharing her experience, Pakistan’s Janeeta Chaudary, a final-year medicine student at Xinxiang Medical University, says she chose to study in China because of low tuition fees, quality education and career opportunities.
“China’s medical infrastructure and curriculum are advanced and foreign students are treated well there. We are taught in English but also are required to learn Mandarin. I plan to stay in China and advance my career here,” she says.
Professor Huang also pointed out the government’s push to universities for accepting inbound international students from OBOR countries. Universities can be designated a specific number of inbound international students for acceptance, as well as financial support for recruiting those students.
While China has supported and increased the scope for foreign students especially from the developing world for many years, it is certainly not exclusively linked to the OBOR. “There are well-developed educational programmes in many African countries, for instance, that are not members of the initiative,” says Dr Jonathan Sullivan, a China specialist and political scientist at the University of Nottingham.
"The Chinese authorities offer very attractive scholarships and provide opportunities to study technical subjects."
"It is natural for students to be exposed to a more positive experience and framing of Chinese development."
Many African students now come to China for postgraduate studies and training. The Chinese government has encouraged African youth to take advantage of scholarships and opportunities to study in China, thus strengthening the foundations of China-Africa relations.
Another step towards internationalisation was the introduction of the 2018 Quality Assurance Standards for Higher Education of International Students, the first of its kind in China. The 2019 Quality Accreditation Rules for International Higher Education established China’s first external qualification accreditation and assurance system for international education. Professor Huang says this increases the recognition of Chinese diplomas and professional qualifications abroad. The beneficiaries of this will not only be foreign students in China, but also Chinese students emigrating from the country.
Roadblocks to the soft power strategy
An important question that arises is pertaining to the challenges that the Chinese universities, its higher education sector and industry face, at a time when the country plans to bring in more international students.
For Bogusz, one of the biggest challenges is attracting inbound international students with quality, especially those who can pursue a postgraduate academic degree based on the same standards as set for local Chinese students.
Currently, China appears to align itself with the developing world and is likely to continue its efforts to appeal to developing countries, using all of the tools it has, including education. For developing world students, China is still a very enticing prospect, it represents an opportunity, and a funded education to learn Chinese and other skills is attractive.
“In the course of studying in China, it is natural for students to be exposed to a more positive experience and framing of Chinese development. An important corollary to Chinese media [and propaganda] attempts to tell China's story well and pushback against globally dominant and highly negative western media narratives,” says University of Nottingham’s Dr Sullivan.
Chinese government support has been warmly welcomed across the developing world. The opportunity to study in China at some excellent universities has been transformative for individuals, some of whom have gone onto careers and businesses that have consolidated bilateral relations.
“There is no question that education is a sector in which China is able to do something and perceives potential soft power gains in the developing world. In combination with all of the other contributions China is making in these countries [infrastructure, expanded trade, etc], it is still good value for the Chinese government to do so, and will continue,” Dr Sullivan adds.