Russia, China, and Central Asia in Higher Education

This chapter explores relations between Russia and China in higher education and the role of China in Central Asia, where both countries are active. During the Soviet period Russia exercised a profound influence in Chinese higher education. Though China (unlike Russia after 1991) maintains a Leninist political system, China has moved further from Soviet system structure. The two countries continue multiple interactions in higher education, including system level partnerships, and student mobility, though cooperation at the institutional and individual level does not match the goals in intergovernmental documents. The five former Soviet Central Asian republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan) are developing their own higher education systems, but the Russian language is widely used, and partnerships with Russian higher education institutions continue. Though China has not prioritized higher education in Central Asia there are signs of growing regional competition between China and Russia in this sector.

The Humanities and the New Silk Road

Chapter 16 provides first an overview of international projects in the humanities launched in the context of the New Silk Road Initiative, including a discussion of key examples; it also touches upon other relevant developments within the Chinese humanities. The second part deals with the question of whether Chinese universities will likely emerge as leading institutions in the humanities globally. The chapter argues that particularly in the humanities, global hierarchies of knowledge remain firmly in place. While many branches of the humanities have grown decidedly critical of Eurocentric viewpoints, older patterns privileging Western universities still persist, perhaps more than in other academic disciplines. For example, in the humanities international citation and academic interaction patterns are almost as Western-centric as they were a century ago. In a final step, the chapter offers some reflections on the question of whether the global standing of the Chinese humanities will eventually change.

One Belt One Road

In the context of the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative, Chinese engineering education has encountered new opportunities and possible challenges. This chapter starts with a synthesis of the overarching trends in Chinese engineering education, analyzing its overall strengths and weaknesses, particularly highlighting the critical impact of China’s membership in the Washington Accord on its engineering degrees’ international recognition and the relevant ongoing engineering education innovations. The chapter also points out the lack of empirical research in Chinese engineering education to support the development of Chinese engineering education. The chapter further zeroes in on the specific advantages, and drawbacks, in attracting international students, and reviews additional models for Chinese engineering education to “go global.” Specific suggestions for multiple stakeholders are proposed to facilitate Chinese engineering education going global.

Repositioning China in the Global Education Hierarchy Through the Sino–Foreign Educational Partnerships in the Belt and Road Initiative

Chapter 9 explores the roles of Sino–foreign education partnerships (SFEP) within China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in particular, how it has been shifted from a strategic tool to reform and upgrade China’s domestic higher education sector, to becoming a diplomatic instrument for building connections between China and the regions and countries along the BRI routes. The history of the development of SFEP reveals how policy and regulation have evolved. The shifting paradigm of the Chinese government, through its MOE (Ministry of Education), in regulating SFEP provides a window into the grand transformation of China’s narrative towards its position in the global education hierarchy. China is shifting from the follower/importer of “advanced foreign educational programs,” to a proactive player that builds a platform and framework for educational collaboration in the world. Now, China is becoming an initiator/exporter of its own educational programs and culture along the belt and road.

Artificial Intelligence along the New Silk Road

Chapter 13 gives an impression of the development of the relatively young AI and computer science fields in Europe and China and how the current situation has developed over the past twenty years, where European and Chinese researchers are equal colleagues on an international stage and where diplomatic relations between the USA and China on the international stage have consequences felt directly by European AI researchers in their labs. In what ways are AI researchers in China and Europe competitors with each other, for example in terms of the global shortage of trained AI researchers and practitioners? At the same time, the AI research community collaborates globally, so how can we ensure that the field continues to benefit from open international collaboration?

China Meets Anglo-America on the New Silk Road

The New Silk Road strategy and the rise of China in higher education raises the stakes in the engagement between China’s universities and their Western counterparts, including Anglo-American universities. The chapter focuses on the similarities and differences between Sinic and Anglo-American political and educational cultures (state, society, family, individual) and in collectivism and individualism, and the implications for higher education. The state in China is a comprehensive state rather than an Anglo-American limited liberal state. China has greater potential for collective ties, shared goods, and state intervention in higher education. These are long-standing differences. Since 1949, both state power and indigenous individualism have been enhanced in China, while Anglo-American higher education has moved toward a more exclusively individualized approach to outcomes. There is closer convergence between China and Anglo-American in universities than in the configuration of society, suggesting ongoing potential for divergence in higher education.

A Silk Road for Professional Qualifications?

The tension between the public interest to regulate professions, and the economic rationales to open up markets has long since been an issue within the EU. This chapter explores how these competing interests have shaped the EU’s legal frameworks for the recognition of professional qualifications. We will see that a range of regulatory strategies have been applied to design such frameworks. The next element of the analysis is based on the assumption that we may be able to draw lessons from the EU’s internal regulatory strategies to deal with national differences in regulating professions. Thus, the chapter will examine to what extent, and under which circumstances, such regulatory strategies may offer viable perspectives for Sino–EU relations; a crucially important question considering the implications of the New Silk Road for higher education on the trade of goods and services between China and Europe.

Silk Road South

For something like two millennia, the Silk Road has functioned as a conduit, for ideas as well as trade. China’s rise now presents both challenges and opportunities to countries situated on both the maritime and terrestrial Silk Roads, particularly in higher education. Beginning with Europe’s response to China’s renaissance as a major knowledge system, differential responses within Europe are charted, and student and staff flow treated. Some signs of change are evident, from 2018, particularly in relation to sensitive high-tech areas such as those listed in the signature Made in China 2025 policy. But the Silk Road also points South, hence the remainder of the chapter addresses higher education relations between China and ASEAN, and in particular, Malaysia. The Six Pillars framework is used to outline the major elements of China–ASEAN relations, particularly regarding higher education, including the development of the overseas campus of Xiamen University in Malaysia.

The International Origins and Global Aspirations of Chinese Universities

Despite the resurgence of nationalism in China, the United States, and several European countries, and rhetoric of a “decoupling” between China and the West, the internationalist agendas of Chinese universities remain robust. This trajectory would appear to be strengthened by the broad, inclusive, if still ill-defined mission given to Chinese institutions by Beijing to “go out” along the “New Silk Road” (NSR). Although the international origins and aspirations of Chinese universities have been shaped mainly by Western models, there are increased incentives for exchange between Chinese and NSR-based universities. However, hopes that educational exchanges will strengthen higher education in both China and the NSR may be unrealistic. Themselves products of international models, Chinese institutions have no distinct “China model” to offer NSR universities. Furthermore, although academic collaboration along the NSR may increase the quantity of Chinese scholarship, it is unlikely to help Chinese universities achieve a larger goal: world-class status.

Introduction

The Introduction presents the conceptual framework of the research project: “The New Silk Road: Implications for higher education and research cooperation between China and Europe.” The areas of inquiry focused on are: the academic flows and activities emerging along the NSR; university responses and their rationales; the conditions under which activities are taking place; defined by whom, and the values underpinning the mission of the university in society. It places the NSR in global context: how China’s rise in science and higher education results in shifting global flows, impact, and rising tensions. It explores the evolving China–European relationship and concludes that while the idea or model of the university may travel along the NSR, it does not necessarily change because of it. Despite the current unknowns, in the long run, Chinese–European cooperation on or beyond the New Silk Road offers a new landscape for higher education on both ends of Eurasia.