China’s Soft Power Projection in Higher Education

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Private-sector partnerships include an exchange program of

the new Singapore Management University, established in

2000 as the first publicly funded private university, with a

focus on business and management. A one- or two-semester

exchange is offered with three Chinese partners: Nankai

University, Sun Yat Sen University, and Xiamen University.

Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry offers Asian

Business Fellowships to such exchange students.

Conclusion

These collaborations illustrate several key points about interna-

tionalization. First, Singapore’s misplaced optimism that led to

its failed science park venture in Suzhou underlines the fact

that presumed cultural and linguistic affinity does not serve as

an adequate basis for international partnerships (especially

beyond the first-generation diaspora). Second, the fact that

most of the partnerships indicated above are in the area of

business and administration underlines a more widespread

bias in such agreements. Thus, the prospects for developing

effective partnerships in areas such as the social sciences and

humanities do not appear strong. Third, the strength of region-

al partnerships and agreements is a refreshing reminder that

not all internationalization occurs between “the West and the

rest,” or between elite institutions in the West.

Internationalization is a broad river, with many fascinating if

still largely unexplored tributaries.

China’s Soft Power Projection in

Higher Education

Rui Yang

Rui Yang is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education, Monash

University, Australia. Address: Wellington Road, Clayton, Victoria 3800. E-

mail: rui.yang@education.monash.edu.au.

Commensurate with China’s rise as an economic and polit-

ical power has been a concurrent rise in Chinese soft

power. China’s emerging status as a world leader has become

an issue that urgently needs to be examined. The realm of

higher education has been the focus of China’s most systemat-

ically planned soft power policy. Despite the significance of the

subject, little attention is being directed to this rise of China’s

power. There has been no research on the role of higher edu-

cation in China’s projection and on the strategies and policy

tools Beijing has used to boost its soft power through higher

education.

The Concept of Soft Power

Coined by Harvard University political scientist Joseph Nye to

mean the ability to change what others do or shape what they

want, the term soft power is usually defined as culture, educa-

tion, and diplomacy and providing the capacity to persuade

other nations to adopt the same goals. This approach has been

a fundamental part of military thinking in China for over 2000

years. Generations of Chinese leaders have adopted the strata-

gems and long-term planning stated in Sunzi’s Art of War of

the 4th century BCE—a part of statecraft that looked to an inte-

grated strategy to “win victories without striking a blow.”

Another component of the concept, moral leadership by exem-

plar, also resonates in Chinese tradition. A main paradigm of

Chinese governance is Confucianism, which operates on a

reciprocal and ethical basis. A ruler is supposed to demon-

strate moral excellence, taking wise decisions on behalf of his

(very rarely her) subjects, to keep the state secure and prosper-

ous.

Soft Power through Higher Education

Today, “winning hearts and minds” still composes an impor-

tant part of the international higher education equation.

Educational exchange falls under the rubric of soft power.

Connections between institutions of higher education are a

stabilizing and civilizing influence. China has been conscious-

ly promoting international exchange and collaboration in edu-

cation. Indeed, China has been skillfully employing soft power

to expand its global influence. One effective policy strategy has

been the combination of higher education with the appeal of

Confucianism—to offer Beijing a comparative advantage in its

approach.

China’s soft power gambit is most evident in Africa. China

has committed to contributing to the development of human

resources in Africa. As of 2003, over 6,000 Africans had been

trained as part of the program. Scholarships for over 1,500

African students are annually awarded by China, and many

Chinese universities have established relationships with

African institutions. China sent 10 teams of experts and

launched 14 workshops in African countries over the past 5

years covering library science, dossier management, archaeol-

ogy, biology, dance, and acrobatics. Chinese technical aid to

Africa is becoming increasingly important in building China’s

influence in the region. Medical, agricultural, and engineering

teams have provided technical aid to African countries for

decades to support everything from building projects to treat-

ing AIDS patients. This support for education improves

China’s image, builds grassroots support in local communi-

ties, and creates a better understanding of China among the

educated elite.

Soft power can be “high,” targeted at elites, or “low,” target-

ed at the broader public. Though soft power stems from both

governments and nongovernmental actors, one can identify

strategies and policy tools Beijing has consciously used to

international higher education

countries and regions

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international higher education

countries and regions

boost its soft power and thus increase its legitimacy as an

emerging superpower. Their desires for national revival

include returning to the position China had before a rising

Europe began to eclipse it in the 18th century. Beijing’s inno-

vative and most systematically planned soft power policy

involves a two-way strategy: hosting international students and

building up the Confucius Institutes worldwide.

Hosting International Students

Training future generations of intellectuals, technicians, and

political elites from other nations is a subtle yet important

form of soft power. This was the role of Great Britain at its

imperial zenith and of the United States ever since the 1950s,

and now China increasingly fills this role. China is recruiting

students from all parts of the world, with particular focus on

developing countries. These future generations of elites will

certainly be sensitized to Chinese viewpoints and interests,

with knowledge of the Chinese language, society, culture, his-

tory, and politics.

Increasing numbers of foreign students are attracted to

undergraduate or postgraduate study in China. The enroll-

ment of foreign students from 178 countries studying for

advanced degrees at China’s universities has tripled in 2004 to

110,800 from 36,000 over the past decades, surpassing the

flow of Chinese students to foreign universities, marking a 10-

year high—an increase of over 40 percent from 2003. The

belief that to get ahead, it behooves you to go to China, repre-

sents what 10 years ago people said about the United States.

China’s Ministry of Education plans to host 120,000 foreign

students annually by 2007, most of them in programs of

Chinese language and culture. China is investing in promotion

of Mandarin as one of the global languages.

The Confucius Institutes

The National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign

Language (Hanban) is establishing Confucius Institutes to

spread the teaching of Mandarin and Chinese culture around

the world. The goal is to quadruple the number of foreigners

studying Chinese to 100 million by 2010. The first Confucius

Institute was inaugurated in Seoul in November 2004. Since

then, the institutes have opened in cities such as Stockholm,

Perth, and Nairobi. More than 85 of these institutes have been

established worldwide, and Beijing aims eventually to open

some 100 of them. In many ways the institutes are patterned

after the British Council, Goethe Institute, or Alliance

Française. The Chinese government recently committed near-

ly US$25 million a year for the teaching of Chinese as a foreign

language.

However, the Confucius Institutes differ in significant ways

from the long-established agents of French and German cul-

ture. Those European organizations are government agencies

and fully dependent on state funds for their operations, but

they locate their offices in normal commercial locations, wher-

ever their governments can rent appropriate space. There is no

attempt to integrate them into their host societies via institu-

tional linkups. In contrast, the Confucius Institutes are being

incorporated into leading universities around the world as well

as being linked to China not only through their Hanban con-

nections but also by supportive twinning arrangements with

key Chinese universities. The London School of Economics,

for example, is setting up an institute using arrangements

under which it will cooperate with Tsinghua University. Not

only will the Confucius Institutes immediately benefit from

the prestige and convenience of becoming parts of existing

campuses, the latter will also have a vested interest in supply-

ing the institutes with staff and funds. The more successful the

institutes, the greater potential for them to be used as agents of

Beijing’s foreign policy in the future. The institutes are a small

but significant part of what seems to be the equivalent of a soft-

power offensive via the promotion of Chinese language and

culture as well as preparing the way to raise Mandarin toward

the status currently enjoyed by English.

Conclusion

China’s projection of soft power in higher education has chal-

lenged both the traditional and more recent explanations of the

political economy of international higher education—charac-

terized, respectively, by North-South imbalances and asymme-

tries and a strong orientation for international market share.

Moreover, this is happening as China aspires to become the

new focal point of educational and research excellence, but

many Western countries are reducing investment in their flag-

ship universities, and Japan is disinclined to increase the sci-

entific capacity of its greatest institutions of higher education.

China’s use of international exchange and cooperation in high-

er education as an exercise of soft power is unprecedented and

has gone far beyond the comfort zone of the traditional theo-

ries. It is thus both theoretically and practically significant to

observe how Beijing endeavors to create a paradigm of global-

ization that favors China, portrays itself as a world leader, and

attempts to better position itself in a multipolar, post–Cold War

environment.

China’s projection of soft power in higher education

has challenged both the traditional and more

recent explanations of the political economy of

international higher education.