Negotiating Chinese scientific power in multipolar global science: an exploration of STEM international doctoral students’ glonacal learning experiences in China

China’s rapid ascent as a scientific superpower has disrupted the Euro-American duopoly in global science, attracting a growing number of STEM international doctoral students, particularly from the Global South. However, the intricate global-national-local (glonacal) power dynamics that pose unique challenges to these students’ learning remain understudied. Through interviews with 20 STEM international doctoral students from the Global South, this narrative inquiry examined how glonacal powers influenced students’ learning experiences and how students negotiated the powers. Framed by theorisation of global-national-local imbrications and the notion of ‘in-between agency’, findings revealed that students navigated triple-dimensional power tensions, caught among enduring hegemony of Western academia, China’s national scientific ambitions, and ‘local’ supervisors as gatekeepers of STEM knowledge and networks. These power tensions led to an ambivalent positioning that marginalised international students across the local laboratory, national and global scientific communities. Yet, students enacted in-between agency to negotiate glonacal power tensions, by bridging local lab resources, China’s research training, and global knowledge production. This study contributes to the literature by integrating glonacal and agency perspectives to illuminate STEM international doctoral students’ negotiation of learning experiences in an emerging scientific power context. It offers policy and institutional suggestions to better support these students amid multipolar global science.