Deciphering China’s higher education outreach paradigm in Southeast Asia: can a neo-tributary perspective work?

Abstract China’s unprecedented economic rise has fueled scholarly debates about its mentality of power strategy. Pundits have approached China’s strategic objectives through its higher education outreach, with Confucius Institute expansion and international student recruitment as two mostly discussed pathways. Whereas their efforts have been largely oriented by Western lexicon including soft power and center-periphery dichotomy. China’s emerging engagements in higher education aid projects and partnerships, particularly along the Belt and Road, are rarely noticed. Adopting the Chinese history-based neo-tributary perspective as the theoretical lens, this study (re)conceptualizes China’s paradigm for global rise through its higher education export to Southeast Asia, encompassing language training, educational development assistance, student mobility, and institution/program partnerships. Data was collected from documentation, institutional data, and semi-structured interviews with 40 informants from Sino-Cambodian higher education programs. The results suggest that universities serve as a showcase for a more pragmatic Chinese exceptionalism, in which traditional Chinese worldview has been incorporated with scientific outward-looking Western ideals. A cultural recognition-seeking tactic has been experimented through telling stories of China’s attractive contemporary cultures and values in educational practices. China has relied more on utilizing higher education as a tool for short-lived economic incentives, diplomatic alliances, and image-building activities to yield quick returns. However, concrete higher education outreach practices remain scant. Neo-tributary perspective is helpful in systematically examining China’s power projection but still confined to its simplified presuppositions of Sino-centrism. It should integrate pluralistic concepts like tianxia and knowledge diplomacy to unveil China’s interactions with the ‘Global South’ and the ‘Global North’.