Exploring China’s contribution to the developing world in cross-border education

• In Event: Is China up for its responsibilities to globalization? Exploring Chinese higher education policies, practices, and programs from critical perspectives

Proposal

Context and Purpose:
As part of higher education’s response to globalization, Cross-border Education also relies on Globalization to develop and extend. As an "experienced developing country", China is proposing its own ideas and policies in terms of development and education. What does Cross-border Education in China do for Global Education development in the era of globalization? What are the impacts it has upon other parts of the developing world? This is the question I want to explore in my study.

Literature Review and Conceptual Framework:
The research on China’s cross-border education in the era of globalization can be roughly divided into two aspects. First, understanding cross-border education in terms of the borders or countries it is crossing. The essence of cross-border education is knowledge transmission across countries, but it forms an unequal, vertical knowledge transfer (Guo,2007). But the development of national research capabilities is likely to change asymmetric patterns and one-way changes (Marginson,2008). China expects to construct an educational discourse in a way that is independent, equal, and collaborative (MA, 2018), which is in line with China's foreign policy. For this reason, China's Cross-border Education provides education and assistance to African and Southeast Asian countries with great openness (Hayhoe, 2017).
Second, studying Cross-border Education from the perspective of regional development. China has proposed a number of initiatives, each initiative is a phased step in achieving the goal of the Global Education Community (Feng, 2018). Besides the research of the status, problems, and quality of foreign students' education in China (Cheng Jiafu, &Fan Haizhou et al., 2012; Huang Tiane, Wang Yongyan, & Xu Li, 2013, etc.),there are also many studies on Cross-border Education in ASEAN (JIA Jia, & FANG Zongxiang, 2018) and the case of aid construction in Africa (NIU Chang-song, 2014). Most scholars only stayed in the discussion of summing up the completion of quality, problems, and status quo in specific cross-border education programs. There has not been much study on the overall impact of China’s cross-border education as a whole, in particular, its impact on the other parts of the developing world. This is the gap that my research seeks to address.

Methods:
Based on the literature review, this study combines China’s Cross-border Education visions, policies, and programs to analyze the national backgrounds and academic level as well as funding sources of international students in China and the China’s initiatives in running schools overseas.

Findings and Discussions:
Research analyzes the characteristics of "experienced 'take' and 'transport' and Cross-border Education output under the guidance of educational aid". Cross-border Education will inevitably related to the world system theory. Under the influence of the "core-periphery", issues such as educational equity, knowledge production and academic community have emerged. Thus my points includes:
First, In the non-equal relations of Cross-border Education, China through the concept of education assistance to promote the educational equity of countries with insufficient educational resources. Scholarship funding has a great impact on the choice of international students. In 2016 alone, 61% of the students from the “Belt and Road” countries accepted government scholarships to study in China. China assumes the responsibility of international education through the concept of education assistance. Second, China exports unique knowledge based on Chinese experiences through Cross-border Education, which not only improves the quality of Cross-border Education, but also promotes academic cooperation and cultural self-confidence. In this regard, the level of education for international students in China is constantly rising. The number of institutions and projects for Cross-border Education in China is also increasing. Third, under the ultimate goal of "win-win", China help other "periphery" countries develop education. Since the "Belt and Road" initiative, more than 10 countries including Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Jordan, and Egypt have issued invitations for overseas education to China. It can be said that the international community has paid great attention and expectation to China's initiative to promote Cross-border Education.

Conclusion and Implication:
In general, China has a non-profit concept in Cross-border Education, and has formed a good cooperation with many developing countries with scarce educational resources. In order to promote further cooperation between politics and economy, the experience of Cross-border Education take an important part of the "global knowledge flow" in the age of globalization

Author

• Jiaxing Wang, Institute of Education, Xiamen University, China