Area Studies in Chinese Universities (2011-2025): Towards a Comparative Perspective

• In Event: Lessons Across Borders: Comparative Insights of Higher Education in Asia

Proposal

Area Studies is an interdisciplinary field of scholarship that aims to study other cultures and societies (LIAS, 2012; OSGA, n.d.; Szanton, 2004) , such as Middle Eastern Studies and Southeast Asian Studies. In 2011, China’s Ministry of Education (MOE) announced a special project promoting Area Studies (Luo, 2022; Qian, 2021). Ever since, there has been a rapid development of this field in China’s higher education institutions (HEIs). In 2012, there were 37 Area Studies centers in HEIs registered with the MOE (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 2012). That number soared to 395 in 2017 and 453 in 2024 (Li, 2019; Liu & Zhai, 2024). More importantly, Area Studies was designated as a “first-level” discipline on MOE’s postgraduate degrees catalogue in 2022 and undergraduate majors catalogue in 2025 (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 2022, 2025); this designation allowed HEIs to set up programs and departments titled “Area Studies” and receive state funding on Area Studies. These policies indicate a move to the large-scale institutionalization of this academic field in China’s higher education system.

Existing literature (such as Busse et al., 2023; Stevens et al., 2018; Szanton, 2004) has focused on Area Studies in European and North American universities, as well as the field’s entanglements with Comparative and International Education (CIE) in U.S. universities in the 1960s when Area Studies initiatives focusing on non-aligned and developing countries contributed to the broadening of the geographic coverage of Comparative Education (Silova & Brehm, 2010; Steiner-Khamsi & Dejong-Lambert, 2006). However, following the decline of Area Studies in Europe and North America since the 1990s (Huat et al., 2019; Mielke & Hornidge, 2017; Sidel, 2023), there has been a dearth of scholarship investigating the rationales of this field and the “shape-shifting” (Cowen, 2009) of education policies on Area Studies in various national contexts. This presentation addresses those gaps by analyzing critically and comparatively the rapid development of Area Studies in Chinese universities accelerated by the nation’s global ambitions, such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and “a community with a shared future for mankind”.

Prior to 2011 when MOE first signaled Area Studies on its agenda, Area Studies in Chinese universities were low-scale and fragmented (with more focus on developed countries). To explore the recent boom of Area Studies in China, I employed a thematic analysis on policy documents related to Area Studies issued by China’s MOE from 2011 to 2025. I identified an evolution of policy narratives on Area Studies from “the opening up (internationalization) of education” to “policy research and serving national strategies (such as BRI)”, “improving China’s global influence” and “promoting interdisciplinary studies”. This transformation indicated an increasing official encouragement for Chinese research universities to serve the central government through Area Studies. This resulted in the creation of a plethora of policy advisory “think tanks” and what Xie (2021) describes as the “policy turn” in academic institutions.

Drawing on the analytical framework of “the signal-response mechanism” (Zhang & Wang, 2024), my research analyzes both the “top-down policy signals” from MOE documents as mentioned above, and the “responses” to those signals from institutional leaders. Data from published articles of institutional leaders – who are also scholars and area-experts – suggested that here has been coordination between HEIs and MOE. Concerns expressed in those articles focused on research funding, discipline evaluation and program legitimacy due to the lack of institutionalization of Area Studies. Those concerns were eventually addressed by MOE’s actions which made this fluid, interdisciplinary field into a degree-conferring discipline in 2022 and 2025. Meanwhile, the MOE urged universities to provide more policy consultation which became a core mission of Area Studies units/departments.

In terms of rationales for Area Studies in Chinese universities, data from MOE policies documents and articles of institutional leaders pointed to the national interest as the core driving factor and the state’s political power in shaping the higher education system. The development of Area Studies, despite being an “international and intercultural dimension” of higher education (Knight, 2004), could not therefore be primarily explained by the prevailing perspectives on the internationalization of higher education (IoHE) – neither by the mainstream perspective that emphasizes commercial rationales (e.g. Altbach & Knight, 2007); globalization (e.g. Marginson & Rhoades, 2002); nor the postcolonial approaches (e.g. Guo et al., 2022), and see Bamberger and Morris (2024) for limitations of those approaches. Instead, the state-driven Area Studies projects in Chinese universities resemble those in the U.S. during the Cold War where knowledge in universities was produced, shaped and mobilized under Cold War imperatives (Chomsky et al., 1997; Engerman, 2009). Embodied in the National Defense Education Act (1958), there was a nationalist narrative that called for enhancement of foreign languages and area expertise to serve the nation’s international interests. This nationalist agenda in higher education marginalized the liberal internationalist narrative, where knowledge of foreign places is viewed as instrumental for mutual understanding, peace and global citizenship.

Author

• Charlene Song, University College London, Institute of Education