China's international aid to education in the era of globalization

• In Event: Sympoiesis of globalization and lifelong learning through a comparative lens

Proposal

International aid or foreign aid has contributed to world development significantly since the end of World War II. It helped the less developed countries to rebuild their economies by receiving resources and assistance from the developed countries. The term aid contains complex relationships between donors and recipients. China was once a recipient of international aid. China has also been committed to assisting other countries consistently in decades. The unique role of China as both the donor and the recipient country attracts a worldwide interest in understanding China's foreign aid strategy and how it differs from that of Western countries.

Education is regarded as an indispensable component of China’s international aid strategies. In the 1950s, China began to provide scholarships to international students from other developing countries and support to build colleges and schools in several Asian and African countries. China’s aid concentrated on supporting independence and struggles to oppose colonialism and imperialism in developing countries and emphasized the self-reliance of the recipient countries (Kjøllesdal& Analysebyrå, 2010).

Entering the 1980s, globalization became increasingly prevalent, yielding neoliberalism as a dominant policy discourse. The emphasis on market competition, productivity, efficiency, and flexibility has been accepted as the primary development strategy by most countries. China also adopted reform and opening-up policies and witnessed rapid economic growth after 1978. In the tide of neoliberal globalization, China’s international aid focus switched from the political and ideological influence to the economic development. Today, China provides educational aid to more than 120 developing countries with a focus on human resources training through vocational and higher education (King, 2014; Nowak, 2015). During the past decade, a myriad of short-term training and degree programs that targeting adult learners from developing countries have sprung up significantly.

Throughout the historical trajectory since the 20th century, China’s involvement in international aid to education, as both a recipient and a donor has focused on higher and vocational education. Is it because it could achieve direct aid effects in a shorter time, or it is in line with the advocate of lifelong learning and lifelong education? Could the shared history of anti-colonial and anti-imperial movement reinforce the foundations of cooperation between China and other developing countries or it has no difference from traditional aid donors? How the tide of globalization influenced China’s educational aid policies? The purpose of the paper is to compare the development of foreign aid discourses between traditional Western donors and China as one of the emerging donors and elucidate China’s educational aid practices as the case analysis in the era of globalization.

Author

• Xiaoying Jiang, Pennsylvania State University