Reimagining China–US university relations: a global ‘ecosystem’ perspective

ABSTRACT

This study is among the few that attempt to connect two popular topics, the rapid growth of Chinese higher education and the shifting China–US university relations. Now both the Chinese and US higher education are among the top systems in the world—in terms of their sizes and standards. While Chinese and American university ties have been among the most important higher education relations, they now move towards decoupling. Against this backdrop, this study situates the growth of Chinese higher education and China–US university relations in the discourse of a global higher education ecosystem, and explores what China–US university relations would mean to this global ecosystem, how they may evolve, as well as the implications for the global ecosystem. This study draws on Marginson's four heuristic narratives explaining science inquiries as a global space of activity and perception, and develops an analytical lens to apply to data collected from relevant databases and literature in order to reimagine China–US university relations in the various models. Finally, this study maintains that the universities in both countries share the obligation and responsibility to work together for sustaining and nourishing this global higher education ecosystem, particularly in an Anthropocene epoch.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese higher education growth
• geopolitical changes
• China–US university relations
• ‌knowledge inquiries in a global space
• global ‘ecosystem’ of higher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by the author.

Notes

1 Bray and Kobakhidze (2015, 467) illustrate Bronfenbrenner’s five socially organized subsystems in educational setting as: ‘The immediate environment within which individuals operate is the microsystem of family, school, peer group, and/or workplace. At a higher level is the mesosystem, grouping microsystems and comprising processes and linkages between two or more settings, such as school and workplace, or home and school. Next in the hierarchy is the exosystem, comprising two or more settings, at least one of which does not contain the person being considered but in which events indirectly influence processes in the setting that the person inhabits. At the fourth level are macrosystems, consisting of overarching patterns of micro-, meso- and exosystems with identifiable cultures or subcultures. And, finally, chronosystems encompass change or consistency over time.’ Their illustration provides a reference point for construction of the subsystems in higher education ecosystem in this study.

2 If not specifically sourced, these data are retrieved from China’s Ministry of Education National Educational Development Statistical Reports (全国教育事业发展统计公报) at http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_sjzl/sjzl_fztjgb.

3 In 2019, around 110 universities that were on the Project 211 list were awarded approximately US$13 billion research grants, increased from US$1 billion in 2001. In comparison, 65 member universities of the Association of American Universities (AAU) that are US leading research universities were awarded a total of nearly US$42 billion research grants in 2018.

4 An index of 1.0 occurs when co-authorship between a country and the US is exactly proportional to their overall shares of international collaborations. Index values above 1.0 indicate stronger ties with the US, and scores below 1.0 indicate weaker collaborative ties.

5 The World Economic Forum (2016) reports figures even more in favor of China, that China had 4.7 million STEM graduates in 2016, which are eight times as much as the US STEM outputs (568,000) in the same year. The report anticipates that the gap will be widening, and reach a ratio of 15 to 1 between China and the US in 2030.

Additional information

Funding

This study is not funded by any agency and grant.