ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 proposes a ‘neo-tributary’ conceptual framework that systematically interprets the motives, aims, and means underlying China’s claim to rising global power status, and the role of higher education in China’s great power strategy. It identifies four analytic categories for conceptualising China’s power strategy, including the mentality of Chinese greatness as motive, trade and diplomatic linkages as economic means, cultural assimilation as political strategy, and image building aimed at legitimacy defence. It argues that the mentality and strategies associated with the imperial Chinese tribute system are still manifested in China’s contemporary diplomacy and operated by Chinese higher education, in line with the PRC state’s geopolitical and economic agenda. Having developed a conceptual basis, the subsequent chapters will test and elaborate the analytical utility of the neo-tributary conceptual work, with a focus on how Chinese higher education has functioned as the nexus of a four-dimensional approach to finding China’s place in the globalised world: asserting Chinese exceptionalism, trade and diplomatic linkages, cultural assimilation, and national image building.
