ABSTRACT
As early as 2005, I proposed a major multi-year project to examine the rise of Asian higher education with a particular focus on the rapid development of transnational education in several Southeast Asian countries. I made a case for my project by positioning the rise of Asia as a threat and challenge to Australia’s leading status in international education in the Asia-Pacific region. One of my arguments was that many countries in Asia had appropriated English and made it theirs, and thus English was no longer Australia’s sole property, and it was no longer Australia’s ultimate advantage in attracting international students. I then urged Australian institutions to engage seriously with the reality that ‘English is a shared property’. I also urged Australia to take seriously the international outlook projected by countries in Southeast Asia and North Asia. In my argument, I saw Asia’s taking ownership of English and developing an Asian-oriented international outlook as having been both a cause to and a product of the rise of Asian higher education. Asian values and Asian traditions of learning were being promoted and celebrated as the enthusiasm about the rise of Asia heightened. From what I had briefly seen on the campuses of several Asian countries, such as Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, China, and Vietnam, I had come to believe in the rise of Asia and in its endeavour to cultivate a higher education (HE) inspired by Asian values and independent from the West.
