ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 examines the role of Chinese higher education as pathfinder for the PRC’s diplomatic and economic outreach, which not only ended China’s Cold War–era isolationism, but also reconnected it to the global knowledge-based economy. Although the existing literature often attributes the renormalization of the diplomatic relationship between China and the West to China’s opening-up policy, evidence shows Chinese higher education was its true vanguard. With reference to China’s education-abroad policy between 1978 and 2009, this chapter unfolds how the PRC state shaped the flow of Chinese students and scholars, both from and into China, to pave the way for brain gain in four major aspects: gaining access to higher education resources in developed countries, improving the quality of human capital available to the state for the pursuit of economic prosperity, gaining the high international profile needed to increase China’s representation and influence in the international science and technology community, and preparing manpower to drive innovative technology.
