ABSTRACT
Chapter 1, ‘Introduction,’ presents the book’s main purpose and argument. This book aims to provide an understanding of how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has used resources and opportunities created by higher education – in both Chinese and foreign universities – to restore its ancient prestige and claim a new global status. It proposes an explanatory framework in ‘neo-tributary’ terms, and identifies four analytic categories for conceptualising China’s power strategy: Chinese exceptionalism, trade and diplomatic linkages, cultural assimilation, and image building. It focuses on the diplomatic role of higher education as the nexus of the four-dimensional approach, through which the PRC state searches for global prominence. It considers the operational mechanisms that allow state-sponsored organisations (e.g., Chinese universities and research institutes) to act as network weavers and cultural diplomats, armed by formally or informally regulated institutions and conventions, to build up and expand the international network needed by a nation state to diffuse its economic and cultural influences. The rest of the book will explore these issues.
