ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 examines Chinese government policy related to artificial intelligence (AI), and its forming of authoritative imaginaries of state-controlled technologies, harnessed for the national agenda. This will focus on the State Council’s National Strategy for AI Development (NSAID), which has attracted wide interest and attention internationally for its ambitious plans for AI dominance, as well as the Action Plan for Artificial Intelligence Innovation in Colleges and Universities (APAICU), which reveals significant plans for developing China’s (higher) education system as the engine of broad societal reform. Further education reforms will be shown to attempt to position universities as internationally recognised sites of AI power with world-leading research capacity in data-driven technologies. These policy visions are juxtaposed in the second half of the chapter with recent political history, to suggest a deep-seated theme of rejuvenation and ‘overcoming backwardness’, which still resonates in contemporary governance. This section will also outline examples of historical education reform, in order to suggest a continuity of placing Chinese education in service to the national agenda.
