The New Silk Road: Implications for higher education in China and the West?

Abstract

Recent geopolitical events, such as Brexit and the retreat from multilateral trade and cooperation by the USA, have created waves of uncertainty, not the least in the field of higher education, regarding international cooperation. Meanwhile, China is publicly seeking to take the lead in globalisation, developing its higher education and research systems at speed and actively seeking to cooperate with academic partners along the New Silk Roads, to attract talent (back). But under which conditions, whose definitions and based on what values? And what, if any, difference will the “New Silk Road” make in the global educational landscape?