Global pedigree and national imperative: Hong Kong universities’ response to China’s grand strategies

Abstract

Literature offers a theoretical framework exemplifying the inherent tensions between “becoming Chinese” and “remaining global” in the evolution of the international status of Hong Kong. Adopting this framework, this paper examines the global position of Hong Kong’s higher education through an investigation of universities’ participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Greater Bay Area development plan. Specifically, drawing on data from interviews about universities’ engagement with the two Chinese grand strategies, the paper discusses university leaders and academics’ experience and perception of Hong Kong’s global status against a policy context that foregrounds a deeper integration with the Chinese national development. This discussion offers a theoretical dialogue that reveals different but overlapping scenarios for the future of Hong Kong’s higher education and sheds light on the link between the changing geopolitical contexts and international higher education.

Navigating the policy borrowing process of general education among the eight publicly funded universities in Hong Kong

“…In fact, Hong Kong’s learning system has long been maintaining as an evolving hybrid of Chinese culture and Western traditions, where schools enjoy the best essence of both worlds (Cheng, 2010). The cultural proximity to both China and the Western world has also been constructing Hong Kong as a cultural broker as well as verifying the continuing relevance of leaning toward both East and West, especially the various Eastern and Western facets and influences in the local learning system (Lo et al, 2022). Since the government’s initiation of the learning-to-learn educational reform, Hong Kong’s learning system has been entering into a new phase of borrowing which involves looking globally and locally for inspiration (Education Commission, 2000).…”