Rethinking the “Chinese characteristics” in China’s internationalization of higher education as soft power

This chapter builds on the authors’ research into the internationalization of China’s higher education (HE) as soft power with “Chinese characteristics” (Lo & Pan, 2020). It rethinks the “Chinese characteristics” in contemporary China’s internationalization of HE as soft power, by contextualizing them in the historico-cultural rootedness that legitimizes the sense of Chinese exceptionalism in the Party-state’s global re-emergence. It also sheds light on the tension and paradox therein through analyzing the conflicts generated by the Party-state’s attempts at re-globalizing the Chinese world order alongside the Westphalian system. In addition to integrating the soft-power concepts coined by Joseph Nye (1990) with the dimensional perspectives on the internationalization of HE framed by Jane Knight (1997), this study also puts in China’s perspectives that stand in contrast to, and yet in confluence with, some of the current norms and values being espoused by the West. In so doing, it demonstrates the potentiality of employing comparative lenses that cut across times, spaces and cultures in the research into internationalization of HE as soft power with national characteristics. Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited.