International Regimels In China-ASEAN Cooperation In Higher Education

Currently,China is trying every effort to further open its education up to the outside world and elevate the internationalization level of its higher education by continuing to upgrade the quality of its higher education and to boost the international cooperation in higher education.With reference to the Guidelines to the Further Opening Up of China's Education to the Rest of the World jointly issued in April,2016 by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State council,a lot more is yet to be done in terms of the improvement of its system for sending students abroad and receiving international students,the up-gradation of quality education provided to foreign students,the efficiency in running foreign-related education programs,the expansion of the scale and scope of bilateral and multilateral educational cooperation as well as China's involvement in establishing international educational regimes.Now that China's Belt and Road Initiative is in full swing,its cooperation with ASEAN in higher education embraces new opportunities.However,it is undeniable that China's cooperation with ASEAN in higher education lags far behind that in other sectors,failing to keep pace with the overall development of the bilateral relationship.It is against this backdrop that the dissertation has been conceived and developed.Chapter One makes a review of the mainstream international theories such as realism,liberalism and constructivism as well as global governance and international institutional building.Then based on the above mentioned perspectives,the chapter analyzes the preconditions and driving elements in the facilitation of international regimes for higher education cooperation,explores the components,features,functions,contents and prospects of cooperative mechanisms in international higher education and defines the concept of international higher education cooperation.This chapter also gives an account of America's internal-to-external mechanisms as a model for international educational cooperation and the EU's successful operational practices and accomplishments in building institutions among its member states and with ultra-regional entities in carrying out cooperation in higher education.Chapter Two takes a look at the existing cooperation between China and ASEAN in higher education in the fields of teaching and research that are advancing both in scope and scale and while acknowledging the achievements so far,the chapter points out that lack of efficient and effective mechanisms is attributable to the many hurdles and obstacles that stand in the way in deepening and widening China's cooperation with ASEAN in higher education.These problems are identified as discrepancies in languages and unattractiveness of mutual degree recognitions.Chapter Three makes an introduction of the groundwork that been laid by China and ASEAN on which basis higher education cooperation could be further unfolded.These mechanisms include such bilateral and multilateral regimes as China-ASEAN Regional Forum,China-ASEAN FTA and the 10+1 Dialog.Derived from these mechanism are China-ASEAN Education Week,China-ASEAN Educational Training Union,The Honghe River University Presidents' Forum,all contributing to the progress made between China and ASEAN in higher education,which fully testifies the important role that international institutions play in boosting international higher education cooperation.However,despite the fact that many Chinese universities have signed agreements or MOUs with ASEAN universities,they are unbinding in nature and the existing regimes are far from perfect and complete,which mainly stay at the provincial levels like Yunnan,China.Therefore,elevating the level of international regimes in higher education between China and ASEAN is of great urgency and importance.Chapter Four is devoted to presenting the possible approaches to building mechanisms for China-ASEAN cooperation in higher education.It first highlights the significance and importance of mechanism building in China-ASEAN higher education,the positive and negative influencing factors that might arise therefrom and then it goes to put forth conceptualizations for building China-ASEAN mechanisms regarding positioning,principles,standards,contents and forms on the basis of respective and common pursuits of interest of the parties involved,under the guidance of the theories illustrated in Chapter One and with reference to the successful practices adopted in America and the EU.Meanwhile,measures are also proposed to enforce would-be mechanisms including innovative management,internal-to-external models,incentives and creation of China-ASEAN Fund for higher education cooperation.