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In 2017, China released its building list of First-class Universities and First-class Subjects (Double First classes), which should get great support for development for many years into the future. This paper examines the academic performance of eight universities that are currently listed as having First-class Subjects of economics, in international papers and domestic papers, and compares their academic performance with another eight non-listed universities. The comparison shows that in general only three listed universities have obvious advantages among the 16 sample universities, while four listed universities do not show advantages, with one of them unexpectedly lagging behind. In contrast, several non-listed universities perform obviously better among the sample universities. In addition, several other aspects of this Double First-class list are also found to be less objective, scientific, or rigorous.

While there has been an increase in students studying abroad in China, this increase has not been seen in the respective number of articles published in scholarly journals on education abroad in China. This paper summarizes articles from journals on the types of education abroad programs in China, organized by topic, and by the outcomes and benefits of the programs as stated in the articles. The basis for this review is relevant literature from full-text journals published from 1975 to 2013. Of 213 returns from an online search, 25 were relevant for this literature review. The benefits and outcomes of education abroad in China culled from this literature review are compared to the list of ten main outcomes of study abroad programs presented by Parsons (2010). In addition, outcomes not listed by Parsons were identified.

How much is hegemony and how much is self-determination in the higher education systems in Southeast Asia? This paper argues that while the question of centre and periphery is still relevant to the analysis of international university systems, the analytical frameworks from which it has arisen may lose viability in the long term. Southeast Asian states are making use of higher education to act in ways that will contribute to the altering of their peripheral position in the global economic and political system. While changes in Southeast Asian higher education are closely tied to global markets and follow what sometimes appears to be a dependent pattern of adaptations driven by Western developed economies, the paper argues that there is also a significant amount of resistance. As Southeast Asian countries adapt in ways that help embed economic globalisation within their national landscape, the manner in which the adaptation occurs is more selective, open, and democratic than before. Moreover, while global communication with core (centre) university systems has been more open and transparent, the system is closed to direct intervention from the outside, making hegemony a less plausible explanation for the manner in which the system is reacting within the new global environment of financial interdependency.

Drawing upon fieldwork conducted in an elite Chinese university and English language literature of audit culture in higher education against the backdrop of Chinese higher education in transition, this paper has discovered that Chinese higher education is undergoing an auditing process. However, this Chinese audit regime is not only guarded by a quantifiable scientism, but also by ideological control of communism and a Confucian guanxixue and paternalism to form a new synthesized pattern of governance, and thus is a different form from neoliberal audit culture in the West. Lastly, the paper warns against the threat posed by the collusion of economic and administrative rationalization to academia in China.

This paper centers on the expansion from elite to mass higher education in China and its effects on China's economic development. These effects are twofold, including both the immediate influence of expanded enrollment in higher education on China's economy, and the human capital accumulation for the long term. The paper first provides a description of key changes in the Chinese higher education system during this radical expansion. This is followed by an analysis of the relation between higher education expansion and economic development both in terms of short and long term goals, using the Keynesian economic principle and human capital theory. The analysis found that it is premature to conclude whether the expansion policy has revitalized the economy or not in the short term. China is achieving its long term goal of accumulating human capital; however, the mounting unemployment of postsecondary graduates is jeopardizing students' private returns.

This paper analyzes China's new approaches of education aid to Africa through a case study of Cameroon. China's cooperation has been characterized by different discourses and different historic relationships with recipient countries than those of traditional donors. Sino-African policies have gone through different stages, each connected to wider political and economic realities. Currently, a broadening of China's engagement with Africa can be noticed through increasing aid packages and the inclusion of African countries other than those that had traditionally been close to China. Cameroon has been one of the countries that have had a relatively extended cooperation with China. Four types of Chinese education aid to Africa are illustrated by this paper: (i) Confucius Institutes, which are providing language and culture-related training in host countries; (ii) longer term scholarships and short-term training for Africans in China; (iii) school construction; and (iv) stand-alone education projects. By analyzing how these three different types of aid are taking place in Cameroon, various and apparently contradictory strategies and discourses materialize.

This paper employs cointegration and error-correction modelling to test the causal relationship between real income, real investment and tertiary education using data for the People's Republic of China over the period 1952-1999. To proxy tertiary education we use higher education enrolments and higher education graduates in alternative empirical specifications. One of the paper's main findings is that real income, real investment and tertiary education are cointegrated when real investment is the dependent variable, but are not cointegrated when either tertiary education or real income is the dependent variable. We also extend the in-sample analysis to examine the decomposition of variance and impulse response functions. (Contains 2 notes.)