De-westernising competition: 'Harmony of competition' in Chinese higher education.

The discourse regarding globalisation and particularly 'global competition' has appeared in a range of socio-economic areas and higher education is no exception. Global competition has been the policy context in which a range of national excellence initiatives have been developed. These have often involved competitive processes with significant funding as a core incentive for universities to participate. Several countries have implemented these to build 'World Class Universities' (WCU) but often this concept is linked to global rankings and a western model of what world class is. The aim of this study is to critically examine the characteristics of China's WCU policies, particularly as a competition discourse. It aims to go beyond Western-centric paradigms to capture a more inclusive and diverse understanding of competitive dynamics across various cultural and regional contexts. The article first draws upon critical globalisation studies, then it reviews 'indigenous' Chinese policy concepts of 'world class-ness' in HE, next it examines the construction of higher education (HE) competition in the Chinese national and institutional contexts, and finally it conducts a thematic review of the main Chinese WCU policies and the strategy and implementation documents of the 'core' WCU institutions with respect to the indigenous concepts. Our study's findings will contribute to a nuanced understanding of competition in HE settings – it examines and challenges the tendency of the competition discourse to reduce distinctions between national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]