Tensions between the global and the local: A comparative illustration of the reorganisation of China's higher education in the 1950s and 1990s

The phenomena of internationalisation andglobalisation are becoming major domains ofcomparative educational enquiry. The relationshipbetween them has attracted increasing interest. Ideasof globalisation are implemented only under specificinstitutional conditions. Globalisation, which hasraised a range of important issues, offers newpossibilities and raises increasingly complex problemsfor educational researchers and policy-makers. Forexample, the interpenetration of the universal and theparticular is complicated and difficult, while notionsof economic globalisation also increasingly affecteducation. A comparative analysis of thereorganisation of China's higher education in the1950s and 1990s is conducted, to illustrate theemergence of local-global relations; this demonstrateshow universalising tendencies are articulated throughChina's particular framework in developing its highereducation system. It shows that while theglobalisation imperative is being imposed, it may alsocreate opportunities for institutions to resistcertain global trends in favour of local values.Through an illustration of China's struggle toreconcile the local and the global respectively in the1950s and the 1990s, this article stresses thetensions between globalisation andinternationalisation within the process of policyimplementation in China's higher education reforms.