China’s Education Outreach in Malaysia: Need for Tact and Trust

China’s technological expertise has the potential to transform the world. However, its expanding educational influence has left some feeling marginalised and threatened. To address these concerns and harness China’s soft power as a positive force for change, it is essential to adopt a multilingual approach and foster trust among different cultures.

China has made a foray into Malaysia’s education sector. In June 2024, China’s Premier Li Qiang visited Malaysia to commemorate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. A key indicator of their strong bond is their close educational ties. According to a report, approximately 40,000 Chinese students are studying in Malaysia, while around 4,000 Malaysians are pursuing higher education in China.

Earlier in May, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announced plans for Malaysia to send 5,000 students to China for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) courses. These programmes will cover advanced technologies such as renewable energy vehicles (REVs), robotics, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. Zahid described this initiative as a “game changer” that will help propel Malaysia into the era of Industry 4.0.

China, as a technological powerhouse, seeks to leverage its expanding educational influence to become a global transformative force. This ambition is particularly evident in Malaysia, where China’s efforts to achieve this goal are on display. In 2016, Xiamen University established a full-fledged campus in Malaysia (XMUM). The XMUM project, with its core programmes centred on science and engineering courses, is seen as another initiative by China to support Malaysia’s technological advancement goals. However, XMUM also represents China’s broader ambition to enter the Western-dominated international tertiary education sector, marking a significant move in the realm of soft power contestation. A key objective of XMUM was to establish a campus that reflects Malaysia’s demographics. To that end, they introduced special study grants for Bumiputera and Indian students and implemented various recruitment campaigns. However, this ambition is not without its challenges.

XMUM’s efforts align with Malaysia’s longstanding affirmative action policy to safeguard Bumiputera access to tertiary education, a policy that some feel is under threat. Recently, proposals to grant non-Malay students’ admission to UiTM postgraduate medical programmes have stirred protests, highlighting concerns about the erosion of opportunities for lower-income Malays to pursue higher education. The UiTM episode underscores Malaysia’s ongoing challenge to bridge the wealth gap between ethnic groups. There is concern that China’s growing influence in the country could disproportionately benefit certain communities (i.e. non-Malays) and exacerbate the socio-economic divide.

Due to its size, China poses an asymmetrical challenge that could disadvantage smaller nations. In Malaysia, this challenge is further complicated by the country’s diverse demographic composition. China’s dominance, for example, in the economic sphere, is perceived to benefit Chinese-Malaysians disproportionately. This could strain bilateral relations and exacerbate tensions within Malaysia’s delicate social fabric.

Currently, Chinese-Malaysians constitute the majority of Malaysians studying in China. Despite efforts to recruit Bumiputra students, XMUM remains predominantly Chinese. Aware of this imbalance, the Malaysia government allocated nearly 80 per cent of the training quota for Bumiputra students in the recently announced TVET programme in China. Notwithstanding these efforts, Bumiputra participation remains relatively low, reinforcing the perception that China’s education ventures do not benefit everyone. One factor hindering China’s attempts to reach a broader constituent is the contentious issue of language.

… if China intends to establish itself as a major player in the international tertiary education sector, it must adopt English, the contemporary lingua franca, to effectively project its educational soft power on a global scale.

Programmes like the TVET require a certain level of Chinese language proficiency. This creates a barrier to non-Chinese participation. There is already an existing stigma within the Malay community associated with learning Chinese. Additionally, there is a need to maintain English proficiency for economic reasons. In fact, English is being prioritised over Chinese as the second language.  Both contribute to the perception that the status of the national language, Bahasa Malaysia, is being challenged. Further complicating this issue is the ethnic Chinese community’s determination to preserve their linguistic heritage through the vernacular school system.

This brings us to one strategic feature of the XMUM project: the use of English as the medium of instruction for most of its course. While this move does not fully resolve concerns regarding the status of the Malay language, opting for English over Chinese helps to reduce language barriers and facilitate greater non-Chinese enrolment in the XMUM program. Equally important, if China intends to establish itself as a major player in the international tertiary education sector, it must adopt English, the contemporary lingua franca, to effectively project its educational soft power on a global scale.

The language challenge underscores an intriguing observation: despite its long history and the renowned Zheng He expeditions, Imperial China was historically an inward-looking empire with limited contact with the outside world. As modern China expands its global outreach, it realises that it is poorly understood by the world. Beijing is realising that it needs other languages, especially English, to make itself known to the world.

However, China must also endeavour to understand the world, as its dominance can pose challenges, such as the perceived threat to the status of the Malay language in Malaysia. To address these concerns, China should focus on building trust. For instance, XMUM could establish a Malay Studies Centre aimed at promoting cross-cultural understanding and strengthening civilisational bonds.

As a technological powerhouse, China possesses the potential to revolutionise the world. However, its expanding influence may marginalise and pose threats to certain communities. To ensure that its educational advancements are inclusive, China should adopt a multilingual approach, as per the XMUM model of using English for a huge segment of its curriculum. More importantly, it must strive to foster trust between civilizations, presenting its rise not as a threat but as an opportunity for mutual progress and prosperity.

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