Beijing’s Regional Studies Push Risks Campaign-Style Overreach

Beijing’s Regional Studies Push Risks Campaign-Style Overreach

Executive Summary: Chinese universities only began teaching area studies as a distinct discipline in 2022, as a latent response to a perceived lack of personnel equipped to capably represent the state’s interests across One Belt One Road partner countries. The discipline’s overhaul is part of a wider push to reduce the hold of Western theory within academia and put forth an “autonomous knowledge system” under the guidance of the Chinese Communi…