This research aims to document the ways China is shaping tertiary education spaces and new circuits of mobility among youths in Southeast Asia. We examine the implications of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on student mobilities and academic linkages that are shaping young people’s aspirational pathways in moving across places and in expanding the knowledge spaces of the region. The study employs a cross-disciplinary conceptual and methodological approach to study two education tracks in regional student mobility flows: (a) vocational training student mobilities; and (b) elite university student mobilities, that are also augmented by academic linkages between China and SEA. The specific aims are:

• Examine how young people as internationally mobile students in vocational training and elite university tracks understand their mobility experiences, construct post-study pathways, and engage in personal projects of self-making concerning the BRI;
• Examine how educational institutions foster academic linkages by leveraging the BRI to enhance research, develop new programmes, and cultivate new sources of students, alongside the circulation of knowledge practices and products via faculty, researchers and students;
• Analyse how existing forms of knowledge within the region are being revived, justified and expanded through the BRI.

PI & Co-PI(s): Ho Kong Chong & Brenda S.A. Yeoh FBA
Collaborator(s): Cho Hichang, Johanna Waters, Koh Sin Yee, Ravinder Sidhu, Rochelle Ge Yun, Yang Peidong, Gu Xiaorong, Cheng Yi'En & Chen Caijian
ARI Team: Kris Hyesoo Lee & Stephanie Heng (2022-2024)
Country Researchers: Chen Caijian (Guangxi, China), Koh Sin Yee (Malaysia), Sivarin Lertpusit (Thailand), Sophia Deterala (Philippines), Phan Phuong Hao (Vietnam)

Funding Agency: Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 2 (MOE-T2EP402A20-0004)
Project Duration: 1 November 2021 – 31 October 2024