Abstract
There remains a serious lack of a comprehensive examination of academic dependency, decolonization, and indigenization in China and East Asia. Our special issue is intended to fill this gap by situating this issue in the Chinese context, thanks to China’s extraordinary leaps in its economy and higher education and enhanced indigenizing movements. In particular, we hope to open a new dialog on the dynamic relationship between the rise of China, academic (and other) dependency, and global knowledge production. Our findings show that China’s rise complicates and enriches our understanding of dependency. For instance, despite the state-orchestrated indigenization in Chinese academia and China’s potential role as a new global hub of knowledge production, its academia, especially social science, is still highly dependent upon the Western academic center for ideas and recognition. This is partly exemplified by the fact that Chinese universities attach great importance to Western-acknowledged academic excellence through the global university rankings. However, we argue that the existing academic dependency theory fails to capture and explain this complex situation. In so doing, we call for a paradigm shift in rethinking academic dependency by placing it in the multilayered and multi-domain dependency circumstances and conditions. In advancing this agenda, we advocate a field-grounded and cross-disciplinary approach.
The last two decades, especially the last decade, have seen growing momentum in intellectual decolonization and academic indigenization campaigns in Asia and the Global South. However, does this suggest that academia, especially social science communities in the non-Western world, are leaving behind their academic dependency? We argue that addressing this issue in the Chinese context is essential due to China’s rapid economic growth and vibrant academic indigenization movements. We present this special issue to showcase our critical and interdisciplinary investigation of the dynamic relationships between dependency, indigenization, and knowledge production against the backdrop of China’s phenomenal rise.
In congruence with this reconfiguration of global knowledge production, the idea of academic dependency, or as an extension, intellectual imperialism, has been gaining prominence (Alatas, 2000, 2003, 2006). Our contributors reach the consensus that despite its insights in spotlighting the grave consequences of Western hegemony in knowledge production on the cultivation of the “captive mind” in Asian and non-Western academia, the theory of academic dependency is somewhat limited for its binary distinction between the (Western) center and (non-Western) periphery and its inadequate attention to fast-changing global and local conditions and new circumstances for dependency. We believe China is one of the most exemplary and exciting sites for this kind of investigation, considering its irreplaceable role in reshaping the new world and regional orders and its enhanced anti-Western stance and de-Westernizing efforts in academia and other spheres. Oddly enough, the theoretical framework of academic dependency is rarely applied to the Chinese context. As it happens, the various approaches that the Chinese Party-state and scholars have adopted to overcome dependency and build a new social science “with Chinese characteristics” serve as a much-needed supplement to and expansion of dependency theory. We, therefore, aim to fill the gap in this special issue by focusing mainly on the Chinese context.
Our contributors are from different disciplines (sociology, anthropology, education, gender studies, public health, and political science) and are employed in different parts of Asia (Singapore, mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). Deriving from intensive and extensive Western and Asian learning, working, and research experiences, each contributor has been asked to engage with the following three sets of intersecting questions before/while working on their respective articles.
(1) What are the historical and evolving conditions for academic dependency in local (China/Asia) and global contexts, especially in our respective disciplines?
(2) What are the limits of the idea of (academic) dependency in capturing and theorizing decolonizing and indigenizing initiatives in China and beyond? Then, what are some possible ways to think beyond dependency?
(3) In what ways may the rise of China evoke epistemic, ontological, and empirical problematics for a critical reassessment? Moreover, how does China’s rise complicate and enrich our understanding of dependency?
With these questions as our point of departure, we aim to build an innovative, historical-comparative, and interdisciplinary dialog on the dynamic relationship between the rise of China and (academic) dependency and the convoluted landscape of dependency amid the reconfiguring world-systems and global knowledge production.
Arguably, our special issue is the first of its kind in academia. A comprehensive investigation of academic dependency, indigenization, and decolonization in Asian academia, especially in China and East Asia, has not been thoroughly conducted until recently. In fact, our same guest editors have organized and co-edited a special issue for the Journal of Historical Sociology on a comparative study of academic dependency, indigenization, and knowledge production in Asia (Tenzin & Lee, 2022). 1 We openly admit, however, that this is an unfinished project because we have not had a chance to attend to many enduring problems concerning the concept of and paradigm of academic dependency and indigenizing and decolonizing movements across Asian academia, especially in the Chinese context. Therefore, we decided to take advantage of this new special issue to think through and beyond dependency by situating it against China’s rise.
Setting the Stage: China, Dependency, and Global Knowledge Production
As noted, the paradigm of (academic) dependency leaves much to be desired. It fails to sufficiently portray, capture, and pinpoint a complex and transforming terrain of dependency and indigenizing and decolonizing movements in the Global South. Therefore, we set the stage in the Chinese context for re-conceptualizing dependency and knowledge production by identifying the transforming global and local (China/Asia) circumstances and conditions for dependency and bringing to the fore our special issue’s significance and potential contribution.
The Rise of China: A New Epistemic Frontier for Dependency
The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique window for us to observe an escalated tension between “universal/Western values” and the “Chinese way/model,” or the reinforcement of Chinese exceptionalism (Ho, 2021). In a way, this is an outcome of the complicity between China and the West regarding China’s assumed incomprehensibility to the outside world. This is undoubtedly a familiar theme associated with China’s staggering rise and its relevant extensive scholarship. However, the relationship between the rise of China and academic production and practices in/on China remains to be explored in depth. The relationship between China’s rise and academic (and other parallel) dependency is an even much less examined area. For that reason, we ask: What is the implication of the rise of China for global knowledge production? Although it is too early to predict that China’s rise will eventually undermine Western hegemony in knowledge production, it is still worth asking: Would this rise not bring about a new regime of dependency like Sinocentrism in intellectual, educational, and technological fields, namely, others’ dependency on China for research agendas and methods, standards of excellence, investment and funding, and on demand in China for their relevant skills?
From there, we go on to inquire about the implication of China’s rise on a reevaluation of Chinese historical legacy, such as the role of the Qing in “Chinese history” and China’s historical (and contemporary) relationships with its neighbors in East Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and so on (Crossley et al., 2006; Ding & Elliott, 2018; Kim, 2017; Perdue, 2005; Vogel, 2019). As it happened, indigenizing movements focusing on de-Sinicization emerged in many of these neighboring countries and regions as early as the 19th century in concurrence with their colonialization by Western powers/Japan or intensified nationalist movements. So, a legitimate question arises: With the rise of China, is it possible to see a reversed trend such as re-Sinicization of some sort, or at least a more open recognition of Chinese influence on their history and culture? Our special issue engages with this complex issue. For instance, Yufen Chang develops the idea of civilization envy, an illustration of civilizational dependency, to reconsider the often inconsistent and contentious role of the Chinese civilizing mission in Vietnamese (nationalist) history.
Moreover, our special issue proposes rethinking Chinese experiences during China’s rise, especially the role of Chinese experiences in social and political theories. As said, the discourse of Chinese exceptionalism is quite powerful in both Chinese and Western sociopolitical and intellectual-academic spheres. Thus, while we employ theoretical lenses such as postcolonial critiques to problematize the rise of China and call into question enhanced indigenizing movements and political partisanship in Chinese scholarship (political dependency), we use Chinese experiences (e.g., revolutionary, post-revolutionary, or post-socialist experiences) to challenge Eurocentric postcolonial theory and social and political theories in general (Dirlik, 2011; Tenzin, 2022; Wang, 2009, 2014). Doing so takes issue with the remaining USA-led Western hegemony and induced academic and other dependencies and experiments with a decolonizing or indigenizing approach. In advancing this agenda, our special issue advocates cross-fertilization, rather than mutual exclusion, between Chinese experiences and broad social and political theories and between Chinese and Western academic worlds (social sciences in particular).
The Chinese “Academic Miracle”: A Perplexing Story About Dependency
The case studies on academic dependency in the last two decades are often focused on the areas where governments struggle to develop their economies (e.g., Latin America and Africa) since academic dependency tends to be seen as a spillover consequence of economic and political dependency. Following this logic, could we infer that when a society has successfully upgraded its economy, its social science community will more easily break free from academic dependency? The Chinese story is worth telling as it reveals a multivalent and unique dependency situation.
In parallel with China’s rapid economic growth, we see a simultaneous emergence of an “academic miracle” or an “educational miracle” if we employ such normative measures as research outputs (e.g., number of publications), expansion of universities, an increase of investment and funding in education and research, as well as the climbing rankings of Chinese universities. 2 In consonance with the academic miracle at least on the surface, indigenizing campaigns in Chinese social sciences have been magnified in the last decade. They are branded officially as “speeding up the construction of philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics.” So, what does all this tell us about the relationships between economic development, academic dependency, and indigenization/autonomy? Or, more specifically, should we assume that there exists a linear and evolutionary path for academic dependency in China, Asia, and the Global South like this: economic development → academic development (e.g., climbing university rankings) → academic autonomy/independence? However, what has been happening on the ground in China, Asia, and elsewhere demonstrates that this kind of perspective is too simplistic, if not naïve.
In a critical examination of the top 22 sociology programs in East Asia (including China), Lee and Chen (2022) show convincingly that Asian sociology has become more dependent on, rather than autonomous from, the Western academic center or USA academia in particular. For instance, adopting the ranking agency’s standards reinforces the global division of academic labor. This situation is generally true in the social sciences in Asia and other parts of the Global South. What is occurring in China is even more perplexing and intriguing, though—on the one hand, we see state-orchestrated and hence politicized or ideologized indigenization (or de-Westernizing) movements in Chinese academia, but on the other hand, we also see an enhanced desire for “international recognition” for its academic excellence like global university rankings, hence continuing academic dependency on the West.
All in all, our contributors recognize the complexity of our examined problem. We reject the idea that a straightforward formula and development path exists for academic indigenization and autonomy. Instead, through a critical engagement with the fields of Chinese academia and China-related knowledge production, we explore both the similarities and differences of academic dependency and indigenization in relation to other parts of Asia and the Global South. This brings us to an essential query in the special issue: What are the Chinese story’s broad empirical and theoretical implications in the reconfiguring world-systems and global knowledge production?
Chinese Academia and New Dependency in the Emerging New Global Academic Regime
Higher education and academic research have profoundly transformed globally in the past two decades. The proliferation of the university system took place after World War II when developing countries wanted to build their human capital and research capacity (Meyer et al., 1977). However, with the expansion of the global higher education system, the operating model of universities has also changed significantly. For instance, according to Burawoy (2007), social science has entered the third wave of marketization, or to be precise, neoliberal academic globalization. The new academic regime, marked by its neoliberal logic, has transformed universities to be run like companies and academia to run like a sweatshop. Since most Chinese universities and research institutes are provided for by the government and the Party-state exerts tight control over education and academia to safeguard them from “inimical” Western influences like liberty, democracy, and freedom of expression, should we automatically assume that China is immune from neoliberal influence?
We argue that neoliberal logic has also gradually gained a foothold among the policymakers and top administrative staff of the universities in China, like in other parts of East Asia. For instance, Chinese universities attach great importance to global university rankings, as entailed by the increasingly neoliberalized international academic regime. Ironically, even though The Academic Ranking of World Universities, based in Shanghai, is often seen as the precursor of global university rankings and one of the most influential global academic rating agencies, major Chinese universities do not attach equal importance to it as compared to the two UK-based private for-profit companies, Times Higher Education) and the QS World University Rankings. As a result, contrary to the popular image of iron-handed state control over academia and education or Chinese-style authoritarianism, Chinese academia and higher education arguably remain at the receiving or dependency end of the global division of labor to varying degrees despite rapid changes.
The above-identified stage setting in the Chinese context is essential for us to think through and beyond dependency. Building on this, our special issue intends to advance the following agendas.
A multi-domain dependency model
We propose a multi-domain dependency model, an understudied topic. Apart from dependency in academia (academic dependency), we delve into dependencies in such domains as civilizations, education, politics (governance/ideology), languages, gender, public health, and ethnic relations. We introduce a comparative lens to bring them together for a critical analysis. Specifically, our examined domains and subsequent dependency conditions are as follows.
(a) Civilizational dependency. The historical relationship between China and its neighbors like Vietnam is often labeled in Vietnamese and Western academia as that of dependency, if not prototypical imperialism or colonialism. However, based on Yufen Chang’s study, Vietnam’s emulation of China historically manifested a virtuous desire for upward mobility on the ladder of civilization, which is different from what the idea of dependency connotes in its modern colonial and postcolonial circumstances. Thus, even if civilization entails a hierarchical relationship that could probably be described as a form of dependency, it is necessary to differentiate civilizational dependency in its historical context from the modern discursive dependency paradigm.
(b) Educational (inter)dependency. Educational dependency in Tibetan schools seems to be an unavoidable outcome due to the centralized nature of the education system in China. However, deriving from a case study in which a Tibetan vocational school experiments with a hybrid educational model that integrates Western, Chinese, and Tibetan systems, Rouzhuo (Rigdrol) questions the validity of the paradigm of educational dependency and instead advocates the idea of educational interdependency to inquire into Tibetan schools’ tactics and initiative in resolving the tension and seeking a balance between cultural continuity and change.
(c) Linguistic dependency. Yao Lin presents an otherwise overlooked case in which the idea of academic dependency is complicated by language barriers and knowledge blockage-brokerage in/between Sinophone/Chinese and Anglophone/Western worlds. Equally compellingly, Yang Zhan probes into a different case in which dependency often results from monolingual and monocultural circumstances, with excessive reliance on one dominant epistemological standpoint (be it Chinese/Southern or English/Northern). Therefore, transcultural and translingual contexts and flows create necessary conditions for diasporic Chinese anthropologists to achieve varying degrees of academic autonomy (from both Chinese and Western epistemologies, theories, and frameworks). Ling Han also takes note of the relative autonomy of diasporic feminist scholars from the political agenda and official discourse in China. Then a problem arises: if we must subscribe to the dominant language like English for some autonomy, what are the chances of decolonization and autonomy for Asian academia?
(d) Political/ideological dependency. As an implicit theme throughout the issue, many contributors of ours touch upon the intertwined and intricate relationship between academic and political/ideological dependencies. This relationship complicates knowledge production in Chinese academia, especially in social science. This kind of relationship is, however, not well investigated. Then, China’s rise contributed to rising nationalism and enhanced Party-state legitimacy. This suggests that any critique of the Party-state agenda and Chinese “patriotism” (usually translated into loyalty toward the CCP) can easily be backfired. Self-censorship in Chinese social sciences thus becomes a general practice. Without full cognizance of this context, discussing academic dependency in the Chinese context loses much of its validity and vitality.
(e) Gendered dependency. Ling Han problematizes both the ideas of academic dependency and indigenization during the building of women’s and gender studies programs and the feminist academic field in China by foregrounding such obstacles as omnipresent state agendas and academic masculine resistance and the stigmatized label of feminism in the global economy of knowledge.
(f) Medicalized dependency. Chengpang Lee and Meei-Shia Chen problematizes the marketization and over-medicalization of the healthcare system in Taiwan since the 1980s as a dependency syndrome due to the designing and implementation of the public health policies by mostly Western-trained high-ranking officials/scholars.
(g) Ethnicized dependency. Conceptualizing (regional, cultural, ethnic, and other) diversity and unity in historical and contemporary China has been a crucial agenda in China Studies and Chinese academia. For instance, how can we make a valid assessment of the roles of Mongols, Tibetans, and Uyghurs in “Chinese” history and at present? Does (ethnicized) dependency capture these non-Han people’s relationships with Han, in which Han are frequently portrayed in the CCP’s official discourse to be a more civilized and economically advanced “Big Brother”? Two contributors of ours shed some light on this issue. Rouzhuo (Rigdrol) deals with this issue subtly and develops the idea of interdependency to spotlight Tibetan elites’ effort to reassert the value of Tibetan traditions in modern (Chinese-mainstream) education. Next, positioning himself as a “native anthropologist,” Jinba Tenzin makes a critical investigation of various types of hegemonies (be it Western domination or Han/Tibetan chauvinism) and argues for “indigenous” and locally-generated approaches to rethink the role of “native” and marginal (Tibetan and other) perspectives and traditions in challenging domination and dependency, including hierarchical ethnic relations.
As shown, dependencies in these diverse domains are subjected to specific sociopolitical, cultural and historical conditions, operating mechanisms, and distinctive epistemological and methodological premises. Still, they often interact and overlap to invigorate and reinforce their respective operations and effects. For instance, ethnicized dependency is closely related to civilizational and linguistic dependency since ethnic relations frequently reflect the civilizational hierarchy and civilizing mission in which languages are used as an essentialized marker of civility. Also, these domains intersect with academic dependency in different ways, as demonstrated in various articles. In this way, we intend to bring about a paradigm shift in rethinking academic dependency by situating it in the multilayered and multi-domain dependency circumstances and conditions. This shift may help us gain a fresh perspective about knowledge production, (academic and other) dependencies, and China’s rise.
Both field-grounded and cross-disciplinary approaches to dependency
As demonstrated above, our approach to dependency is field grounded in that our contributors are asked to reassess the status quo of dependency, decolonization or indigenization and knowledge production in their disciplines and subfields in Chinese contexts and beyond and reconsider the relationship between particularism (local/Chinese variants) and universalism (Eurocentric norms) in their respective fields in terms of epistemology, theory, methods, premises, ontology, and so on.
For instance, based on a close survey of the public health sector, Chengpang Lee and Meei-Shia Chen advocate scholars’ social engagement beyond academia. They challenge “ivory tower” discussions on dependency by asking how academic autonomy and alternative discourse, like alternative public health models, is ever possible if dependency is reduced merely to an intellectual game. Next, Yang Zhan and Jinba Tenzin offer their critical reflection on the decolonization and pluralization of anthropology and beyond. Yang Zhan uses the idea of “world anthropologies” to discuss the empirical and epistemic challenges and prospects among Chinese anthropologists both at home and abroad in doing world anthropologies. Jinba Tenzin engages with the idea of “world anthropologies” (although he has not used this concept explicitly) from a somewhat different angle. He suggests that anthropology’s decolonization and pluralization will become possible only if the discipline adopts a more open (e.g., receptive, or even welcoming) stance toward the idea of native(s) and accepts the existence of the collective category of (non-Western) “native anthropologists.” Finally, in her investigation of the development of the interdisciplinary program of women’s and gender studies in China, Ling Han showcases and compares the dependency conditions and positionalities for domestic and diasporic feminist scholars. While domestic scholars are subjected to both political and academic dependencies, diasporic scholars are not free from the Western hegemonic system of feminist knowledge.
In this way, our special issue provides an important venue for us contributors to problematize and enrich our respective disciplines and fields. However, we make an even greater effort to seek common ground for new analytic frameworks and approaches to capture multivalent and complex situations of dependency and indigenization in Chinese academia and bridge universalism and particularism in knowledge production (on/in China). We explain this further below.
China/Asia as method: Thinking through but beyond China (and dependency)
Our special issue makes a critique of and builds a dialog with the existing frameworks on China/Asia as Method (e.g., Yoshimi Takeuchi; Mizoguchi Yūzō, Wang Hui, Kuan-Hsing Chen, etc.) against a backdrop of the rise of China (Chen, 2010; Mizoguchi, 2016 [1989]; Morita, 2017; Takeuchi, 2005 [1960]; Wang, 2011). It asks how our analytic approach to China, especially through our interdisciplinary perspective of the multi-domain dependency model, may have broader methodological and epistemological implications for China and Asian Studies. This involves two major tasks: First, to reexamine the multifaceted entity of China from its historical, political, cultural, and ethnic frontiers and neighbors. Chengpang Lee and Meei-Shia Chen, Yufen Chang, Rouzhuo (Rigdrol), and Jinba Tenzin engage with this issue to varying extents; Second, to rethink the role of China (both as a multifaceted entity and as a subject of study) in today’s persistently Eurocentric scholarship and frameworks and the rise of China/Asia in reconfiguring global knowledge production in particular. Most contributors of ours touch upon this issue from diverse angles.
We use the rise of China as an intervening point of departure to rethink China/Asia as Method in multiple ways. These include, but are not limited to, challenging both Western and Chinese hegemonic discourses, reassessing China’s civilizational and historical links with its neighbors and its ethnonational (minority) communities, reconceptualizing complex and intertwined relationships between academic dependency, autonomy, production, and neoliberalization, and problematizing and refining social and political theories via Chinese experiences. In so doing, our discussion aims to delve further into the relationship and especially the tension between area studies and disciplinary approaches to China and propose new theoretical perspectives and possible solutions to this problem.
In conclusion, we critically analyze the intricate terrain of dependency and knowledge production in Chinese academia and beyond and propose new, historical-comparative and cross-disciplinary approaches to think through but beyond dependency. As demonstrated, this situation is complicated by the seemingly unlikely concurrences of enhanced indigenizing movements and possibly aggravated dependency in Chinese academia (as a result of neoliberalized academic practices, for instance). To add to this complexity, surveillance and the Party-state agenda in the social sciences, and hence, political dependency among Chinese scholars, have intensified under the present regime and with the introduction of new technologies. We, therefore, argue that our special issue serves as a timely and necessary intellectual intervention to inquire into the dynamics between dependency and knowledge production amid the rise of China and transforming world-systems. Our reflection goes far beyond China indeed. The Chinese story opens a new door for us to ruminate on a complex landscape of dependency, decolonization, indigenization, and knowledge production in Asian academia and the Global South. Doing so is, at the same time, instrumental in problematizing, enriching, and advancing dependency theory.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We would like to take this opportunity to thank our external reviewers for their insightful feedback. We also want to thank our contributors for their dedication and inspiration. This special issue would not have been possible without their substantial support and creative ideas.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.