Redefining Chinese education in Southeast Asia

Since embarking on the process of reform and opening-up in 1978, China has witnessed over 40 years of remarkable socioeconomic achievements that have drawn global attention. Today, the country's economic miracle and growing national strength have made it increasingly influential in regional and international affairs.

China's influence in the Global South has expanded significantly. As of August 2023, 152 countries, most from the Global South, had planned or committed to participating in the Belt and Road Initiative. According to reports, for the first time, China's exports to BRI countries in 2023 surpassed those of the United States, Europe and Japan combined.

Unlike developed countries, China offers a model of peaceful coexistence and development as it engages with developing nations.

In recent years, as Sino-African economic, trade, and cultural exchanges have deepened, the African continent has seen a surge in Chinese language learning.

In South America, countries such as Chile, Peru, Argentina and Brazil have witnessed a wave of interest in China following President Xi Jinping's visit to Latin America in 2014, with enthusiasm for learning Chinese reaching new highs.

Now, Middle Eastern countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran are also, in varying degrees, actively increasing the importance of Chinese language learning within their national education systems.

The rise of China has significantly driven the demand for Chinese education in Southeast Asian countries too, due to motivating forces in several key areas.

First, economic and trade relations. According to the Southeast Asia Outlook 2024 report published by the ASEAN Studies Centre at Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in April, China continues to be seen as the most economically influential country in Southeast Asia.

China has been ASEAN's largest trading partner since 2009, and ASEAN has been China's largest trading partner since 2020.

Recently, in response to Western tariffs on Chinese goods and the trend of "friend-shoring" to enhance supply chain resilience, Chinese companies have shifted their business models from merely "exporting output" via international trade to "exporting capacity" by establishing local companies in Southeast Asia for production and distribution. This has stimulated interest in Chinese language learning, as employees who are proficient in Chinese are likely to be more competitive in the workplace, particularly since Chinese is often the working language within these companies.

Deeper understanding of system of values and social norms can also help bridge differences between Chinese companies, local authorities and the labor force.

China's proposal for a China-ASEAN community with a shared future and the establishment of comprehensive, high-quality, forward-looking partnerships with some Southeast Asian countries highlight that in this strategic high level of collaboration, it requires the countries concerned to enhance cultural, educational and religious exchanges. Language carries the intellectual heritage of a culture and through language, people can better appreciate and embrace differences while seeking common ground for collaboration and development.

The June 2024 issue of The Economist featured an article titled "The Rise of Chinese Science". It noted that China had surpassed the United States and the European Union in terms of proportion of research papers in the top 1 percent of citations, and for the first time in 2023, based on Nature Index which tracks the affiliations of high-quality primary scientific research papers, China produced more high-quality research papers than the US.

The article predicted that China will increasingly achieve self-sufficiency in science and technology and will no longer rely on Western frameworks for evaluating research, nor use Western journals as a standard for measuring scientific achievements.

The US' technology decoupling from China has spurred China's high-quality development and innovation in science and technology. China has overtaken the US in certain new areas of innovation such as high-speed rail, renewable energy, electric vehicles, navigation satellite system, 6G, smart computing and internet-based platforms for industrial supply chains, among others.

The recent popular video game Black Myth: Wukong, a groundbreaking high-quality production in China's gaming history, smashed multiple sales records in the international gaming market and drew overseas audiences' interest in classic ancient Chinese novels and traditions, showcasing China's cultural soft power.

Western large language models, such as ChatGPT, are primarily trained in English data and reflect Western cultural and value biases, while non-English perspectives are sometimes considered irrelevant or erroneous. Currently the Chinese artificial intelligence industry is actively developing high-quality Chinese-language LLMs by collecting classical masterpieces, ancient novels, encyclopedias, public governance data, and data from various professional fields in a massive exercise to incorporate China's 5,000 years of civilization and wisdom into AI model training.

Going forward, according to the IDC Global DataSphere 2023 report, the amount of data generated in China is expected to grow from 23.88 zettabytes in 2022 to 76.6 zettabytes by 2027, with an annual growth rate of 26.3 percent, the highest in the world. This vast Chinese language data pool will become a significant advantage in developing powerful Chinese language AI LLMs.

From the perspective of Southeast Asian countries, learning the Chinese language is of strategic importance.

First, it would mean seizing opportunities from China's new wave of businesses that are investing and localizing their operations in Southeast Asia. Through understanding of language and culture, the two sides can appreciate each other's corporate culture and foster closer business cooperation. This also facilitates seamless integration of production chains across China and Southeast Asia under the "China+1" business strategy.

Second, leveraging Asian wisdom to address issues facing Asia. China possesses massive data resources that represent a large chunk of Asian languages and cultures. Singapore is currently developing the Sea-Lion AI open-source AI LLM trained on data from 11 official Southeast Asian languages, including English, Chinese, Indonesian, Malay, Thai, and Vietnamese. If data in Chinese language from China is incorporated, an "Asian Wisdom" AI LLM could offer better insights into Asian affairs and provide solutions suitable for Asia's economic and social development.

Third, promoting the ASEAN principles of diversity and openness in international relations. Learning Chinese language and culture aligns with these principles in Southeast Asia's multicultural and multilingual community, which fosters inclusiveness and cooperation between different ideologies.

Fourth, Southeast Asia should become a peaceful "blessing ground" rather than a new "battleground" for US-China relations. Countries in Southeast Asia should cultivate China's growing regional influence into a force for regional cooperation and shared prosperity. By integrating the wisdom of both East and West and learning from the frontiers of Chinese and Western technologies and innovations, the region can elevate the "Asian era" development to even greater heights.

In fact, we are already witnessing the growing trend of more Southeast Asian students choosing to study in Chinese mainland universities. Other than tuition fees being much lower than that of Western universities, Chinese universities offer high-quality education in domains such as technology, telecommunication, engineering and e-commerce; offer opportunities to immerse in Chinese culture; and provide in-depth understanding of China's economic development and business opportunities.

The author is an adjunct professor at National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and an adviser to Nanyang University Alumni Academic Society. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.