China takes first steps into global higher education with Laos campus
Laos is the first step in China's international expansion of higher education, but some see the new approach as risky and unnecessary
In the capital of Laos, two dozen students who see their future in trade ties with neighbouring China spent their school year attending Putonghua classes in a no-frills, rented room.
It's the start of China's first, and almost certainly not its last, university campus abroad, with a notable focus on Asia.
This is … about increasing soft power
"There are a lot of companies in Laos that are from China," said 19-year-old Palamy Siphandone. She said she chose the Soochow University branch campus after hearing it would offer scholarships to students with high scores.
"If I can speak Chinese, I get more opportunities to work with them," she said in a telephone interview during a trip to the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou - the home city of Soochow University.
China so far has been on the receiving end of the globalisation of education, with Western institutions rushing to China to set up shop. Now it's stepping out.
In addition to the emerging Laos campus, there are plans for what may become one of the world's largest overseas branch campuses in Malaysia and an agreement by a Chinese university to explore a joint campus with a British university in London.
"The Chinese government and its universities have been very ambitious in the reform and internationalisation of Chinese higher education," said Mary Gallagher, director of the Centre of Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan in the US.