Reflections on China - ASEAN Higher Education Cooperation in the Context of the "Belt & Road Initiative"

As the regional higher education cooperation is attracting more attention than ever before, the landscape of global higher education is reshaping. China has put forward an ambitious initiative, known as the "Belt and Road initiative", to the world. The initiative provides a historic opportunity for China and over 70 related countries and regions to comprehensively deepen their economic, social, educational and cultural cooperation. Research shows that China-ASEAN cooperation in higher education is the most active one comparing to China's other regional cooperation along the Belt and Road routes in terms of the intergovernmental cooperation platform and mechanism, Student mobility and cooperative run schools. Researches also find that the China- ASEAN higher education cooperation is vital for China to demonstrate its intention. However, the cooperation also faces major challenges. The greatest internal challenge is caused by uneven development of higher education in ASEAN member countries, and the major external pressure comes from the US policy for Asia-Pacific region. To tackle the above challenges and realize the China-ASEAN higher education convergence, a series of suggestions has been made regarding establishing mutual trust, inter-government coordination, and cooperation route map.