Key developments and future challenges in Chinese‐foreign cooperation in higher education

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the key developments in Sino‐foreign cooperation in higher education (HE) in China in terms of policy initiatives and legal frameworks and to highlight the main challenges for the sector in the future. Design/methodology/approach – Numerous policy papers, academic literature sources and legal acts are analysed to produce a meta analysis of the understanding to date of the issues involved in partnerships in HE in China. Secondary data sources are accessed and compared for consistency. Findings – The analysis reveals a clear path of initially slow, enhancing, and then rapid developments in the framework of Sino‐foreign HE cooperation. It also reveals some serious issues in the motives behind cooperation, quality of provision, and relevance to China's future development. Practical implications – The findings of this paper suggest that cooperative partnerships in HE in China need to be much clearer on strategy and purpose and there is an urgent need for a proper assessment of their contribution to the country's education capacity building, educational, and knowledge exchange and future social and economic development. Originality/value – This paper offers an insight into how it arrives at where it is in terms of these partnerships, how to improve them and raises questions that may well be uncomfortable reading for some.