Narrating the Belt and Road Education Policy: A Critical Policy Discourse Analysis

This article analyzes the China Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) education policy using a critical policy discourse approach. At the textual level, this paper focuses on policy framing by identifying how diagnostic (problem definition), prognostic (solutions), and motivational (rationales) framings are described in two foundational BRI education policy documents. Next, six additional policy documents are selected to construct a discursive totality to understand how framings are linked to and embedded within the broader discursive practice of policy documents. The interpretations of these framings are viewed through the lens of policy driver, lever, and value. Finally, a macro-sociological analysis aimed at explanatory and normative critique shows that BRI education is embedded in the discourses of national rejuvenation and China’s aspirations to become a global leader of an alternative global governance and order. The paper ends with a discussion postulating that the BRI education policy’s success depends on various shifting domestic and geopolitical factors, from the growth of the Chinese economy and ideological struggles among the world’s major powers to grassroots reception or resistance to Chinese influence in BRI countries.