The emergence of multipolarity in global higher education: the Belt and Road Initiative and African students’ motivations to pursue postgraduate education in China

The past decade has witnessed an unprecedented transformation of China into an important “receiving” nation for international student mobility (ISM), underscored by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)-tied African countries becoming the main import markets. The emerging China-bound ISM, driven by contextually-specific motivations, necessitates a re-theorisation of the Western-centric, neo-liberal-driven push–pull model within the broader context of multipolarity in higher education. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews with eight international students from BRI African countries pursuing postgraduate programmes in Beijing, this micro study explores the dynamic macro–micro interface of push and pull factors. These narratives of how the push (e.g. the under-developed higher education system in the home country) and pull factors (i.e. host nation’s financial support for international students, economic and political links between the home and host countries, and host nation’s exponential growth) intersected with individuals’ desire, reflect the multipolar shifts in global higher education landscapes. By extending the macro-focused push–pull model to incorporate these complexities, this study echoes the need to recognise contemporary multipolarity when explaining ISM in diverse contexts.