In Chinese higher education, they’re seeing red.
A mixture of government and independent groups, “neo-Maoist” higher education is pushing back against the shift toward capitalism in China, according to Inside Higher Ed.
That puts the movement in a position where it wants greater planning and control from the state, but it’s also in opposition to the state on liberalization and globalization.
Though focused in China, they’ve tried to bolster Mao’s image abroad.
“More mainstream universities have embraced red education as well. Last year, Tsinghua University, one of the most prestigious in China, released a massive open online course about Mao Zedong on the popular edX platform,” David Matthews wrote.
EdX took criticism for the course on its lack of nuance about Mao and the realities of his rule in China. The redwashing continues.
Neo-Maoists have an opening to persuade Chinese college students. Chinese millennials don’t embrace pro-Western and pro-market sentiment as much as older generations, taking “a more nuanced view” that depends on the Chinese context, according to The Atlantic. That’s fertile ground for “resurgent” Maoist ideologues, The New York Times noted.
For as much as anti-Western sentiment can penetrate Chinese universities, however, communists keep sending their children to American universities. Roughly 300,000 Chinese students study in the United States. Given campus protests and demands that universities censor and punish unpopular thought, however, the next space for neo-Maoists might be American safe spaces.
