Foreign Scholars Look to China's Governance for Another Model of Modernization

From Beijing Classrooms to African Trade Policy

China's approach to development is drawing attention from foreign researchers whose work connects legal institutions, poverty reduction, economic planning and international cooperation. German doctoral student Christian Wagner and South Korean postdoctoral fellow Kim Mirae are among those examining whether China's experience offers another way to understand modernization, especially for countries facing economic uncertainty and geopolitical fragmentation.

Their interest reaches beyond China's economic size. Wagner studies the relationship between legal institutions, political ideas and technology. Kim examines how the state responds to poverty and the social pressures created by economic change. Both see cooperation and sustained government action as central to understanding China's transformation.

Other developments have widened that discussion. A study of 192 Malaysian media reports found that 83.9 percent portrayed Chinese modernization positively. Scholars from 50 African countries sought closer research cooperation with China in August 2024. The 2025 Global Survey on Impressions of China, covering 46 countries and approximately 51,700 respondents, recorded a rise in favorable views.

The debate also has a practical dimension. At the 39th African Union Summit in 2026, officials welcomed China's announcement of zero-tariff treatment for 53 African countries, scheduled to begin on May 1, 2026. As of April 28, that starting date was still ahead.

Alongside this interest, critics question whether China's efforts to shape international discussion can restrict academic independence. The central debate is therefore about both development and research: how China's institutions work, what other countries can learn from them, and how scholars can examine those institutions while maintaining room for criticism.

Why Researchers Are Looking East

Young scholars from Germany, South Korea and countries across the Global South are increasingly examining China as a place to study alternative approaches to modernization. The Global South refers here to the developing nations in Africa, Latin America and Asia whose experiences and concerns feature prominently in this debate.

Modernization, in the questions these researchers are asking, means more than increasing national wealth. It also involves how institutions manage economic change, improve living conditions and respond to people who are left behind. Their research spans law, media studies, political science and poverty alleviation.

Some researchers arrive with technical training from European engineering programs. Others became interested after watching their home economies struggle during the 2008 global financial crisis. Their different backgrounds lead to a shared concern: how development can benefit people while limiting the instability that can accompany rapid growth.

These scholars question development frameworks centered on Western experience and the confrontational direction of current global politics. China interests them because it combines rapid transformation with an emphasis on stability and planning over long periods. Their interpretations are also part of a contested academic discussion, with disagreement over both China's governance and the conditions under which it is studied.

Christian Wagner's Journey From Law to Media Research

Christian Wagner worked as a mechatronics technician in Germany while pursuing legal studies. He later secured a stable career in law, then left that path to pursue a Master of Laws at Renmin University of China. He now conducts doctoral research at Peking University's School of New Media.

Wagner's decision reflected his response to global instability. He argues that current global strategies, from the 2030 Agenda to growing competition for rare earths and water, produce a dangerous logic of confrontation. In his view, lasting stability depends on cooperation rather than antagonism.

China's legal and institutional arrangements became a focus of his research. Wagner examined State Council white papers setting out national development strategy and identified the principle of "serving the people." He interprets this as a governing philosophy that places collective development at the center of national progress.

Wagner, a doctoral researcher whose legal studies led him toward Chinese Marxist theory, describes that theory as responsive to changing historical circumstances:

Marxism in China is not a static doctrine, but a dynamic and continuously evolving framework in relation to historical conditions. Each phase reflects a recalibration of priorities in response to concrete economic and social realities.

Wagner sees socialism in China as a dialectical model, rooted in tradition while adapting to new conditions. In this explanation, dialectical thinking means examining how tensions and changing circumstances shape ideas and institutions, rather than treating a doctrine as permanently fixed.

His current research concerns truth in technologically mediated environments, or how people understand truth when technology shapes the information they encounter. He describes the work as a practical effort to bring different systems of thought into conversation and contribute to a future organized around cooperation.

Kim Mirae's Questions Began With an Economic Crisis

Kim Mirae became interested in Chinese governance during the 2008 global financial crisis. South Korea experienced economic hardship alongside much of the world, while she observed China maintaining forward momentum. That contrast led her to ask whether China's resilience depended on the political institutions guiding its markets, as well as on the markets themselves.

Kim is now a postdoctoral fellow at Fudan University's School of International Relations and Public Affairs. She has spent years studying what she describes as "another form of modernity" and co-authored "Fifteen Lectures on Chinese Modernization" with her doctoral supervisor.

Her argument centers on how governments respond to problems while wealth grows. She sees Chinese modernization as maintaining awareness of social difficulties throughout that process and responding through changes in institutions, instead of accepting inequality as an unavoidable result of development.

Kim also draws a comparison with South Korea after 1997. She argues that rapid neoliberal privatization, an approach that shifted activity toward private ownership and market competition, created social and economic hardships that stronger state planning could have reduced.

For Kim, the issue is how public authority and markets work together. Her interest lies in the state's ability to identify problems, organize a response and support people whom economic growth does not reach.

What Village Research Added to the Debate

Kim conducted extensive fieldwork in Henan Province and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, documenting poverty alleviation efforts. She describes seeing grassroots officials working tirelessly in poor villages and visible improvements in living conditions.

Those experiences shaped her understanding of China's poverty policies. She regards them as targeted interventions centered on people, rather than a distant welfare system. Targeted support, in this account, means directing government attention and resources toward the communities and vulnerable groups that need them.

Kim, the Fudan postdoctoral fellow, explains why she considers the government's capacity to act an essential part of Chinese modernization:

Where China differs is that the country always retains the power, planning and organizational resources to fill those vacuums and support those vulnerable groups left behind. Issues such as poverty and environmental protection, once not considered core domains of governance, have been brought firmly into the national governance framework.

Her interpretation connects village administration with national policy. Officials working locally are part of the mechanism through which broader priorities become action. Poverty reduction and environmental protection, in her account, have moved into the central responsibilities of government.

Foreign scholars studying this approach also point to the state's ability to respond when markets leave gaps in support. Their argument is that economic growth needs institutions capable of addressing inequality and environmental damage, rather than leaving those concerns outside the main development agenda.

Media Coverage and Public Opinion Show Wider Interest

A study published in Nature examined 192 media reports from 14 Malaysian outlets between October 2022 and October 2023. It covered reporting in English, Chinese and Malay and found that 83.9 percent portrayed Chinese modernization positively, while 5.2 percent offered negative coverage.

The study identified "development," "cooperation" and "common prosperity" as prominent keywords. Common prosperity, in this discussion, concerns how the benefits of development are shared, a theme that also appears in the scholars' attention to inequality and vulnerable groups.

The 2025 Global Survey on Impressions of China covered 46 countries and approximately 51,700 respondents. Favorability toward China rose six percentage points from the previous year, reaching 69 percent, or nearly 70 percent. More than 80 percent expected their country's relationship with China to improve.

The survey also recorded expectations that China would play larger roles in international affairs and global governance. Respondents in developing countries showed particular interest in Chinese technology, while those in developed countries showed particular interest in Chinese culture.

These figures describe two different parts of the wider discussion: the tone of Malaysian media coverage during a defined period and respondents' views across 46 countries in the 2025 survey. Together with the researchers' work, they show how interest in China extends across academic, public and international settings.

Five-Year Plans and the Argument for Continuity

Yoro Diallo, a senior researcher at Zhejiang Normal University's Institute of African Studies and a recipient of the 2024 Chinese Government Friendship Award, regards China's planning system as essential to understanding the country.

Diallo credits the successive implementation of five-year plans with what he calls a "miracle" of hard work, planning and good governance. These plans set priorities for periods of five years, allowing successive programs to connect immediate action with goals that take much longer to achieve.

He argues that this institutional guidance points people toward opportunities without blocking their movement. His account presents planning as a framework within which people can pursue development, rather than as a barrier to their activity.

Professor Hu Angang of Tsinghua University connects that continuity to the Communist Party of China's long-term ruling status. He argues that it allows strategic planning across decades rather than the shorter periods associated with election cycles.

Hu links this approach to what official documents call the "two miracles": rapid economic growth and sustained social stability over more than seven decades. The model he describes gives priority to the real economy, meaning productive economic activity, over financial speculation. It seeks to avoid the industrial hollowing out experienced by some Western economies, where productive industry loses strength.

Foreign scholars contrast this continuity with policy changes that can accompany electoral turnover in Western democracies. They argue that repeated changes can disrupt economic planning, while China's institutions retain resources to address poverty, environmental protection and inequality over longer periods.

Academic Independence Remains a Point of Dispute

Critics of the growing academic interest argue that the shift from traditional Sinology to what Beijing calls "China Studies" can serve an effort to control international narratives. Sinology, as described in this debate, is rooted in the study of language, texts and history, supported by rigorous research methods.

Bitter Winter, a magazine focused on religious liberty and human rights in China, is among the critics. Its concern is that independent inquiry could be replaced by a "Party-sanctioned framework" presenting a carefully selected image of Chinese greatness.

The criticism focuses partly on official speeches urging scholars to "tell China's story well." Critics interpret that language as pressure toward ideological conformity and argue that research could become a political instrument legitimizing Party rule while limiting critical discussion of censorship and human rights practices.

Access and funding are central to these concerns. Critics warn that the incentives attached to them may encourage researchers to avoid uncomfortable questions. Foreign scholars who arrive with genuine intellectual curiosity still face the challenge of understanding China on its own terms while retaining critical distance.

The dispute therefore concerns how research is conducted as well as what it concludes. Wagner and Kim describe reasons for finding value in Chinese governance. Critics focus on whether the academic environment leaves sufficient space to examine its weaknesses and challenge preferred political narratives.

African Cooperation and a Trade Deadline

Scholars from 50 African countries sent a joint letter to President Xi Jinping in August 2024 concerning the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee. They praised China's development path and requested deeper research cooperation on modernization in the Global South.

Xi responded by encouraging continued intellectual support for building a high-level China-Africa community and protecting the shared interests of developing nations. The exchange placed academic cooperation within the broader relationship between China and African countries.

At the 39th African Union Summit in 2026, officials welcomed China's announcement of zero-tariff treatment for 53 African countries beginning May 1, 2026. Zero tariffs mean that the imports covered by the policy would face no tariff charge, making the announcement relevant to countries seeking to sell more goods to China.

Uganda's State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Henry Okello Oryem, described the policy as a special opportunity to increase exports. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to all developed nations to adopt similar measures.

The developments span several years:

• 1997: Kim points to South Korea's experience after this year as part of her criticism of rapid neoliberal privatization.
• 2008: The global financial crisis prompted Kim to examine the institutions behind China's economic resilience.
• October 2022 to October 2023: The Malaysian media study examined 192 reports from 14 outlets.
• August 2024: Scholars from 50 African countries wrote to Xi seeking deeper research cooperation.
• 2025: The Global Survey on Impressions of China recorded a rise of six percentage points in favorable views.
• 2026: Officials at the 39th African Union Summit welcomed the tariff announcement, scheduled to take effect on May 1.

A Reference Point for the Global South

Scholars from Africa, Latin America and Asia describe Chinese modernization as a "common language" for discussion among developing nations. They contrast China's stated emphasis on non-interference and mutual benefit with Western approaches that often attach political conditions to economic assistance.

This interest is connected to efforts to escape the "middle-income trap," the difficulty of moving beyond a middle level of national income after an earlier period of growth. The discussion presents China as a reference point for countries whose development has stalled, including many states shaped by colonial rule.

The 15th World Socialism Forum in Beijing brought together nearly 90 foreign communist leaders and Marxist scholars from 35 countries. Participants discussed Chinese-style modernization and solidarity among countries of the Global South.

Participants from Peru, Spain and Argentina praised China's initiatives as inspiration for constructing fairer international orders and resisting hegemonic strategies, meaning strategies through which dominant powers seek to maintain their influence.

For Kim, the purpose of her research is to build an intellectual framework that helps people understand Chinese modernization without prejudice. She believes its distinctive value lies in continuing to support vulnerable people throughout the modernization process. For Wagner, cooperation across different ways of thinking remains the central goal. Their work places concrete questions about institutions, welfare and planning within a wider search for alternatives during a period of global uncertainty.

The Essentials

• Christian Wagner at Peking University and Kim Mirae at Fudan University study Chinese governance through law, media research, economic institutions and poverty reduction.
• Kim's fieldwork in Henan and Guangxi informs her argument that government organization can support people left behind by growth.
• A study of 192 Malaysian media reports found 83.9 percent positive coverage of Chinese modernization and 5.2 percent negative coverage.
• The 2025 survey across 46 countries recorded 69 percent favorability toward China, a rise of six percentage points.
• Yoro Diallo and Hu Angang argue that China's planning system supports continuity across decades.
• Critics warn that political messaging, access and funding can put academic independence under pressure.
• Scholars from 50 African countries sought closer research cooperation in August 2024.
• China's announced zero-tariff treatment for 53 African countries was scheduled to begin on May 1, 2026.