National and international power players constantly strive to influence and control how development is conceptualised and achieved (Phillips & Schweisfurth, 2014). The idea of human capital, which regards education as an investment for individuals and nations, is influential in understanding the relationship between education and economic development. As a globally dominant idea, it has gained renewed prominence in educational policy discourses associated with neoliberalism, characterised by deregulation and market-oriented reform (Marginson, 2019). Higher education (HE) has been increasingly recognised for its significant role in generating human capital to create a new knowledge economy and achieve success in global competition. 

In East Asia, (higher) education has long been seen as a tool for political socialisation, that is, to shape and sustain political systems (Lall & Vickers, 2009). During President Xi Jinping’s (hereafter President Xi) era in China, education’s ideological and political dimensions have been further strengthened, alongside a prominent emphasis on HE serving economic ends (Han & Xu, 2019; Vickers & Zeng, 2017). The heavy ideological and political imprints in HE have raised questions about the role of HE institutions in negotiating the dual goals of accumulating human capital and fostering ‘socialism builders and inheritors’ (shehuizhuyi jiebanren 社会主义接班人) – socialist citizens with Chinese characteristics who are expected to uphold socialist values and ensure the continuity of socialist governance and ideology (Xi, 2014). This term is commonly used in Chinese political discourse. 

In China, the Double First-Class Project was introduced in 2015 to build world-class universities and first-class disciplines, as well as to cultivate ‘high-level talents’ (gaoshuiping rencai 高水平人才) with Chinese characteristics (The State Council, 2015). A total of 147 universities have been included in this initiative, representing about five percent of Chinese universities (Liu, 2018). One of the overall aims of this initiative is to cultivate ‘high-level talents’:

"Develop a batch of high-level world-class universities and disciplines… and make them a significant source of knowledge discovery, scientific and technological innovation, advanced thoughts, excellent culture, an important cradle of high-level talents who can play a significant role in supporting the national innovation-driven development strategy, serving socio-economic development, inheriting, and promoting Chinese excellent traditional culture, and following the Core Socialist Values" (The State Council, 2015).

This article aims to critically analyse the construction of ‘high-level talents’ within the policy discourses of China’s Double First-Class initiative. Specifically, it explores the representation of HE students as human capital, juxtaposed with China’s socialist ideology. It seeks to address the following questions: (1) How has the global discourse of human capital been ‘recontextualized’ in Chinese HE policy discourses to represent ‘high-level talents’? (2) How are potential conflicts between the human capital and ‘socialism builders’ narratives negotiated within these policy discourses? 

To answer these research questions, Norman Fairclough’s (2003) critical discourse analysis (CDA) is adopted to analyse the selected policy documents – six President Xi’s speeches and four government documents. The findings offer important insights into the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) strategy in crafting its narrative to negotiate with the pressure of complying with global educational policy discourses and to strengthen its governing power in an increasingly ‘globalised, economistic and individualising’ world (Arnott & Ozga, 2010, p. 335). Additionally, based on a critical examination of the political and cultural foundation on which such negotiation is possible, including the political cultures and Confucian traditions, the findings also lay the foundation for future comparative research on the dual construction of students as future workers and responsible citizens in China and other national contexts.

This study adopts Norman Fairclough’s (2003) critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyse nine policy documents. The aim is to investigate how the CCP government has ideologically invested in the discourses of high-level talents to enhance its governing power in the age of neoliberal globalisation. CDA is particularly useful for identifying how power relations and inequalities produce and perpetuate ‘social wrongs’, with a focus on discursive aspects (Fairclough, 2003, p. 8). CDA’s transdisciplinary theoretical framework fosters dialogue between sociolinguistics and social theories, a process Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999) termed ‘theoretical translation’. The key CDA concepts adopted in this study are recontextualization, equivalence and difference, and legitimation. Recontextualization (including re-structuring & re-scaling) was originally developed by Bernstein (2003). It refers to how discourses move spatially and temporally between different contexts, undergoing transformations shaped by the relationships and differences between them (Wodak & Fairclough, 2010, p. 22). This can involve the ‘colonisation’ of one field or institution by an external discourse or an ‘appropriation’ of an external discourse, where particular social agents within the recontextualising field might strive to incorporate it into their own strategies (Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012, p. 83). The concepts ‘equivalence and difference’ are borrowed from post-Marxist theorists Laclau and Mouffe (1985). These logics are involved in social processes of classification, where texts constantly combine some elements (in their textual forms as words and expressions) and divide others to create semantic relations of equivalence and difference (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999). When weaving together different discourses, texts may establish ‘dialogical or polemical relations’ between discourses or mix them into a hybrid discourse (Fairclough, 2003, p. 128). Even in seemingly incompatible discourses, the strategy of ‘legitimation’ can be employed to create a unified narrative, though a hierarchical order may persist within the integrated discourses (ibid.). For example, the New Labour government sought to legitimate the social cohesion discourse through a neoliberal lens, with the latter taking the lead (Fairclough, 2000). The analytical categories used for policy document analysis are outlined below. They were selected based on the analytical tools of Fairclough (2003, pp. 191-194) and Hyatt (2013). (1) ‘Macro’ semantic and societal levels of the policy texts: a. Interdiscursive analysis: analysis of which genres, discourses and styles are drawn upon, and how they are articulated together (Fairclough, 2003, p. 238) b. Semantic relations: relations of equivalence and difference c. Legitimation d. Evaluation (incl. assumptions, modality) (2) ‘micro’ lexico-grammatical levels (e.g. pronouns, voice)

The findings reveal that the global discourse of human capital is recontextualised into a localised form – science and technology human capital – where investment in particular science and technology HE fields is anticipated to generate returns for national economic development and individual labour market outcomes. This aligns with the CCP’s macro-strategy of positioning China as a scientific superpower. It further supports observations that policy tools have been used to channel talent into certain disciplines, such as natural and applied sciences, particularly high-tech disciplines (Han & Xu, 2019, p. 939). It is also found that the science and technology human capital discourse is interwined with the socialism builders and inheritors discourse, producing a hybrid discourse – ‘high-level talents with Chinese characteristics’. It shows that the discourse of socialism builders and inheritors remains dominant, with the human capital discourse legitimated through the socialist framework. This synthesis is facilitated by the bridging concept of the Chinese Dream, which encourages young people to align personal aspirations with national objectives, framing their self-interest through the lens of nationalism (Vickers & Zeng, 2017). By unpacking the discursive negotiation, this study demonstrates the CCP’s strategy in crafting its narrative to negotiate compliance with global policy discourses while strengthening its governing power in an increasingly globalised, economic, and individualising world. The findings contribute to scholarship on how ‘local’ contexts negotiate and rearticulate emerging global educational policy discourses (e.g., Arnott & Ozga, 2010). Additionally, it highlights the importance of examining a nation’s political and ideological contexts in educational research and offers insights into the implications for students’ education choices and identities within the framework of China’s socio-political landscape. This study also lays the foundation for future comparative research on the dual construction of students as future workers and responsible citizens in China and other national contexts.

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