This study aims to explore the strategic significance and implementation pathways for international students in the international communication of the ideals of Chinese-style Modernization. The research finds that international students, by virtue of their unique status as “the Other within,” possess an irreplaceable advantage in dispelling external stereotypes and presenting the concepts of China’s development through personalized micro-narratives and cross-cultural interpretation. However, their communication practices largely remain at a spontaneous, fragmented, and superficial level. The core issue lies in the structural disconnect between the students’ “depth of experience” and their “sophistication of interpretation.” Addressing this core contradiction, this study proposes that the construction of future pathways must achieve a strategic upgrade from simple “communication empowerment” to systematic “interpretation cultivation,” helping students complete a transformation of identity through profound reforms in the educational model. The study argues that the highest strategic value of international students is not in shaping them into propagandists for China’s official stance. Rather, it lies in cultivating them, through long-term and in-depth educational interaction, into a “transnational cognitive community” capable of profoundly understanding and rationally evaluating China’s development path. This would enable them to become a bulwark in their home societies against extremist narratives and a force for promoting rational dialogue, thus making a far-reaching contribution to the construction of a more peaceful and rational global conversational space.
Cite this paper
Wu, X. and Feng, Y. (2025). The Significance and Pathways for International Students in Promoting the Ideals of Chinese-Style Modernization
. Open Access Library Journal, 12, e14661. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1114661.
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