Chinese-language education in Australia and New Zealand: key issues and challenges

This chapter provides macro-level insights into the key issues and challenges in the development of Chinese-language education in two English-speaking countries in the Asia-Pacific region. With the massive demographic shifts since the 1990s, residents of Chinese heritage have become one of the largest and fastestgrowing non-Indigenous ethnic groups in New Zealand and Australia. Within the first two decades of the twenty-first century, China has grown rapidly into the largest Asia-Pacific economy and the largest trade partner for the two Anglophone countries in the region. Due to China's increasing economic influence, the Australian and New Zealand governments have repeatedly identified Chinese as key for building regional strategic cooperation and one of the most important languages for school students to learn. Despite increases in population and potential impacts in the region, Chinese remains a medium-sized program in most educational institutions in the two oceanic countries. Informed by the notion of the transdisciplinary framework, this chapter discusses the macro-level factors that promote or impede the development of Chinese-language programs in the two countries. It concludes that Chinese-language learning will continue to be a side story to larger ideological and geopolitical interests that have shaped Anglocentric views of language learning. Future research should take a decolonial perspective to transform Chinese-language education in the Asia Pacific.