Sustainable development for international Chinese language education along the belt and road countries in the post-epidemic era: a SWOT-AHP approach

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to provide sustainable growth strategies and practical methods to realize the sustainable development of International Chinese language education along the Belt and Road Countries in the Post-Epidemic era. This article consists of a SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) analysis of developing International Chinese language education in Belt and Road Countries. and in-depth interviews with experts in International Chinese language education in China. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is adopted to the finalized and quantified SWOT matrix to incorporate experts’ ideas.The result showed that the total strength and total opportunity of International Chinese language education in Belt and Road Countries are much greater than that of total weakness and total threat, which indicates that the opportunities outweigh threats, and advantage outweigh disadvantage. Therefore, the growth-oriented strategy shall be applied to spur the sustainable development of Belt and Road Countries’ International Chinese language education. In addition, the setbacks should also be taken into serious consideration in order to overcome the weakness and the threat.