This paper will examine how the global rise of China and other Asian counties, such as Singapore, Korea and Taiwan, is transforming the geopolitics of higher education. In broader terms, this rise has led to a new geography of trade, new economic and political combinations, new financial actors, investors and donors, and has weakened American hegemony. The economic rise of China in particular has been accompanied by the growing strength of its centres of knowledge production and innovation. Its research achievements in computational and commercially-oriented experimental sciences have been particularly noteworthy, as the Chinese government has invested heavily into building the resource base of its major universities, leading universities in the West to seek cooperative research links with China, often as part of their internationalization policies. However, with China becoming politically assertive on the global stage, these research collaborations are viewed with considerable suspicion by the political class in the West. This paper will document the tensions inherent in this complex relationship, as a way of exploring the possibilities, challenges and limits of research collaboration between universities in China and the West.