Commentary: the necessary tension of a double negation: interrogating decoloniality in and beyond China

This commentary analyzes the special issue Transcending Western-Centrism and Nationalism in Education: China and Beyond, a collection addressing a critical challenge for Global South scholars: how to de-link from Western universality without capitulating to reactive nationalism. The special issue advances the ‘double negation’, which refers to the simultaneous critique of Western-centrism and uncritical nationalism, as its guiding theoretical framework. Six articles apply this framework across diverse empirical contexts including international assessments, policy mobility, teacher leadership, and gender dynamics, deconstructing Western hegemony while interrogating internal forces that risk creating new monolithic centres of authority. The collection develops a rigorous approach to decolonial inquiry that works within the productive tension between external and internal critiques. By grounding theory in detailed case studies, the special issue moves beyond abstraction to model self-reflexive, globally engaged scholarship that contributes significantly to advancing a genuinely pluriversal knowledge landscape in comparative and international education.