Universities worldwide now encounter far greater challenges, and are subjected to an unprecedented level of external scrutiny. The change in governance ideology in the higher education sector has altered the way in which universities are managed, a phenomenon identified by Slaughter and Leslie as academic capitalism. This article examines how Chinese universities are responding to this phenomenon in their cultural complexity and social contexts, using South China University of Technology as an example. At the same time, the concepts of globalisation and internationalisation are taken as salient features of our times, and are often mistakenly used interchangeably. This article argues that they are fundamentally different, reflecting phenomena with different rationales, objectives and effects. By presenting an analysis of China's internationalisation of higher education through an in-depth case study the findings of this study shed light on the general current state of internationalisation in the mainstream of China's higher education, and underscores the idea that changes attributed to globalisation are modified and fashioned by the particular circumstances and choices of local institutions. The study vividly reveals how local circumstances can be used to manage the global within the local. It reports how the selected case continues to develop in the context of market transition and globalisation.