<p>Since the turn of the century there has been a marked increase in the number of mainland Chinese students in Anglophone higher education institutions. However, Chinese students in these institutions are seen from a deficit perspective, sustaining stereotypes of Chinese students which feed into a hierarchical distinction between a Western (presumed critical) positioning in relation to knowledge, and an Eastern (presumed uncritical) one. This effectively places Chinese students on a developmental scale aiming toward the Western ideal. Both Eastern and Western are monolithic fictions in this narrative. This polemic traces the possible antecedents of the deficit perception to the Enlightenment period and the racialized views of some of its greatest minds such as Linnaeus, Hume, Kant, and Mill, and the colonization driven by the Europeans’ military, scientific, and economic dominance. The perceived superiority of the white race has been encultured in the European mind over the centuries and colors the reception of the Chinese student from the deficit lens in British higher education. Such thinking perceives criticality as an inherently Western concept which Chinese students are incapable of mastering. I present studies which demonstrate that poor performance of some Chinese students is attributable to insufficient cultural, linguistic, and subject mastery rather than a lack of critical thinking ability. I then illustrate how, contrary to perceptions, criticality is at the heart of Confucianism, and that Chinese students’ pedagogical preferences can be explained by the Confucian concept of personhood as metaphysically tied to others, rather than any lack in critical thinking.</p>