<p>China now hosts the largest vocational education system in the world. However, the Chinese vocational education system has evolved by adopting comparatively more advanced vocational education practices and models from other countries. Despite this, few studies have explored the evolution of vocational education in China between 1840 and 1895. To address this gap, this article examines the development of Chinese vocational education during this period through the lens of educational policy transfer, using Schriewer’s externalization theory as a guiding framework. It argues that, in the context of intense internal and external crisis, China’s vocational education between 1840 and 1895 was not directly introduced. Rather, it emerged through a process in which reformers successively externalized to ‘tradition’ and Western military and civil technology, thereby gaining supplementary meaning and legitimacy for its development. The study calls for further research that integrates comparative and historical approaches to examine how China has developed its own vocational education by selectively adopting and adapting foreign models.</p>