On a misty morning in the city of Chengdu, pre-schoolers at the Wan Hui School dutifully copy Chinese characters as a teacher identifies the origins of each symbol.

“We aim to cultivate global students with Chinese qualities,” said Lan Jihong, the principal and co-founder of the school and part of a vanguard of educators behind guoxue, or Chinese “national studies”, which emphasise classical Confucian teachings. “Our responsibility is to lay a secure foundation of Chinese culture especially when students are young, in pre-school.”

Although the Chinese Communist party has imposed stricter education controls that put such private guoxue schools in a legal grey area, their numbers have grown quickly. Their popularity — there are an estimated 1,800 Confucian schools like Wan Hui across China, according to state media — reflects parents’ desire to give children an education steeped in traditional Chinese values as the country’s leaders push out an increasingly nationalistic message.