This critical discourse analysis explores cosmopolitan nationalism as neoliberal reform within East Asian higher education (HE). Placing cosmopolitan nationalism within the Foucauldian genealogical oeuvre, we draw comparisons between Chinese, Japanese, and Korean HE policy to expand the theoretical basis of this emerging framework. Against this background, HE policy draws our gaze towards the tensions inherent to State-level demands for 'enterprising' units of human capital, or "homo oeconomicus." By producing graduates that are simultaneously internationalized and nationally-bound, HE pressures learners to incorporate the de-facto dispositions, skills, and credentials deemed necessary to the global market order. Here, policy maneuvers demonstrate a broadly analogous yet, unique predilection for nationalistic rhetoric during their resistance and accommodation of Western-led neoliberalism. Nonetheless, State responses to said hegemony demonstrate conflicting approaches to the knowledge economy and, for that matter, "which" citizens are deemed 'worthy' of the 'right kind of' education. Results indicate that, despite a shared cultural legacy, the socio-political realities of each HE provider engender, to varying degrees, friction between the intended and material outcomes of HE marketization. Thus, we seek to provide greater insight for scholars of educational markets to interpret the forces and mechanisms shaping neoliberal character-building, both regionally and in alternative contexts.