A growing practice of engaging students as partners (SaP) has been conducted to nurture values-based pedagogical relationships. Yet, SaP is contested with little known about how Chinese students understand their relationships with teachers in a sector shifting toward student-centred approaches. To advance the collective understanding of SaP practices in China, we interviewed 30 postgraduate students who reflected on their learner-teacher relationships as undergraduate and postgraduate students while considering the possibilities of SaP practices. While some SaP practices emerged, students evoked the language of family to describe meaningful interactions with teachers. They raised pragmatic (large student numbers), epistemological (knowledge accumulation before knowledge construction), and cultural (hierarchical construct of power and authority) concerns about the possibilities of pedagogical partnerships. We argue that the willingness of university communities to raise questions about assumed learner-teacher hierarchy, power dynamics and identities will shape how student-centred and SaP practices unfold in Chinese universities.