The Chinese Century? The Challenges of Higher Education

William C. Kirby

Abstract: One can ½nd in any airport kiosk books that proclaim ours to be “the Chinese century.” We have titles such as “The Dragon Awakes,” “China’s Rise,” “The Rise of China,” and “China’s Ascent,” to name but a few. But to rise is not necessarily to lead. What constitutes leadership? In higher education, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/143/2/145/1830425/daed_a_00279.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 China is building the fastest growing system–in quality as well as in quantity–in the world.The foremost global powers of the past four centuries all offered models in the realms of culture, ideas, and education. This may be said of seventeenth-century France under Louis XIV; of the Qing during the Qianlong reign of the eighteenth century; of Britain and Germany in the nineteenth century; and of the United States in the twentieth. China now aspires to educate global elites. For the twenty-½rst century, then, are Chinese universities poised for global leadership?

On Sunday, April 21, 2013, a crowd gathered at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing to inau- gurate a new college at . Letters WILLIAM C. KIRBY, a Fellow of from Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President the American Academy since 2005, Barack Obama were read aloud, followed by video is the T. M. Chang Professor of testimonials from past and present American sec- China Studies at Harvard Univer- retaries of state: , , and sity and the Spangler Family Pro- John Kerry. Together with Vice Premier Liu Yandong, fessor of Business Administration who hosted the meeting, all identi½ed the founding at Harvard Business School. He is of at Tsinghua as a landmark a Distinguished in the history of U.S.-China relations and in the as - Service Professor, and the former Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sci - cent of Chinese universities. The vision of Tsinghua ences at Harvard. His recent publi- and of the new college’s benefactor, American busi- cations include the edited volumes nessman and philanthropist Stephen A. Schwarz- The People’s Republic of China at 60: man, was to build a residential college that would An International Assessment (2011) house and educate, in China, the global leaders of and Prospects for the Professions in the twenty-½rst century. Schwarzman College and China (with William P. Alford and its resident program would Kenneth Winston, 2011). His latest book is Can China Lead? Reaching match in ambition and endowment the Rhodes the Limits of Power and Growth (with Scholarships at Oxford University, which for more Regina M. Abrami and F. Warren than a century have been committed to educating McFarlan, 2014). those with “potential for leadership.”1

© 2014 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences doi:10.1162/DAED_a_00279

145 The The dynamic new president of Tsinghua Studies, the Guoxueyuan. Its famous “four Challenges University, , noted that the new tutors”–Liang Qichao, Wang Guowei, of Higher Education college and program were part of Tsing- Chen Yinque, and Zhao Yuanren–added hua’s long history of internationalization. international and scienti½c dimensions to But whereas the university once prepared the study of Chinese language, literature, Chinese citizens to study in the United linguistics, and archaeology. Tsinghua’s States, Tsinghua was now to be the educa- history department, founded in 1926, was tional destination of top postgraduate chaired for its ½rst decade by Jiang Tingfu students from America, Europe, Asia, (T. F. Tsiang), who revolutionized the and beyond. study of China’s modern international Today, Tsinghua University is one of re lations. John K. Fairbank, a pioneer in

China’s two leading universities and one modern Chinese studies in the United Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/143/2/145/1830425/daed_a_00279.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 of the world’s elite schools in terms of States, learned his Chinese history from admission. China and the world of Chinese T. F. Tsiang at Tsinghua. higher education have come a long way With the establishment of the National since Tsinghua was founded in 1911, the Government in 1928, Tsinghua became Na- xinhai year of the Xuantong Emperor tional Tsing Hua University and the fol- (that is, the last year of the last emperor lowing year inaugurated its graduate of the last imperial dynasty). The history school. By 1935, Tsinghua’s ten graduate of Tsinghua mirrors the story of higher departments counted for one-third of the education in modern China. graduate departments across China. It was Founded by the Qing court as Tsinghua a comprehensive university by 1937 and a xuetang (Tsinghua Academy) near the site leading player in a vibrant mix of institu- of the Tsinghua yuan, an imperial garden tions (public and private, Chinese and for- of the eighteenth century, Tsinghua began eign) that included , Jiao as a preparatory school for students se - Tong University, National Central Uni- lected to study in the United States. At versity, and the Academia Sinica, accom- the urging of then-president of the Uni- panied by private colleges of high quality versity of Illinois, Edmund J. James, the such as St. John’s University, Yenching U.S. government remitted a portion of University, and Peking Union Medical Col- Boxer Indemnity funds for the education lege. All this made Chinese higher educa- of Chinese in the United States and the tion one of the most dynamic systems in establishment of Tsinghua. China, James the world in the ½rst half of the twentieth argued, was on the edge of revolution. century.3 “The nation which succeeds in educating This period of development ended in the young Chinese of the present genera- 1937, when the Tsinghua campus was oc - tion,” he wrote, “will reap the largest pos - cupied by Japanese troops. In 1938, many sible returns in moral, intellectual, and of its faculty and students marched with commercial influence.”2 In its ½rst decade, the National Government to the interior, Tsinghua built up an American-style where Tsinghua became part of National campus–its Jeffersonian grand auditori- Southwest Associated University (Lianda) um inspired by the auditorium at Urbana- for the duration of the war. The universi- Champaign–to prepare its students for ty’s return to its campus in 1946 would study in America. offer only a short respite before the onset By 1925, Tsinghua was itself a college of of civil war and the Communist conquest liberal arts and sciences and home to of China. In December 1948, Tsinghua’s China’s leading Institute of Chinese longtime president, Mei Yiqi, left Beijing.

146 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences In 1956, he became president of a re- In November 2009, Tsinghua reopened its William C. newed and distinguished National Tsing famous Institute of Chinese Studies. The Kirby Hua University in , leading part of Tsinghua School of and Man- a divided Tsinghua in a divided China. agement began to lead the university in re- After the establishment of the People’s forming its general education curriculum. Republic on the mainland, Tsinghua, like And at the university’s one hundredth most institutions of higher learning, was anniversary in 2011, a magni½cent New Sovietized. It became a polytechnic univer- Tsinghua Academy (Xin Tsinghua xuetang) sity to train engineers. The schools of sci- was dedicated not to the ½elds of engi - ences and humanities, agriculture, and law neering, science, and technology, for were all abolished, and their faculty mem- which Tsinghua has been best known in

bers were dispersed to other institutions. recent decades, but to the performing arts. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/143/2/145/1830425/daed_a_00279.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 This reorganization positioned Tsinghua President James of the University of Il- for leadership during the First Five-Year linois was convinced, in 1907, that “[e]very Plan (1953–1958), when it trained many great nation in the world will inevitably of China’s subsequent elite, but the re - be drawn into more or less intimate rela- lentless politicization of universities un - tions” with a rapidly changing China.6 He der Mao Zedong ½rst weakened, and then imagined a world where China learned nearly destroyed, Tsinghua. During the from others, not the other way around. But early years of the Cultural Revolution he also conceived of a China that would (1966–1976), Tsinghua became a promi- rise because of its international educa- nent battleground for factional and ideo- tional alliances. During his time there logical strife at the national level. It re - was a robust market for books concerned opened fully only in 1978.4 with the “rise of China.” They had familiar Over the subsequent decades, Tsinghua’s titles: The Dragon Awakes; China Awakened; agenda was tied closely with that of the era Sun Yat Sen and the Awakening of China; Ris- of “opening and reform.” The university ing China; and an unusual entrant, pub- received bountiful government invest- lished in 1904, New Forces in Old China: An ment and rose to lead China in engineering Unwelcome but Inevitable Awakening.7 and science. It established a series of pro- In the second decade of the twenty-½rst fessional schools, one of which, the School century, one can ½nd in any airport kiosk of Economics and Management, has be - books that now proclaim ours to be “the come the most selective school in the Chinese century.” We again have titles such world for undergraduate admissions. as The Dragon Awakes; China’s Rise; The Rise Tsinghua’s graduates have come to dom- of China; China’s Ascent; As China Goes, So inate the Chinese leadership elite, counting Goes the World; and, most forcefully, When among them Presidents Hu Jintao and Xi China Rules the World.8 A cynic might note Jinping.5 that this is why being a foreign China spe- Today, Tsinghua has reestablished itself cialist is so easy: all the books being writ- as a comprehensive university. A School ten today were composed a century ago. of Humanities and Social Sciences was A more forgiving observer might look at established in 1993, and in 2012 it was di - the history of Tsinghua and conclude: Chi- vided into separate schools. Tsinghua’s na is in ascendance today, and it has been Law School was reestablished in 1995. In rising for a century. 1999, the former Central Academy of Arts To rise is not necessarily to lead. What and Design became part of Tsinghua, as constitutes leadership? The foremost po- did Peking Union Medical College in 2006. litical and military powers of the past four

143 (2) Spring 2014 147 The centuries all set standards or offered In 2000, there were 1,041 colleges and uni- Challenges models–regionally or globally–in many versities in China. A de cade later there of Higher Education dimensions, including in the realms of cul- were more than twice as many: 2,358. From ture, ideas, and education. This may be said 1999 to 2009, Chinese institutions of high- of seventeenth-century France under Lou- er education hired nearly 900,000 new, is XIV; of the Qing during the Qianlong full-time faculty members. reign of the eighteenth century; of Britain For most of the history of the People’s and Germany in the nineteenth century; Republic, higher education was an op - and of the United States in the twentieth. portunity afforded to the very few. Now Tsinghua now aspires to educate global China is moving toward mass higher edu- elites. For the twenty-½rst century, then, cation. The gross enrollment ratio (college

are Chinese universities poised for global participation rate) of 18- to 22-year-olds Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/143/2/145/1830425/daed_a_00279.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 leadership? was 3 percent in 1999; it was 24 percent in 2009. By 2020, China aims to have 40 per- Without question, China today is lead- cent of young adults in this age cohort ing simply in the scope and ambition of enrolled in colleges or universities.9 higher education. In 1978, after a decade For all this expansion, land and capital of mostly closed universities, Chinese uni- have been made available by a variety of versities enrolled approximately 860,000 means. The result has been a quadrupling students. This number increased gradually in the square acreage of Chinese universi- until 1990, with enrollment of about two ties since 2000. Old universities have built million at that time. In the 1990s, the gov- stunning new campuses. Zhejiang Univer- ernment accelerated the pace of expan- sity, which was founded in 1897, houses its sion, and by the year 2000 as many as six now-nearly sixty thousand students across million students were enrolled in Chinese three large campuses. Chongqing Univer- universities. sity,established in 1929, has opened beau- Since then, the overall of½cial numbers tifully landscaped new university grounds –counting all types of institutions–have as part of an eight-university daxuecheng, risen dramatically. There are at present or “university city.” Until recently, higher more than thirty million students in Chi- education institutions had been concen- nese institutions of higher learning. In trated in but a few areas, Beijing and the 1998, Chinese colleges and universities lower Yangzi region chief among them. graduated 830,000 students annually; by Today, cities and provinces never known 2010 the number was six million. Today for higher education compete to found, China graduates more university students build, and expand colleges and universi- than the United States and India com- ties–often within new science and tech- bined. In 2000, China had approximately nology zones–as part of their competitive half the number of university students as strategies for growth, development, and the United States; now it has more than prestige. twice the number. According to China’s This surge has been accompanied by a National Plan for Medium and Long-Term diversi½cation of institutions. Private col - Education Reform and Development leges and universities (minban xueyuan) (2010), 20 percent of China’s working- have grown much more rapidly in number age population (ages 20–59) will have a than public institutions and now account higher education degree by 2020. (In the for between 15 and 20 percent of enroll- 2010 census, 28 percent of the U.S. popula- ments and nearly 30 percent of all higher tion reported a higher education degree.) education institutions. In Xian, entrepre-

148 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences neurs worked with local of½cials to make higher education in China has been elitist William C. Xian China’s capital of private higher as well as massive. In 1995, the Ministry Kirby education. Xian International University of Education launched the “211 Project” (Xi’an waishi xueyuan), founded in 1992 as to enhance the quality of about one hun- an examination prep center, is now one of dred universities. It was followed in 1998 China’s largest private universities, with by a “985 Project” to support thirty-nine a student body of 34,000. Its graduates elite universities, of which nine–China’s enjoy better job placement rates than those so-called Ivy League–would be devel- of Peking or Tsinghua Universities. Unlike oped as “world class” institutions (guoji university presidents the world over, Xian’s yiliu daxue), de½ned as cradles of high- president, Huang Teng, does not worry level, creative researchers; frontiers of

about his tenure: he owns 55 percent of the scienti½c research; forces of transforma- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/143/2/145/1830425/daed_a_00279.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 university. President Huang is looking to tive research and innovation; and bridges establish branch campuses elsewhere in for international exchange. To that end, China and in North America.10 Chinese central, provincial, and local gov- Large companies are also getting into the ernments, supplemented by university higher education sector. Alibaba’s Taobao foundations and private philanthropy, unit has plans for a “Taobao University,” have provided enormous revenues to the ½rst to train e-business owners, managers, leading institutions, well outspending the salesmen, and professionals, and in time (very signi½cant) rewards given in recent to extend business education to more than European competitions, such as the Exzel- one million online students seeking the lenzinitiativ in Germany. One national ef - skills to start and sustain small- and me - fort focuses on the recruitment of overseas dium-sized businesses. Taobao University talent. The “Thousand Talent Program” also expects to enroll some twenty thou- began in 2008 to recruit leading overseas sand students “offline,” that is, in person. Chinese faculty and researchers; by 2012 it Sino-foreign universities, such as the had “brought home” more than two thou - University of Nottingham Ningbo China, sand. The program was supplemented in have brought higher education and re- 2011 by a “Thousand Foreign Experts” ini - search centers to cities outside the plans of tiative that offers globally competitive in - the Ministry of Education. At the same centives and research support for interna- time, many public universities have estab- tional scholars being recruited by Chinese lished “independent” universities that op - universities. erate as full-time extension schools and With this signi½cant national invest- generate signi½cant revenue. In short, this ment and international recruitment, Chi- is a time of expansion, outreach, and exper - nese universities have risen steadily in in - imentation in Chinese higher education. ternational rankings. In the 2012–2013 QS These developments in China have pro- World University Rankings of more than moted cooperation and competition across eight hundred institutions, Peking Univer- the realm of “Greater China”: Hong Kong, sity and Tsinghua University were num- Taiwan, and Singapore all compete with bers 44 and 48, respectively. In the 2012– Beijing and Shanghai to be the educational 2013 Times Higher Education World Univer- center of the Chinese-speaking world. sity Rankings of the top four hundred uni - Unlike the growth of American univer- versities worldwide, they ranked 46 and 52, sities in the 1950s and the extraordinary respectively. As I have written in an essay expansion of European institutions that published in an earlier issue of Dædalus,11 began in the 1970s, the development of there is much stupidity to the rankings

143 (2) Spring 2014 149 The game. Rankings rank only what can be it is a permanent feature of modern Chi- Challenges measured. They emphasize research pub- na’s educational landscape. China’s old- of Higher Education lication in select international journals, est modern university, Wuhan University, and they studiously ignore teaching, edu- was founded in 1893 as a “Self-Strength- cation, and curriculum. One criterion, ci - ening Institute” with European advice. Be- tation indexes, may be important in eco- fore 1949, China’s state universities were nomics but unhelpful in the humanities. created largely on German models, while International rankings focus on major many of the leading private colleges were research prizes, and universities glory in supported and advised by American having on their faculty Nobel laureates, institutions. Every major university from taking credit for work often done decades the Republican era bears architectural wit-

earlier at another university. (At the Uni- ness to that vibrant period of educational Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/143/2/145/1830425/daed_a_00279.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 versity of California, Berkeley, Nobel lau- partnership. In the 1950s, all Chinese uni- reates receive the ultimate prize: a dedi- versities were reorganized on Soviet pat- cated parking space marked “NL.”) terns during a decade of vigorous Sino- Yet the rankings do show, however im- Soviet exchange. Since 1978, and especially perfectly, the shifting tectonic plates of since 1998, there has been widespread glob al leadership in higher education. Had experimentation in Chinese higher edu- rankings such as those issued by Shanghai cation, much of it in the context of new Jiaotong University, read today by deans international partnerships. and presidents around the world, existed Nearly every leading American univer- a century ago, perhaps eight of the world’s sity today believes that it needs to have a top ten universities would have been Ger- “China strategy” and to be somehow in- man. Harvard University, which ranks very volved in the rapid growth of higher edu- well at the present, would not have been in cation in China. This has given rise to a the top ten, perhaps not in the top twenty; healthy set of experiments and alternative it became a research university worthy of models of engagement. Columbia Univer- the name only in the late nineteenth cen- sity and the University of Chicago have tury by emulating the practices of the Uni- opened an of½ce and a center, respectively, versity of Berlin. Today, at least ac cording in Beijing. has built a to the QS rankings, Peking University and courtyard center within the campus of Tsinghua University outperform every Peking University. German university. Times change. has established NYU-Shanghai as a verti- cal university (that is, in a high-rise) as part China, then, is home to the world’s fast - of its global network and in partnership est growing sector–in quality as well as with one of China’s most creative univer- quantity–of higher education in the sities, East China Normal University. The world. This explains the rush of foreign Harvard Center Shanghai–the only uni- universities to establish, or reestablish, a versity-wide center for Harvard outside presence in China; and it helps us under- the United States–promotes research, stu- stand why Chinese universities are explor- dent internships, conferences, and execu- ing international models of “general edu- tive education in China. ’s cation” as they seek to educate and gradu- two-hundred-acre residential campus in ate future leaders. Kunshan, China’s richest and most entre- As we have seen in the case of Tsinghua, preneurial town, located just west of the important role of foreign universities Shanghai, will open its doors in late 2014 as in China is not a new phenomenon. Rather, Duke Kunshan University.12 It is without

150 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences question the most ambitious international It means the education of the whole per- William C. educational enterprise in China since the son, not just training the specialist, with Kirby days of Yenching University (the present- the aim to ensure that graduates are curi- day site of Peking University). In these ous, reflective, and skeptical learners– ventures, the Americans are joining other people with the capacity for innovation Sino-foreign institutions, such as the and lifelong learning. Just as many Amer- University of Nottingham Ningbo China, ican educators believe (not wrongly) that Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in young Chinese students are better educat- Suzhou, and the hugely successful China ed in math and science than their Ameri- Europe International School of Business, can counterparts, many Chinese educa- a joint venture with the European Union tors believe that it is the West, and partic-

that ranks regularly as the top business ularly the Americans, who are “innova- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/143/2/145/1830425/daed_a_00279.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 school in China and among the top twenty- tive” and “creative thinkers” while the ½ve worldwide. Chinese people (somehow despite all their Opportunities for foreign universities ancient inventions and modern revolu- in contemporary China exist everywhere, tions) remain “traditional,” “rule bound,” but perhaps especially in three realms. and “rote learners.” For this some blame First, the over-centralization of Chinese the tortured path to university admission research universities in Beijing and the through the gaokao, or “higher examina- greater Shanghai region has led other tion,” with its modernized version of what cities to be highly entrepreneurial in the Japanese scholar Ichisada Miyazaka recruiting international partners. Second, once called “China’s examination hell.”13 the Chinese government has committed How can students so completely focused to stunning levels of investment in the on test scores in order to enter university stem ½elds (science, technology, engi- possibly be innovators when they get neering, and medicine) and to interna- there? tional partnerships in these realms. Third, Famous American colleges and univer- leading Chinese universities are develop- sities pride themselves on their “core,” or ing American-style programs of general general education, programs, which they education and in the process have sought contend produce “leaders” who are broad- international advice, support, and models. ly educated to take on the world. None Chinese universities have long had gen- seems content to pursue the presumably eral education (tongshi jiaoyu) programs of larger market of followers. Presidents of a certain sort: for example, required class- Chinese universities have taken their es (bixu ke) in Marxism-Leninism-Mao American counterparts at their word and Zedong Thought. And like required cours- have devoted enormous effort to craft es everywhere, students loathe and endure curricula for general and liberal education them. Over the past decade, however, in a Chinese context. When Harvard Col- mainland universities, together with those lege replaced its Core Program with a new in Hong Kong and Taiwan, have competed General Education Program in 2006, its to introduce general and liberal education many curricular reports and recommen- programs that open opportunities for dations were read at least as carefully in learning across the humanities and social Beijing as they were in Cambridge, Mas- sciences. sachusetts. The idea of a “liberal education” is a con- Leading American institutions believe cept of German origin that has now estab- that for a truly liberal education, a study lished its deepest roots in North America. of the humanities is essential. Despite–

143 (2) Spring 2014 151 The or because of–a century-long obsession tral government and the party-state at Challenges with engineering, this view is shared in - various levels) and those responsible for of Higher Education creasingly today in China’s premier uni- their day-to-day operation. “Education is versities. The expansion of general educa- the cornerstone of national rejuvenation,” tion in Chinese university curricula may according to the preamble of China’s take place in new institutions (for exam- 2010 National Plan for Medium and Long- ple, Fudan College as the liberal arts college Term Education Reform and Develop- within Fudan University) or it may be ment. From the central government’s embedded in distribution requirements. perspective, education takes as its goal the Either way, it is a sign that pacesetting Chi - building of national strength, developing nese universities believe that China’s next talent for the collective good, not primar -

generation of leaders should be broadly ily for individual merit. This viewpoint is Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/143/2/145/1830425/daed_a_00279.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 educated in the humanities and social sci- in obvious tension with programs of gen- ences as well as in the sciences. In 2001, eral education at top Chinese universities Peking University inaugurated the Yuanpei that aim, like their American counterparts, Program (now Yuanpei College), named also to liberate and educate the individual to for Peking University’s famous German- be a critical thinker and an active citizen. educated chancellor of the early twentieth If the central government sees education century, the philosopher Cai Yuanpei. This as serving national strategies, making the was part of a broad reform of undergrad- best strategic use of the enormous funding uate education to foster “a new generation now coming from all levels of government, of talented individuals with higher cre- the local and provincial of½cials who are the ativity as well as international competence main funders of universities often have a so as to meet the needs of our present age.” short-term, utilitarian viewpoint. They Tsinghua University’s School of Econom- seek to spur economic growth; to enhance ics and Management, under the leadership the job opportunities of people in their late of Dean Qian Yingyi, who received his teens and twenties; and to take advantage doctorate at Harvard and holds a profes- of the cheap credit offered by state banks sorship at UC Berkeley, has implemented for the expansion of higher education. one of the most imaginative programs in If there is a “China model” for universi- liberal arts and general education to be ties, it is not a particularly socialist one. As found in any Chinese university–and this the historian Zhang Jishun, the former in a professional school. Renmin Univer- party secretary of East China Normal Uni- sity in Beijing, founded as the “People’s versity, has argued, just because enroll- University” on a Soviet model, now houses ments have grown does not mean that several of China’s leading centers for clas- access and equity have increased in equal sical studies and Chinese history. measure. Take the case of tuition. There used to be none in Chinese universities. In This is a time of investment, growth, ex - 2000, the standard tuition at public uni- perimentation, and internationalization versities was rmb 5,000 per semester. By in Chinese higher education. We have dis- 2012, it ranged from rmb 16,000 to 27,000, cussed many of its strengths. What are the with an average annual cost of US$4,500. weaknesses? This ½gure is not high by American stan- Given the size and diversity of the higher dards, but it is about 150 percent of the education sector in China, it is not sur- disposable income of rural residents. prising that there is a gulf between those And in private Chinese universities, tuition who oversee Chinese universities (the cen- can be many times higher. This has led to

152 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences a situation in which the poorest students other mechanisms that privilege those of William C. often end up at private universities, which means and of position who went to the Kirby are the most expensive, while wealthier best schools. and well-connected students have much In short, despite the ever-larger numbers better access to elite public institutions, of applicants and students, there is grow- which are among the least expensive. ing inequality of opportunity in China’s We can see this in statistics of rural stu- institutions of higher education. The pro- dents attending Chinese universities. Na - spect of higher education has been ex - tionwide, about 50 percent of university tended to China’s new and urban middle students hail from rural families (with a class, but for the poor and the rural, oppor- generous de½nition of what constitutes a tunities remain limited.

rural family), but at the elite universities Perhaps the greatest challenges to the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/143/2/145/1830425/daed_a_00279.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 such as Peking and Tsinghua, only about rise of Chinese universities lie in the realms 20 percent of the student body is made up of governance and politics. The hierarchi- of students from rural areas. Even in an age cal governance structures of Chinese uni - of greatly expanded university admissions, versities leave many decisions to a very few the army and public security jobs offer people. Chinese universities are overseen better means of social mobility for China’s by party committees, and the university rural and poor than do China’s mass uni- party secretary normally outranks and fre - versities. quently outflanks the president. (A few Urban-rural educational inequality, as extraordinary party secretaries are key to Martin Whyte points out in his essay in their universities’ success, but as a rule this this issue, can be measured directly in re- system of parallel governance limits rather gional terms. In recent years, the gross than enhances the flow of ideas.) Few party enrollment ratios of college-age students secretaries–like few pres idents of Ameri- in Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai all sur- can universities–look favorably upon the passed 50 percent. This is much higher prospect of unbridled faculty governance than the national ratio of 24 percent. In - of universities. But the freedom of faculty deed, Shanghai is already above 60 percent. to pursue ideas wherever they may lead is But in Yunnan, Guangxi, Guizhou, and Ti - essential for sustained innovation in uni- bet, the (unlikely and unrealized) goal is versities. Where, after all, do the best ideas for a gross enrollment ratio of 15 percent. come from in universities? Deans and In higher education, the disparity between pres idents everywhere must make deci- regions is not decreasing, but increasing. sions and set priorities. In practice, how- Finally, take the case of examinations ever, many of the best ideas–those that and admissions. The gaokao persists, as did deans and presidents will be compelled to the old imperial examinations, because it support on their intellectual merits–will has the appearance of rewarding merit come up from the mistakenly named “bot- and is one of the few national institutions tom”: that is, from faculty at the top of that people believe is fair and honest. In their ½elds. Having an institutional struc- principle, only the best, determined by ture to support this well is rare anywhere, competitive examination, are admitted. and in Chinese universities today it is rarer But the limitations of the gaokao have long still. By any comparative measure of lead- been known, and elite universities are the ing international universities, faculty in leaders in setting patterns for alternative Chinese institutions have little role in gov- portals of entry: through additional tests, ernance. It was not a good sign when Chi - interviews, “Olympic” style prizes, and na’s Vice President (now President) Xi

143 (2) Spring 2014 153 The Jinping visited China’s leading universities versity of California system, once the best Challenges in June 2012 to call for increased party system of public higher education in the of Higher Education supervision of higher ed ucation. world, has been weakened and made in- This leads to a ½nal challenge: can creasingly dysfunctional due to the state of “world class” universities–however they California’s budget problems. As that sys - are de½ned–exist in a politically illiberal tem declines, leading private universities system? Perhaps; but perhaps only with –the Stanfords and Harvards, for example, some signi½cant degree of autonomy. Ger - which compete with the University of Cal - man universities in the nineteenth century ifornia for faculty and graduate students had many political pressures, but they were –may in turn be less challenged. A major the envy of the world in part because they test for any institution–Chinese or Amer-

also had traditions of institutional free- ican–is not how good it can be when the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/143/2/145/1830425/daed_a_00279.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 dom that fostered and (at times) protected money is pouring in; it is how the institu- creative thinkers. China’s universities tion reacts and adapts when it stops. This today boast superb scholars and some of has been a major trial for American uni- the world’s best students. But these stu- versities, private and public alike, after the dents are also forced to sit through re - U.S. ½nancial meltdown of 2008. Someday, quired courses in party ideology, and they surely, it will be a challenge for Chinese learn a simpli½ed book version of the his- universities as well. tory of their own country. Despite new In terms of governance, it is easy to crit- programs of general education, in the icize Chinese universities for the party realm of politics and history the distance committees that oversee and limit them. between what students have to learn in American and European universities gen- order to graduate and what they know to erally accord their faculty a large role in be true grows greater every year. This is management and an extraordinary degree why, in 2012, when students in Hong Kong of academic autonomy. But there can be were faced with the prospect of enduring political interference from legislatures and “patriotic education” as taught in main- statehouses in the working of American land China, they took to the streets. public universities as well. And how much transparency to the public is there, really, Can China lead in the global competi- in the governing boards of America’s tion of universities? The question of po- leading private universities? tential Chinese leadership in this area, as American universities have devoted in many others, is a comparative question. enormous funds and equal amounts of Who leads whom? As we have seen, in in- rhetoric in recent years to extending the ternational rankings the American sys- reach of a Yale or Michigan education to tem appears to be the most formidable. But the least advantaged, in ½nancial terms, that would not have been the case a cen- in the United States. The jury is still out, tury ago, and there is no reason to assume however, as to whether or not they are that the United States will remain in a succeeding. At present in the United States, leadership position without constant re - as in China, the major bene½ciaries of form, reinvestment, and reinvention. elite higher education remain the (already) American universities face big chal- well educated and well connected. lenges. The great public systems of higher For the moment, however, American education in the United States have un - universities still enjoy their hour in the dergone a process of slow-motion self- sun as the innovative places to educate destruction over the past decade. The Uni - leaders. After all, actual Chinese leaders

154 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences send their children to American universi- rise and thrive simply on their own, but in William C. ties, and in increasing numbers. In the cooperation (and now competition) with Kirby 1920s and 1930s, China’s most powerful leading universities worldwide. Even as man, Chiang Kai-shek, sent his sons to the Chinese people expand their study study in the leading (if quite different) abroad, the world is coming to China. The institutions of his day: in the Soviet Union U.S. government has set a goal for one (Chiang Ching-kuo) and in Germany (Chi- hundred thousand American students to ang Wei-kuo and Tai An-kuo). Today, the study annually in China, balancing in part sons and daughters of Chinese political the nearly three hundred thousand Chi- leaders study in many American colleges nese citizens who study in the United and universities. Applications to American States.

universities from China have risen tenfold We do know this: the rapid increase in Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/143/2/145/1830425/daed_a_00279.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 in the last decade. It used to be that the the scale of Chinese higher education and Chinese students who went abroad for un- the rankings of elite Chinese institutions is dergraduate study were those who could unmatched anywhere. China’s challenges not get in to leading Chinese universities. –in access, equality, and governance–are Today, even Peking University and Tsing - the shared problems of higher education hua University–the most prestigious and everywhere. The leading American uni- connected of institutions–lose students versities have rushed to establish locations to top universities in America, Britain, and and partnerships in China. In three years, Hong Kong. Schwarzman College will open at Tsinghua Can the twenty-½rst century neverthe- University, where it will seek to attract the less be “the Chinese century” in higher best young talent in the world to study at education? It is telling that this is not a an institution originally designed to send question that could have been asked, and Chinese students away for their education. taken seriously, even a decade ago.14 But As the for the twenty- China’s growing strength in higher edu- ½rst century, it will endeavor to educate cation is not simply the result of the ex - scholars from around the world who have traordinary efforts and expenditures of “potential for leadership.” Surely Chinese recent years; it has been a century and universities, too, have the potential for more in the making. If the past is any guide leadership. to the future, Chinese universities will not

endnotes 1 Keith Bradscher, “$300 Million Scholarship for Study in China Signals a New Focus,” The New York Times, April 21, 2013; and “Oxford and the Rhodes Scholarship,” http://www.rhodes scholar.org (accessed June 2013). 2 Edmund J. James, “Memorandum Concerning the Sending of an Educational Commission to China” (1907), cited in Mary Brown Bullock, “American Exchanges with China, Revisited,” in Educational Exchanges: Essays on the Sino-American Experiences, ed. Joyce K. Kallgren and Denis Fred Simon (Berkeley, Calif.: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1987), 26. 3 See Qian Yingyi and Li Qiang, eds., Lao Qinghua de shehui kexue [Social Sciences in Old Tsinghua] (Beijing: Qinghua daxue chubanshe, 2011). 4 See Tang Shaojie, Yi ye zhi qiu: Qinghua daxue 1968 nian “bai ri da wudou” [A Single Leaf Heralds Autumn: Tsinghua University’s “Hundred Days of Great Violence”] (Hong Kong: Zhongwen daxue

143 (2) Spring 2014 155 The chubanshe, 2003); and William Hinton, Hundred Day War: The Cultural Revolution at Tsinghua Challenges University (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972). of Higher 5 Education On the earlier development of a Tsinghua “clique” in politics, see Cheng Li, China’s Leaders: The New Generation (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Little½eld, 2001), 87–126. 6 James, “Memorandum Concerning the Sending of an Educational Commission to China.” 7 Aage Krarup-Nielsen, The Dragon Awakes (London: J. Lane, 1928); Min-ch’ien T. A. Tyau, China Awakened (New York: Macmillan, 1922); James Cantlie, Sun Yat Sen and the Awakening of China (New York: F.H. Revell, 1912); William F. Burbidge, Rising China: A Brief History of China and a Biographical Sketch of Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek (London: J. Crowther, 1943); and Arthur Judson Brown, New Forces in Old China: An Unwelcome but In - evitable Awakening (New York: F.H. Revell, 1904). 8 Lawrence E. Grinter, ed., The Dragon Awakes: China’s Military Modernization Trends and Implica- tions (Montgomery, Ala.: United States Air Force University, 1999); C. Fred Bergsten et al., Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/143/2/145/1830425/daed_a_00279.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 China’s Rise: Challenges and Opportunities (Washington, D.C.: Peterson Institute, 2008); Minqi Li, The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy (London: Pluton Press, 2008); Robert S. Ross and Zhu Feng, eds., China’s Ascent: Power, Security, and the Future of International Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2008); Karl Gerth, As China Goes, So Goes the World: How Chinese Consumers are Transforming Everything (New York: Hill & Wang, 2010); and Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order (New York: Penguin, 2009). 9 For an excellent overview of all these trends, see David A. Stan½eld and Yukiko Shimmi, “Chinese Higher Education: Statistics and Trends,” in International Briefs for Higher Education Leaders, no. 1 (2012): 5–7. On broad trends, see the annual Zhongguo jiaoyu fazhan baogao [Report on China’s Economic Development], edition 21 sheji jiaoyu yanjiuyuan (Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2011). 10 See William C. Kirby, Michael Shih-ta Chen, Keith Chi-ho Wong, and Tracy Yuen Manty, “Xi’an International University: The Growth of Private Universities in China,” Harvard Business School Case 309-074 (2009). 11 William C. Kirby, “On Chinese, European, and American Universities,” Dædalus 137 (3) (Sum- mer 2008). 12 William C. Kirby, Nora Bynum, Tracy Yuen Manty, and Erica M. Zendell, “Kunshan, Incorpo- rated: The Making of China’s Richest Town,” Harvard Business School Case 313-103 (2013). 13 Ichisada Miyazaki, China’s Examination Hell: The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China, trans. Conrad Schirokauer (New York: Weatherhill, 1976). 14 For a recent assessment, see Kathryn Mohrman, “Are Chinese Universities Globally Competi- tive?” The China Quarterly 215 (September 2013): 727–743.

156 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences