Introduction

China's government leaders and top university administrators have embraced the Emerging Global Model (EGM) of the research university in the 21st century (Mohrman et al., 2007). The desire to have internationally competitive universities in China provides impetus for the best institutions to follow the lead of European and North American nations, from curriculum to financial practices to new governance structures. Like most imports from another culture, however, the EGM is being adapted to meet the specific needs of China's higher education system. As the nation moves from a command-and-control society toward a market economy, universities face multiple pressures for increased access, higher research productivity, new expectations for self-funding, and greater autonomy coupled with more governmental scrutiny and evaluation. The ways in which China resolves these tensions will have enormous impact not only on the 23 million students in tertiary education, but on universities in other parts of Asia and indeed on the rest of the world. As the cliché goes, China is everyone's future.

While China has a long history of education for government service, it has only one century of experience with universities in the contemporary sense. Beginning with the founding of Tianjin, Jiaotong, and Peking universities, China rapidly developed a system of colleges and universities in the 20th century, many of them established by European and American missionaries.

After the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, all of higher education was nationalized. Most research was assigned to free-standing institutes, while universities concentrated on teaching a small number of elite students with the highest scores on the national entrance examinations. After the decade of the Cultural Revolution in which virtually all educational activities ground to a halt, universities reopened in the 1970s and the national examination system was reinstituted (Hayhoe, 1999). China's leaders quickly began to adopt Western conceptions of education as essential for modernization and economic development. Embracing theories of human capital development, China has virtually achieved its goal of 9 years of compulsory education for all children and has expanded access to higher education as well.

At the university level, reforms in curriculum, governance, and financing all follow the characteristics described in the introductory article of this section as the EGM of the research university of the 21st century. Of course, not all Chinese universities are research universities, but the norms and values of these leading institutions filter down through the system in China as they do in many countries. Changes in higher education also reflect the larger reforms of Chinese society as the country moves from total state control to a blend of socialism and market principles. Thus, universities are subject to the same forces of change as factories, banks, and other state-owned enterprises in China, dealing with a new set of values (primarily from the West) emphasizing economic efficiency, privatization, individual autonomy, and globalization. This case study of Chinese higher education, then, is a demonstration of two simultaneous and related phenomena — the changes in higher education as described by the EGM and the changes in Chinese society in its transition to a market economy.

While Chinese universities are adopting all eight of the characteristics of the EGM, three are especially important: the conscious shift from an elite to a mass system of tertiary education, now enrolling more than 23 million students; a new relationship between the state and its universities; and an embrace of international norms, especially at the top layer of the 'best' universities. In fact, China is unique in educational history in simultaneously pushing for rapid enrollment growth, instituting new governance structures, and seeking to build world-class universities.

Enrollments

The Chinese government is expanding higher education dramatically to develop human capital but also to meet the demands of families who desperately want their daughters and sons to have a university education. Chinese leaders declared ambitious goals — 15% of the population in some form of tertiary education by 2005 and 20% by 2010 — and achieved them ahead of schedule. By 2004, China had the largest higher education system in the world, with 19 million students enrolled in universities, adult education, private (minban) institutions, and distance learning programs. In comparison, India enrolled nearly 12 million students and the United States had almost 17 million students in the same year (Global Education Digest, 2006). As Schofer and Meyer (2006) demonstrate, this expansion reflects the experience of most countries in the world. In fact, while China's enrollment numbers are staggering, its gross enrollment ratio (number of students compared with the age cohort) of approximately 20% is still low in comparison with ratios as high as 80% in a few highly developed economies in the world.

Even when looking only at regular institutions of higher education, China's enrollment growth has been remarkable. The most rapid increases have occurred since 1999; by 2005 there were more than 15 million students in regular higher education, a 458% increase in less than a decade (China Statistical Yearbook, 2006). This change from elite to mass education reflects the Chinese government's belief that technological strength generated by universities can be translated into economic and political power (L. Li, 2005) Thus it is no surprise that the government allots about half of all university places in science and technology fields. In addition, the expansion of access to higher education in all subjects is an essential component to developing skilled workers able to contribute to China's global ambitions.

The rapid pace of growth has slowed in recent years, especially in research universities, because of concerns for quality. No institution, regardless of good intentions, can withstand annual increases of more than 20%, year after year, and not suffer some diminution in its ability to serve students well. While the number of professors nationwide has doubled in the last decade, the student–faculty ratio has become less favorable since enrollments have grown much faster. Similarly, laboratory space, library books, and other resources have declined on a per-student basis. The majority of professors and administrators interviewed for this project expressed significant concern about quality of education even as more students gained access to university education.¹

Leading institutions have sought to protect the quality of education in several ways. Research universities have argued successfully that their important mission should exempt them from the most extreme pressures for expansion, and that research results would be best served by increasing postgraduate rather than undergraduate education. In addition, many top universities have shielded the programs on the main campus by creating separate undergraduate schools and semi-private affiliated institutions in suburban areas or other cities. Students eager to gain university degrees, and the access to elite positions in society that higher education has traditionally promised, are willing to pay the substantial tuitions that these lower-status institutions charge rather than enter the labor market with only secondary school credentials. These second-tier affiliated colleges are a creative way for universities to meet government and societal demands for expansion without diluting the traditional 'brand' of the most prestigious institutions.

Because enrollment quotas are determined by government, China's extraordinary expansion of higher education is clearly a policy of the state. It is remarkable to think that 30 years ago schools were just reopening after the Cultural Revolution, while today China has more college students than any other country worldwide. This growth has been integrally linked to changes in the relationship between the state and its universities.

Government–Higher Education Relationships

As China becomes more and more a market economy, the state is abandoning the central planning model of the past to allow regional governments and individual universities to make more of their own decisions.

Decentralization in higher education is linked to the wider reform of government ministries in which bureaucracies have been consolidated and the number of employees reduced. At the Ministry of Education (MoE), for example, the staff has declined from about 1,000 to about 500 people at the same time that enrollments have mushroomed. Greater autonomy for local entities is a bureaucratic necessity as well as a policy objective.

In addition to contraction in the workforce, MoE has also reduced the number of institutions under its direct control. From more than 300 in the central planning model, there are now about 110 universities directly connected with the national government. This reduction came about through merging some institutions and by assigning others to provincial and municipal authorities. Since China has more than 2,000 institutions with degree-granting authority and many more, including vocational schools and minban institutions providing sub-degree programs, most institutions are under the control of provincial and local governments. MoE is still engaged at some level with institutions under local control, however, if only to set the parameters of the granting of autonomy.

Many of the changes have begun as local experiments, spreading more widely when success has been demonstrated in a smaller venue. In general, the more academic the issue, the more likely that decisions can be made at the university level. For example, a number of leading universities in Beijing now have independent power to approve their own students and faculty for study abroad, while in the past they were required to seek approval from MoE. Internal reorganization, such as the creation of schools and colleges from individual departments, is also a university-level decision. Enrollment quotas and faculty size, however, are still determined by MoE, although through negotiation with campus leaders.

Government officials interviewed pointed proudly to greater autonomy being granted to institutions. At times, however, campus administrators feel as if they have had little increase in power, perhaps because the policies concerning governance are still in transition, perhaps because mid-level government bureaucrats are often uneasy about the release of authority to individual campuses. In fact, some observers comment that China is experiencing a new style of governance, a kind of 'centralized decentralization' as the state shifts from its traditional function of education provider to a new role of facilitator, enabler, and regulator (Mok, 2003, 2006). In the old system the government told institutions, often in great detail, how to spend money and administer programs, while today university administrators are being asked to report annually on their financial and programmatic activities with MoE scrutiny after the fact. In addition, on-site evaluation by teams of professors and administrators draws upon the experience of government regulators in Europe and North America. Sun (2007) and Lai and Lo (2007) describe the process of MoE evaluation at the campus level.

This shift from state control to state supervision reflects fundamental differences in center–periphery relationships. What is changing is that the state is moving from carrying out most of the work of education itself to determining where the work will be done, by whom, and how. Although there is devolution of power from the state to individual institutions, the government maintains its control through such mechanisms as enrollment quotas, evaluation plans, funding allocation, accountability requirements, and the selection of university presidents and party secretaries. Sun (2007, 124–125) emphasizes the increasing influence of the Chinese Communist Party, especially through greater control of senior university administrative positions.

At the campus level, too, the central administration is loosening control but increasing the evaluation of departments and individual professors. Peking and Tsinghua universities, among others, have established specialized units for evaluation and quality control. Faculty publications and research grants are carefully monitored. Student end-of-semester questionnaires are commonplace; faculty personnel evaluations now include teaching quality as one of the factors for assessment. Similarly, graduates are asked to complete surveys about teaching quality, electing the best professors at their universities. Enrollment patterns can be an informal evaluation tool, providing an indication of popularity if not a proxy measure of quality. If a professor cannot attract students, he/she may suffer in the next round of evaluation.

The shift to greater autonomy is consistent with worldwide patterns toward smaller government employing 'steering at a distance' mechanisms rather than top-down directives. Decentralization trends are also consistent with major policy shifts in the funding of higher education in China. When the state no longer provides 100% of the money, it has less justification for control over all aspects of university life.

Financial diversification

Like many European countries, China has had a tradition of total state support for higher education. Today Chinese higher education is much less 'public' in the sense that leading universities derive the majority of operating funds from tuition, research grants, service provision, university-run businesses, and (in a few cases) donations (Cao and Levy, 2005). Chinese universities demonstrate many of the characteristics of 'academic capitalism' as described by Slaughter and Rhoades (2004), including the development of new networks linking educational institutions with both public and private sectors, creation of market-like activities within universities, and commercialization of instruction. Slaughter and Rhoades say further that higher education is not being subverted by external actors but rather that universities are active players in blurring the distinctions among government, business, and academe.

For many key universities, central government support represents only one-quarter to one-third of their annual budgets, and a declining percentage even as the absolute funding level increases. In the 1980s, Chinese universities were permitted to charge tuition for the first time, although the amount they can charge is still under government control. The imposition of tuition fees represented a dramatic policy shift but a necessary one for China's move to a mass higher education system. Undergraduate tuition today (averaging 6,000–8,000 yuan in coastal cities) is steep compared to per capital urban income of 10,500 yuan and per capita rural income of 3,250 yuan (China Statistical Yearbook, 2006). Bright but poor children find it difficult to afford upper secondary school, much less university education.

In addition to charging tuition, universities have been encouraged to create profit-making enterprises to raise funds to replace government support for their growing financial needs. The importance of these businesses has declined somewhat in the last ten years, however, as both government and academic leaders have come to realize that over-emphasis on commercial ventures undermines the fundamental academic mission of the university. At the same time, however, the growth of the business sector in the larger society means that there are independent corporations looking to universities for relevant research results to take to market. Businesses now provide significant funding for applied projects although government-sponsored research tends to be more prestigious.

Most important, however, for the top stratum of higher education is the development of the 211 and 985 projects, both designed to pump literally billions of yuan into China's best universities. In the first round of three-year grants under the 985 Project, for example, Peking and Tsinghua universities each received Y1.8 billion ($225 million) and Fudan, Zhejiang and Nanjing Universities each received Y1.2 billion ($150 million). Zhongshan University received Y300 million ($38 million) from the central government and Y900 million ($113 million) from the province (Mohrman, 2003, 2006).

These special grants represent a significant increase in available funds for a given university. For example, Peking University's annual operating budget in 2003 was approximately Y2 billion ($250 million), so an annual infusion of Y600 million ($75 million) from the 985 Project represented a 20% increase in expendable resources. Most institutions in the 985 Project used the first three-year grant for infrastructure needs, including land purchases, construction of academic buildings, and faculty support. In the second round, the emphasis has shifted to research support and faculty salaries. In some academic departments, 985 funding pays for as much as half the annual compensation for faculty, raising questions about what will happen if this source of support dries up. For the time being, however, these top institutions are counting on continued funding from the state at substantial levels.

The scale of these infusions explains why universities are so eager to be included. Those that receive special funding are the most likely to flourish while the rest are on their own to find the money they need. For institutions right on the edge between inclusion and exclusion, omission from the list of 985 Project institutions in particular is a judgment of second-class status for the foreseeable future. The policy, while quite rational, is a return to elitism with a vengeance.

The changes in university finance demonstrate the larger shift in Chinese society to market-based strategies. All institutions, from the most elite to the most local, can no longer rely on the old system of government support. National policymakers are placing their bets on China's best universities and emphasizing knowledge production on those campuses, leaving others to fulfill the enormous human capital needs of the country.

Research intensity

At the same time that Chinese universities are required to absorb many more students and find new financial resources, they are also expected to conduct research. As noted earlier, until quite recently China followed the Soviet model of separate research institutes with universities focused on teaching. Now, however, the Western model of a combination of teaching, research, and service prevails on many campuses. Leading institutions are beginning to produce world-class scholarship in some fields, mostly in the natural sciences and engineering where the country has placed its priorities for economic development.

Many key universities encourage faculty to publish frequently in international journals as a way to catch up with Western institutions. An indication of the intensity of the research focus comes from the Peking University chemistry department that in 1993 collectively produced 39 articles in international journals; by 2002, the output was 450 articles with the same number of professors. On another campus a Ph.D. student in the humanities was told that she must publish at least one article in a top journal in her field in order to be awarded her doctorate. Professors in many disciplines mentioned the increased pressure to publish as a major change in academic life on their campuses.

At the same time that institutions are encouraging basic research, universities are also responding to demands for applied research as a service to society. With the declining proportion of financial support from the central government, universities must pay more attention to the needs of local governments, business leaders, non-governmental organizations, elementary and secondary schools — entities that have become significant sources of financial support.

Like their peers in other countries, Chinese academics are placing greater emphasis on scholarly work that spans the boundaries of traditional disciplines. From environmental sciences to women's studies, many of the most interesting intellectual challenges require insights from more than one discipline. Such academic cross-fertilization is encouraged through the merger of specialized institutions into comprehensive universities and the unification of formerly free-standing departments into schools and colleges. Faculty members in top institutions are collaborating more and more with scholars in other countries, another way to integrate different approaches to knowledge creation.

The competition for research support is intense. China has established a Chinese National Science Foundation and Social Science Foundation, both making grants based on peer review similar to the systems used by the former UK University Grants Committee and the US National Institutes of Health (and implicitly providing a new form of faculty and institutional evaluation in the process). In addition, government agencies regularly hold competitions to identify the best university programs in different fields, designating the winners as key laboratories and research bases and providing both national recognition and substantial financial support. Research projects funded by local government or businesses, usually for applied projects, tend to be much less restrictive in how the money is spent and more relaxed about evaluation. Basically, the sponsor is buying results with relatively less concern for theory and methodology. External grants, regardless of source, provide status in Chinese universities, just as elsewhere in the world, and often generous salary supplements for the faculty members involved.

University links with business

The state also encourages research through policies that support closer ties between universities and businesses in a number of ways, from significant increases in funding to new patent legislation. University alliances with research institutes and corporate enterprises receive preferential support when these entities apply jointly for state-planned projects. Zhou Ji, Minister of Education, gives the example of six state-level technology transfer centers at leading universities that have resolved key technology bottlenecks in industrial restructuring. In addition, because higher education is identified as a key component of the country's industrialization and modernization policies, the national government is encouraging universities to develop their own businesses to enhance 'dual integration' to push basic research through to the market (Zhou, 2006, 137–147).

Like many other countries, China has created a series of science and technology parks, combining education, research, and industry. The most famous, Zhongguancun Science and Technology Zone, commonly considered to be 'China's Silicon Valley', surrounds Peking and Tsinghua universities and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in northwestern Beijing. Many of the 12,000 enterprises and R&D centers, employing more than 100,000 workers, were spun off by these two and other universities in the area. Multinational organizations, such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Hitachi, have facilities in the science park, while Chinese-based companies include the Legend Group, the Founder Group, and Tsinghua Unisplendor (http://www.zhongguancun.com.cn/en/overview/default.asp.htm). A 2002 study of 44 research parks nationwide listed 5,500 enterprises and 1,200 research and development organizations, with a total investment of 29.7 billion yuan ($3.7 billion). In addition, these parks have attracted 1,300 Chinese students from abroad to start their own businesses and have created 100,000 new jobs (Zhou, 2006, 142–145).

Some university-related businesses, however, are neither high tech nor related to national economic development. As noted above, China changed its higher education funding strategy in the 1980s from total state support to institutional responsibility for financial stability. In response, most Chinese universities created enterprises to generate income, sometimes related to their educational mission, such as language training materials, and sometimes not, such as bicycle manufacturing. Academic departments and individual professors also looked outside university walls for revenue, offering weekend language classes for business executives, for example, or doing applied projects for local governments. These business ventures were usually designed as income generators, not as closer linkages between basic research and industrial production. In other words, these enterprises tended to be a pragmatic response to deal with reductions in government support, not an early demonstration of the education/business linkages of the EGM.

Changes in the academic profession

As universities have taken on a research mission, the role of professor has changed dramatically. In addition, pressures for privatization require academics to 'face the market' in order to raise the funds necessary for basic tasks of teaching and research.

The professor as teacher is changing from revered expert to knowledgeable instructor. As Chinese universities seek to develop innovative and creative graduates, they are encouraging faculty to rely less on lectures and memorization and more on pedagogical approaches that encourage student engagement. Many institutions are putting significant pressure on senior professors to teach introductory courses, a significant change from past practices. Two forces are at work here — expansion of enrollments requires more courses to be offered to meet student demand, and new policies now expect all professors to teach undergraduates. Some universities are even requiring faculty to teach general education courses in order to be promoted.

One university has created a program of 100 'famous brand courses' taught by outstanding classroom faculty; the professors selected for participation get higher salaries and better benefits packages. End-of-semester course evaluations by students are virtually universal, with the result that faculty members pay more attention to student opinions. A modified elective system in most top universities gives more power to students; this new flexibility means that professors cannot predict the ways in which students will fulfill requirements and complete their degrees. Also, the enrollments in particular courses can be an indirect form of evaluation as students vote with their feet to choose the most attractive topics and instructors. In many ways, Chinese universities are shifting from professor-oriented to student-oriented.

Faculty are also more involved in peer evaluation than before, both within and beyond their home campus. Observations of classroom teaching, review of promotion files, peer review of research proposals, and participation in visiting assessment teams to other universities are all part of the current job description. In addition, East China Normal University and other institutions expect most departments to mount an international conference each year. As a result, faculty are constantly traveling to other campuses to participate in such programs — a positive experience but an increasingly heavy time demand.

Personnel reforms on many campuses seek to break the 'iron rice bowl' of lifetime jobs that has been the norm since 1949. As government employees, professors have enjoyed de facto tenure from the date of employment and fairly automatic promotion through the academic ranks. Until recently, they also received a range of social benefits including housing, health care, and schooling for dependent children. Today, however, some Chinese institutions are creating policies akin to the American tenure system with its 'up or out' practices, with Peking University being the most widely publicized example. Lai and Lo (2007) report the details of the new personnel system on one southeastern provincial university. In addition, many universities are moving toward a less inclusive benefits system, encouraging professors to live off campus, a move that is now possible with a private housing market. Higher salaries, designed to keep universities competitive with private businesses for top intellectuals, mean that many professors now own cars, take vacations, and enjoy a middle-class lifestyle.

Many faculty members interviewed in this project seem ambivalent about these changes. They recognize the importance of connections with the intellectual trends outside of China and value the opportunities to travel and study abroad. They care about their teaching, although they cannot maintain the close personal relationships of the past since the numbers of students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, have risen dramatically. Faculty are often expected to teach more courses than in the past while professors with administrative duties tend to teach the same load as before. Most importantly, the pressure for research and publication is enormous, at least in the top institutions. Many professors feel that these new trends are essential for raising the quality of higher education in China, but at the same time feel that they are victims of a kind of Western academic hegemony that they cannot refuse.

In many ways, then, the relationship between the state and the university has altered academic life. Centuries ago, scholars were considered the most elite sector of society, the only group eligible for government service, with merchants at the bottom of the social order. Today, however, scholars must be entrepreneurs to develop research projects, raise funds, and promote their institutions. The state is steadily granting more independence to universities although it continues to exert direct control over such important issues as tuition fees, staffing levels, and student intake quotas by institution and by discipline. Much of the devolution of authority follows a pattern of small experiments that, if successful, are spread more widely. Rather than changing the rules nationwide with the possibility of significant instability, the state can regulate the absorption of change in a more predictable way. On the other hand, the reform process is moving on many fronts, meaning that local institutions are dealing with adjustments on several different levels at once. In addition, Chinese universities are facing new challenges from the globalization of higher education.

Internationalization

Only in the last decade have the top Chinese universities embraced a larger international sense of themselves. Until then, competition usually took place in the domestic arena between and among different institutions. Even the large number of Chinese students studying abroad was originally intended to bring the best of foreign learning back to the motherland. Today, however, Chinese universities look outward for peers and for standards (Marginson, 2006; Brody, 2007).

Study abroad

Internationalization of Chinese universities takes many forms. In the late 1970s when Deng Xiaoping promoted China's opening up to the rest of the world, he sent many of the nation's brightest young people to study in the West in order to jump-start the process of modernization. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese students sought degrees abroad, especially in the United States, but relatively few of them have returned. Between 1987 and 2005, a total of 978,600 Chinese citizens had studied abroad; by the end of 2005, 232,500 students, or 24%, had returned home (China Statistical Yearbook, 2006). In 2004 alone, approximately 343,000 Chinese students were enrolled in foreign universities, mostly supported by their host institutions or by their families, with the largest numbers in the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom (Global Education Digest, 2006).

Some of the early international students who have returned have assumed leadership positions in Chinese universities. More than half of all Chinese university presidents and vice presidents have studied abroad; 81% of the scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have overseas experiences; two-thirds of the 3,000 faculty members at Peking University have studied abroad for more than 1 year (C. Li, 2005). Most of the senior administrators interviewed have Ph.D.s or post-doctoral experience in European or North American universities.

Top institutions are also competing to lure returnees to their campuses to bring up-to-date knowledge and research expertise back to China. The 'transnational capital' of these returnees is rewarded in higher salaries, better research conditions, preferential housing and dependent education opportunities, and the flexibility to maintain residences and academic positions abroad (Rosen and Zweig, 2005).

The increasing number of returnees provides early evidence that the loss of talent may be temporary. Many scholars cite Taiwan's case in which the island experienced a 'brain gain' in the 1980s after three decades of 'brain drain.' They argue that a similar reverse flow of human capital is likely to happen in China (C. Li, 2005).

Recruiting foreign scholars and students

Foreign faculty members have brought Western knowledge to millions of students on Chinese campuses. In most instances these foreign faculty are short-term lecturers but some have taught in China for several months or years. Most universities have dozens, even hundreds, of formal agreements with foreign universities, ranging from small scholarly collaborations to large programs involving people from a number of countries. On some campuses, these international research projects contribute substantially to doctoral education by bringing the most up-to-date theories and methods to postgraduate students on Chinese campuses.

Chinese universities are also becoming attractive to foreign students, both degree-seeking students (mostly from east and southeast Asia) and short-term students from around the world studying Chinese language and culture. As part of its desire to become a full player in the global community, China is positioning itself as a provider of education and training, with the goal of 100,000 degree-seeking foreign students by 2010.

Adopting foreign curricular models

Like many European universities, Chinese institutions have historically enrolled undergraduate students directly into their major course of study. In recent years, however, key universities have initiated some form of general education for their students. Fudan University, for example, enrolls all its new undergraduates in Fudan College for the first year, using the model of Yale College in the United States. Sichuan, Nanjing and other universities allow entering students to delay their choice of major until their second year of college. The explanation for these significant curricular innovations usually notes the greater need for breadth as China enters a global economy. Another source of motivation has been the return from abroad of increasing numbers of Chinese graduate students who bring back with them the experiences of teaching and studying in European, Australian, and North American universities. With their first-hand knowledge of academic models abroad, they become impatient with Chinese traditional approaches. A related rationale comes from academics who say, in essence, 'US universities are the best in the world; if we want to be world class then we should do what they do'.

It is too early to tell if Chinese students will have a broader outlook or will demonstrate more creative thinking as a result of studying a wider range of subjects at university. Given the rigidities of the K-12 educational system with its reliance on examinations and memorization, it is hard to imagine that a few general education courses will transform Chinese undergraduates into the innovators that will be needed in a rapidly changing global environment. The changes represent a clear desire, however, to compete successfully with the world's best universities.

World-class universities

Perhaps the strongest force for internationalization is the drive to create world-class universities (the most commonly used term for what the New Century Scholars group is calling the EGM). Beginning with Peking and Tsinghua universities in the late 1990s, the 985 Project in the MoE provides significant extra support for about 40 top institutions with potential to achieve international reputations. These funds, when combined with the earlier 211 Project (designed to prepare 100 Chinese universities for the 21st century), represent a significant national priority on catapulting the best institutions into a new international league of higher education.

The goal of achieving world-class status can be taken at face value; China knows that quality education is essential for economic development. But gaining international recognition in education can also be seen as one way in which China is seeking respect of other nations, perhaps not all that different from accession to the World Trade Organization or hosting the 2008 Olympics.

While the goal of world-class status is clear, the definition of world-class status is not. When asked, many professors and administrators fall back on the most obvious criteria for success — more publications and more money. Other often-cited standards include better buildings, top students, star faculty, more research grants, and research results in the best international journals, not just Chinese publications. American research universities are often used as the model; 'we want to be just like... Harvard, Berkeley, Penn State, Stanford...' with the model institution depending upon the situation of the Chinese university in question.

As a result, many institutions are grafting foreign policies and programs onto Chinese university structures, often without giving much thought to the cultural differences involved. The initiation of general education programs, for example, is an obvious imitation of American curricular patterns; reforms in personnel and tenure policies, most notably at Peking University, are also based on US models. The oft-quoted aphorism, mo shi guo he, or 'groping for stones while crossing the river', suggests that people are trying to maximize their opportunities in a fluid environment but sometimes without a definite sense of where they are going.

The growth of international ranking systems for higher education is consistent with the drive for world-class universities, yet the worldwide comparisons do not provide greater clarity on the issue (Levin et al., 2006). The two most widely known rankings, World University Rankings conducted by the UK-based Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) and The Academic Ranking of World Universities by the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiaotong University (SJTU) in China, give quite different results. For example, Peking University, the highest ranked Chinese institution in both systems, is placed 14th in THES but in the cluster of institutions between 202 and 300 on the SJTU list.

THES rankings are based largely on peer review. Presidents, rectors, and vice chancellors of universities worldwide are asked their opinions of the quality of similar institutions; the results of these questionnaires weigh 40% of the total score, with an additional 10% from an employer survey on the popularity of institutions from which they most want to hire new employees. Other factors include faculty size, faculty/student ratio, and the proportion of international staff and students (World University Rankings, 2006).

In contrast, the SJTU methodology is highly quantitative. It emphasizes research achievements as measured by number of publications, Nobel Prize and Field Medal winners among alumni and staff, articles published in Nature and Science, and impact assessment (the frequency with which other scholars cite the work in question) (http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking2006.htm). In fact, only a handful of Chinese institutions — and realistically, a small number of universities worldwide — are likely to achieve such a high level of research productivity.

A third worldwide ranking system published in Newsweek International puts special focus on the degree of internationalization on different campuses. This list of the 100 most global universities draws half of its data from SJTU statistics on research, 40% from THES information on faculty characteristics, and the remaining 10% on library holdings (The Complete List, 2006). A comparison of the three rankings shows significant similarities in the top 25 institutions but interesting differences, especially when research intensity is considered (see Table 1).

Table 1 - Three rankings of universities worldwide.

Full table

A significant question, however, is how universities in China will achieve world-class standing in a relatively short time. Those institutions generally regarded as global leaders (Oxford, Harvard, and so on) have many centuries of academic tradition and wealth accumulation, so how can aspiring universities catch up? In addition, these leading institutions are constantly striving for greater excellence in their own right, thus providing a moving target for other universities seeking greater prestige. At the same time, slavish adherence to Western models of academic achievement leaves Chinese and other universities potentially being nothing more than pale imitations of Oxford or Yale. Can non-Western countries develop a unique definition of intellectual excellence?

The drive for world-class universities is a kind of shorthand for China's desire to gain academic prestige outside national boundaries — through increasing research output, bringing foreign students to China's campuses, luring Chinese citizens with Western Ph.D.s to the faculties of top universities, and hosting high-level international conferences. It is important to remember, however, that the institutions that aspire to be world-class, or globally connected, or internationally recognized, form only a thin layer at the top of a very extensive system of higher education in China. The vast majority of students and faculty live and work in schools with less lofty aspirations and more local priorities. Even those with a regional or local focus, however, are more connected to the academic world outside of China because of the nation's desire to play in the global marketplace of higher education.

Conclusion

China is rapidly pursuing the characteristics of the EGM. From state control and total state support, the central government has adopted policies of growth, decentralization, partial privatization, and diversified funding, while institutions themselves have become more complex. As this article notes, university and government leaders alike have moved from an internal to an international standard of reference.

China's educational tradition as well as its Marxist philosophy emphasized meritocratic values — any student, regardless of socio-economic status, who could pass the rigorous examinations administered by the state could enter university or become a government official. Today, however, these egalitarian values have eroded. As China looks to the West and implements EGM principles, market values have come to dominate the academic system. In the current system, money matters. Students from poor families often struggle to pay for college even though both universities and MoE are developing greater scholarship and loan programs. At the institutional level, the fundraising abilities of faculty and administrators often determine university success. One unfortunate consequence of the embrace of market principles is corruption in many areas of higher education.

The EGM plays out differently in China than it does in either Germany or the United States. Baker and Lenhardt (elsewhere in this issue) demonstrate that Germany's crisis stems in large part from clinging too long to an outdated model in the face of international changes described in the EGM. Ma (2008) describes the development of the University of California at Berkeley, one of the campuses on which the EGM was developed. The American research university concept, inspired by German universities in the l9th century but developing organically from the American experience after World War II, reflects societal norms and government policies in the United States. In China, in contrast, the EGM is a foreign concept only weakly related to domestic cultural values, but the enthusiastic embrace of EGM as a means of rapid economic and technological progress is remarkable.

Altbach (2004) includes academic freedom and an atmosphere of intellectual excitement in his list of essential characteristics of world-class universities. He goes on to say that internationally competitive universities demonstrate a significant measure of internal self-governance, ensuring that the academic community has control over the central elements of academic life — the admission of students, the curriculum, the criteria for the award of degrees, the selection of new members of the professoriate, and the basic direction of the academic work of the institution. In this regard, Chinese universities have had greater success to date in 'hardware' compared with 'software' in their drive for world-class status. In China, as in many parts of the world, unfettered freedom for teaching and research cannot be assumed.

Many Chinese academics point to these qualitative factors as a significant constraint on the ability of Chinese universities to be truly competitive in the international arena. 'Right now, I don't think any university in China has an atmosphere comparable to the older Western universities — Harvard or Oxford — in terms of freedom of expression', said Lin Jianhua (2005), Peking University's executive vice-president. 'We are trying to give the students a better environment, but in order to do these things we need time. Not 10 years, but maybe one or two generations'.

Many Chinese academics would agree. They are quick to say that their universities have a long way to go before they can honestly claim world-class status. But when one realizes that thirty years ago there were virtually no schools open in China, much less research universities, the progress in recent decades is astounding. The ambitions of individual professors, top institutions, and the national government are impressive, leaving little doubt that China will continue to advance in the increasingly global competition of higher education.

Notes

¹ Many of the observations in this article are based on approximately 100 interviews at Chinese universities and government agencies conducted in 2005–2006 as part of the New Century Scholars program. Institutions visited were Beijing Normal, East China Normal, Fudan, Nanjing, Nankai, Peking, Shanghai Jiaotong, Sichuan, Tsinghua, Xiamen, and Zhanjiang universities. Most of the persons interviewed were administrators, although most of them held concurrent faculty positions. Ministry of Education officials included the Vice Minister in charge of higher education as well as department heads with responsibilities for important higher education functions. Semi-structured interviews focused on several broad themes — world-class universities, relationships between university and government agencies (which decisions are made at which levels?), university finances, and personnel policies. Interviews concentrated on the area of expertise of the individuals involved, so not every interview touched on every topic.

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