Chinese university governance: Tensions and reforms

Chinese universities have undergone a massive transformation in recent decades. In addition to a dramatic increase in the number of universities and students, universities have shifted from primarily providing education to emphasizing research. Omnipresent political control is to be replaced by stronger academic self-organization. The result so far is a growing stratification of Chinese universities, with a few select research universities receiving the bulk of government research funding and a large number of universities with very little public funding for research which focus primarily on education. The rapidly changing landscape, with growing numbers but also increasing stratification and with conflicting relations between political control and self-organization, has given rise to tensions within universities and within the higher education system. In this paper, we identify these tensions and discuss their implications for China’s quest to establish world-class universities and to achieve the transition to an innovation-oriented nation.