Change Contradiction and The State Higher Education in Greater China

903
Introduction
Change, Contradiction and the State:

Higher Education in Greater China
Terry Bodenhorn*, John P. Burns† and Michael Palmer‡
This special issue examines various aspects of higher education in the People’s
Republic of China (PRC) and other parts of Greater China. An important con-
cern of the issue is the relationship between higher education institutions (primar-
ily, universities) and the policies, authority and controls of the state, while
necessarily also giving attention to the rapid social and economic changes that
are important contextualizing dimensions of this relationship. As the essays con-
tributed to this issue illustrate, the “political economy” of higher education in
contemporary China encompasses a variety of divergent pressures, and these
forces are sometimes in conflict.1 The importance of education as a key cultural
dimension of Chinese society has long been recognized, but there is limited
research on the manner in which universities and other institutions of higher edu-
cation are now being shaped by the political goals of governments and by con-
textualizing socio-economic forces. In mainland China, the party-state under
Xi Jinping’s 习近平 leadership is intensifying its aspirations for China’s leading
universities to become world-ranked. Similar ambitions are found elsewhere in
the Greater China region. At the same time, governments are encouraging and
facilitating mass participation in universities and other institutions of higher edu-
cation. These axiomatic aims do not necessarily cohere and may indeed in some
respects conflict with each other.
During the first three decades after 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
governed higher education in a very centralized and rigid manner. Authorities
organized personnel in higher education into danwei 单位 (work units) and
accorded them only very limited academic freedom. Since the mid-1980s, how-
ever, reform policies (including the rehabilitation of intellectuals) have opened
up space for institutional autonomy in areas of enrolment, finance and decision
making. In 1985, a decisive step was taken to upgrade the Ministry of Education
*
Former college dean, library director and professor of modern Chinese history at a public university in
China from June 2010 to August 2019. Email: tbodenhorn@icloud.com.
†
University of Hong Kong. Email: jpburns@hku.hk.
‡ SOAS and IALS University of London. Email: mp@soas.ac.uk (corresponding author).
1 The term “political economy” is loosely applied here to mean the study of control, persistence and resist-
ance in the development of higher educational institutions, especially universities. This special issue does
not set out to provide a comprehensive “textbook” treatment of higher education in China but, rather,
reflects a number of key concerns of the editors that can reasonably be subsumed under the rubric, “pol-
itical economy.”
© SOAS University of London, 2020 doi:10.1017/S0305741020001228

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904 The China Quarterly, 244, December 2020, pp. 903–919
into an education commission in order to ensure that such a wide-ranging pro-

gramme of reform (which included nine-years of compulsory basic education
and a large sector of senior secondary vocational-technical education) would
be implemented.2
When the transition from elite to mass higher education commenced in the late
1990s and then beyond, policies pointed to the importance of university auton-
omy and a supervisory state.3 It was anticipated that higher education access
and quality would be enhanced and develop synergy with the unfolding pro-
gramme of economic reform. While centralization remains the dominant force,
local government departments dealing with higher education and institutions
of higher education have come to enjoy some degree of academic autonomy.
The Higher Education Law of 1998 specified that provincial governments
would coordinate and administer local higher education institutions and that
the state would encourage all social sectors to support their reform and develop-
ment. Universities became independent legal entities with autonomy in teaching,
research, admission, international exchange and cooperation, management of
facilities and finances, administration of faculty and students, and the restructur-
ing of internal governance.
The expansion resulted in a “massification” programme that drew on both
public and (substantially) private sector resources to create study opportunities
for many millions of students who would probably have otherwise not enjoyed
access to higher education.4 The Ministry of Education has retained control
over a number of leading universities while the vast majority of higher education
institutions that formerly operated under the authority of central government
ministries were placed instead under provincial and local education bureaucra-
cies. A number of issues raised by this programme of educational reform are con-
sidered in the contributions to this special issue of The China Quarterly.5
A distinctive feature of the system of higher education in mainland China is the
position of the CCP. In all publicly funded institutions of higher education and in
the majority of privately funded higher education establishments, too, there is a
CCP committee that leads the institution and supports the president in
2 As Cheng Kai Ming (1986) observes, in May 1985 the Central Committee of the CCP held a national
education conference at which it was decided to reform the educational structure. The “Decision” was
published as a central document in Renmin ribao on 29 May 1985. On 31 May 1985, Renmin ribao also
published a speech which Wan Li (then vice-premier) made just prior to the “Decision.” The two docu-
ments are widely considered by Chinese educators as the crucial policy documents for promoting struc-
tural reforms in education in the following decade or so.
3 Law on Higher Education 1998; “Outline of China’s National Plan for Medium and Long-term
Education Reform and Development 2010–2020,” http://ncee.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/
Sha-non-AV-5-China-Education-Plan-2010-2020.pdf.
4 As the papers by, e.g., Postiglione and Zhou in this special issue indicate, the mass expansion of higher
education has depended heavily on the non-state sector. In particular, minban and independent colleges
have been crucial in meeting the new demand created by massification. See also Wang 2014, 45–70.
5 Excellent and succinct overviews, albeit now a little dated, are provided in Postiglione 2009 and Li, Jun
2009. See also Kwong 2009. Useful current analysis is found in Jin and Mok 2019 and other essays in
Jarvis and Mok 2019; Collins et al. 2016; Li, Jian 2019.
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Introduction 905
administering its affairs.6 The Law on Higher Education (2015, revised) stipulates
that: “The president of the higher education institution shall be the legal represen-
tative of the institution,” and Article 41 of that law confers responsibility for
teaching, research and administration on the president. However, most presidents
are themselves Party members and serve as the second most significant member
of the institution’s Party committee. The latter body typically approves the
appointment of deans and the directors of functional bodies such as the teaching
affairs office as part of its pre-eminent position in governance of the institution.
That pre-eminence is expressed in Article 39 of the 2015 law: “In higher educa-
tion institutions run by the state, the system shall be applied under which the pre-
sidents take over-all responsibility under the leadership of the primary
committees of the Communist Party of China in higher education institutions.”
As a result, in many practical ways the institution’s Party secretary tends to be
the more important decision maker. The extent to which Party secretaries have
the managerial experience in higher education and the intellectual ability and
interpersonal skills required to effectively fulfil such a central leadership role
will determine the likelihood of achieving the institutional mission.7
Effective coordination and cooperation between the Party secretary and the
president is key to the smooth functioning of the institution.8 Nevertheless, the
pre-eminent position of the Party secretary enables the Party to implement its pol-
icies. The Party secretary is obliged to adhere to the principle of democratic-
centralism and to maintain the paramount position of the Party committee in the
institution, as well as to support the president within the parameters of Party policy.9
In addition, as is well known, institutions of higher education have come to
reflect China’s expanding economy and engagement with the global economy
and international institutions. They have therefore become involved in various
internationalized higher education services and programmes. Initially, in the
1980s, internationalization meant primarily borrowing from and interacting
with the “West,” especially through overseas study, as China sought to learn
from industrialized capitalist economies such as the United States and the
United Kingdom. By the early 2000s, however, China had learned as much
from South Korea, Singapore and Japan about their rapid economic growth
and watched with interest how mass higher education sustained the economic
development of their Asian neighbours.
Internationalization was combined with the aim to introduce diversification
in higher education and to present and elevate Chinese civilization worldwide
as part of the campaign for national rejuvenation ( fuxing zhilu 复兴知路).
6 Wang 2014, 98–99.

7 Luo and Sun 2011; Zong and Wei 2019.
8 Jiang and Li 2016.
9 It has been argued, however, that the barrier to university creativity in China is not so much this CCP
domination as the serious limits placed on communicative freedom in the civil environment outside the
universities, especially in social and policy matters, and the limited support given to the humanities and
social sciences within the higher education sector. See, e.g., Marginson 2011. It should be noted here
that the CCP has not yet extended this system to Hong Kong.
For example, thousands of Sino-foreign ventures in higher education were cre-

ated, and China established over 500 Confucius Institutes to promote under-
standing of Chinese language and culture in over 140 countries. International
students (especially from East and South-East Asia) flowed into the PRC,
while Chinese students continue to study abroad in increasing numbers. The
internationalizing process has also included participation in collaborative
research projects and international university consortia. At the same time, inter-
nationalization is often viewed as a threat to state sovereignty that has to be lim-
ited accordingly.10
Higher education institutions in China have responded to the demands of a
knowledge-based economy through the introduction of entrepreneurship educa-
tion, university–industry–business collaborations and society-wide knowledge
exchange and volunteerism among students in public service. In addition,
China’s policies of authoritarian liberalism and political capitalism encourage
education in the pragmatics of business administration. The past two decades
have seen business schools in China become the most important area for the pro-
vision of courses in humanities and social sciences. A case in point is the highly
successful China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai, a
cooperative joint venture supported by the European Union and PRC author-
ities. Business schools have also taken a lead in incorporating and promoting
quality assurance standards in their curricula and management, and MBA grad-
uates enjoy superior job prospects as a result.11
Although there has been serious study of the organization, delivery and trajec-
tories of university education in the Greater China area,12 the three co-editors of
this special issue believe that the insights generated by that literature could be use-
fully enhanced by the understandings they have developed through their own dir-
ect and extensive administrative and teaching experience in Greater China – all
three editors have served, inter alia, as deans in universities in this region in
the recent past. Other contributors to the special issue include experts in educa-
tion studies with reference to China, experts who possess substantive subject
expertise, and experts with higher education administrative experience. The
essays offer an interesting and impressive mix of disciplinary strengths, with all
the contributors enjoying direct or indirect experience of higher education in
the Greater China region. Most essays focus on mainland China; there is also
one essay on Hong Kong and one offering a comparative account across the
10 See, e.g., Li, Jian 2019, especially 17–21; Shi, Jo and Li 2016; Li, Fuhui 2016; de Jesus 2016; Li, Mei,
and Chen 2011. There is also a need for the research literature to give greater attention to the issues
facing students returning to China after overseas study, exploring their job search and career develop-
ment experiences post-return.
11 The creation of the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) is briefly described at https://
www.ceibs.edu/ceibs-establishment. See also Shi, Jo and Lo 2016; de Jesus 2016.
12 The literature is substantial. See, inter alia, Agelasto and Adamson 1998; Hayhoe 1989; 1992; 1999;
2004; 2006; 2015; Hayhoe et al. 1993; Hayhoe and Lu 1996; Hayhoe and Pan 1996; 2001; Hayhoe
and Zha 2006; Hayhoe et al. 2011; Hu, Liang and Tang 2017; Li, Jian 2017; Postiglione 2013; 2017;
forthcoming; Petersen, Hayhoe and Lu 2001; Rhoads et al. 2014; Perry 2015; Gu, Li and Wang 2018.
Introduction 907
Greater China region. The contributions broadly fall in three main areas of ana-
lysis: historical and general, specific issues of social justice, and universities that
are in a loose sense on the periphery of the mainland system.13 The special issue
concludes with a reflective essay contributed by Professor Ruth Hayhoe, a very
distinguished scholar of Chinese higher education whose comments on the
unfolding project have been most helpful. In preparing this special issue, we
have also been greatly helped by, and are grateful to, the Hong Kong Institute
of Asia-Pacific Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong for hosting
two meetings, both of which were invaluable in the evolution of this project –
an international conference, held 13 and 14 September 2018, and a follow-up
workshop on 29 April 2019.14
Control and Context

The issue opens with an essay by Gerard Postiglione, “Expanding higher educa-
tion: China’s precarious balance.” This contribution offers a panoramic account
of higher education developments in the reform era. The paper examines the
implications of elitist policy initiatives, such as the 211, 985 and “double top”
(or “double first-class,” shuangyiliu 双一流) university projects, which intended
to make some of China’s leading universities internationally more competitive.
The development programme over the past two decades has involved universities
being generously supported by the government (especially, in STEM disciplines
in a few flagship institutions), but also held back by such problems as an over-
rigid state bureaucracy and the pervasive influence of a personal ties culture.
So, while China’s higher education system has impressively expanded the student
population, there remain significant difficulties in the areas of university govern-
ance, academic culture and assessment of quality, and a disjuncture between sub-
jects taught within university and the needs of the employment market. Even
though leaders have understood that enhancing economic competitiveness will
require the development of more creative and independent thinking on the part
of academics, the system has tried to accomplish this without the kind of institu-
tional autonomy found in competitor systems in North America and Europe. A
13 Following the withdrawal of one contributor, the special issue unfortunately does not provide a specific
analysis of gender issues – although, in particular, the paper by Bamboo Yunzhu Ren, Chen Liang and
James Z. Lee does provide a number of very insightful observations on gender questions. See also Jiang
2010.
14 For reasons of space, we are unfortunately unable to include a contribution focused on Taiwan, but it is
clear that in the evolution of higher education institutions during Taiwan’s transition to democracy,
there has been a significant and distinctive concern with the social responsibility of such institutions.
We should also note that the transition has not been without its own difficulties. Kuo and Chan
(2019) offer an interesting analysis of policies and implementation in the area of research and develop-
ment initiatives, and of the place of institutions of higher education in them. They point to significant
gaps and duplications in the system, reflecting the problems of inadequate coordination and resulting
financial weaknesses. Problems of poor performance and declining enrolment, in particular stemming
from population changes, persist because there are no broadly accepted mechanisms for restructuring
poorly run universities. See Kuo and Chan 2019; Lo 2019; Hsueh 2018.
further complication is that reform efforts have become hamstrung by a felt need
to deal with the problem of graduate unemployment. Authorities have generally
characterized the primary goal of higher education as support for sustainable eco-
nomic growth and moving China to a high-income economy within a diversifying
labour market. There has been some progress in promoting commercial innov-
ation. Government has encouraged universities to support and engage leading
companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei and TJI. These tech leaders have
been remarkably successful in expanding their role in the Chinese economy.
This achievement reflects in substantial part the Chinese party-state’s excellence
initiatives in higher education, which have made science-based innovation a dom-
inant policy in constructing internationally competitive universities.
Despite the enormous changes taking place in the development of higher edu-
cation institutions since the late 1990s, as well as the radical changes introduced
in the early 1950s15 and then subsequently in Maoist policies,16 it is possible to
see significant continuities across the 1949 demarcation. Understanding of
some of these continuities, especially in the case of mainland China, is facilitated
by our second essay, “Meritocracy and the making of the Chinese academe,
1912–1952,” which Bamboo Yunzhu Ren, Chen Liang and James Z. Lee contrib-
ute to this special issue. Their paper explores changes taking place in higher
education in the Republican period, and the relevance of these changes for under-
standing the situation in China today as well as China’s place in the global trans-
formation from an industrial to a knowledge and skill economy. Important
dimensions of the contemporary scene date back to the Republican period
reforms and earlier, especially the adaptation of the imperial tradition of merito-
cratic recruitment – both in university admissions and in post-graduation employ-
ment. The reliance on meritocratic selection by objective tests mitigated much of
the impact of advantages of nationality, politics and property. In some ways, the
Republican experience was a precursor to later global trends because of its
emphasis on meritocratic selection. One broad change resulting from the
Republican initiatives was the shift in student recruitment, primarily from male
children in a national, rural population of landed gentry to the children – daugh-
ters as well as sons – of urban merchants and industrialists resident in the devel-
oping economic centres such as the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta
regions. Although progress was made in achieving greater diversity, reducing
the impact of nationality, gender, wealth, location and work, social and spatial
inequalities nevertheless remained. Moreover, a gendered employment market
15 More specifically, changes made in 1952 did away with private higher education institutions and intro-
duced a more Soviet-style model of higher education, with CCP-dominated specialized colleges and
technical institutions replacing comprehensive universities.
16 These included the suspension of national entry examinations for universities and undergraduate admis-
sions, which were abandoned for a period of six years, and graduate admissions, which were dispensed
with for 12 years. University teachers were criticized for their “backward” thinking. Between 1970 and
1976, in the later years of the Cultural Revolution, worker-peasant-soldier students (gong-nong-bing
xueyuan) were those students who were admitted to and enrolled in institutions of higher education
on the basis primarily of the “class background” of their parents.
Introduction 909
as well as more generally the Republican state’s search for “wealth and power”
encouraged a concentration, especially in the leading universities, of male stu-
dents in STEM subjects.
Several contributors give particular attention to the manner in which “auton-
omy” and its counterpart, “control,” are manifested within institutions of higher
education and examine various political, economic and social dimensions of
higher education through general accounts and sometimes also case studies.
Areas touched on by contributors include political penetration and the role of
the political authorities, governance, finance and personnel management. They
discuss the relationship between higher education and elite formation as well as
pressures arising from the quest for global standing, commercialization, a search
for social justice and inclusiveness, and interrelationships between these factors.
Other authors look more closely at policies and practices which impact ethnic
minorities.
Of course, the relationship of universities and other institutions of higher educa-
tion to political authority varies within Greater China from direct and centralized
control (on the mainland), to arms-length control through a UK-like University
Grants Committee in Hong Kong, to a shifting pattern in Taiwan. With political
democratization, the Taiwanese state relaxed the KMT system of rigid control
over the higher education system and pursued a process of limited decentralization
of higher educational institutions. In Greater China, political authority is exercised
to varying degrees through, for example, the appointment of key leaders of univer-
sities, the reservation of key positions for Party members in the case of the main-
land, the appointment of members of university boards of trustees and councils,
funding, and the influence of the state on how funding decisions are made, and
so on. Within universities, we find variation in the exercise of political authority
on the basis of regime type (mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong) and
also discipline, especially STEM versus the social sciences and humanities.
These structures and processes of control do not exist in isolation but are also
subject increasingly to pressures for change from widening environmental factors,
including the commercialization of education, demographic shifts and globalizing
forces. Another pressure for change, as we have noted, is the drive in nearly all
systems to establish a select few universities as contenders for the global status
of a “world-leading” university. Mainland China, despite current policies that
amount to anti-foreignism in nearly all aspects of social life except the economy,
is at the forefront of this drive. More generally, the differing systems increasingly
compete with and within each other for students and do so not only for financial
but also for political and ideological reasons. And they do this with Japan,
Singapore and the West also offering alternative and prestigious opportunities.
Terry Bodenhorn’s article, “Management and ‘administerization’ in China’s
higher education system: a view from the trenches,” fills an important gap in
our understanding of the internal structure, operations and processes of control
in universities and higher education institutions in mainland China. Hitherto,
there has been only limited exploration of the nature of the relationship between
institutional autonomy and university internal management structures and prac-

tices. The article, which to a significant extent is based upon important personal
experience together with analysis of relevant Chinese-language discourse, exam-
ines in addition the relationship between mid-level academic administrators such
as deans on the one hand and university-level administrators and administrative
units on the other, and shows the ways in which the former are controlled by the
Party and university authorities. This control places significant limitations on the
ability of faculties, schools and so on, and their staff, to achieve important aca-
demic goals and maintain high academic standards. His analysis demonstrates an
important problem – mid-level administrators bear heavy responsibilities but lack
the necessary authority and opportunities for participating in relevant policy and
decision-making processes, even when the outcomes of such processes have a dir-
ect relevance and impact on their work. Another serious complication is the dual
administrative structure, which serves as a tool of the party-state for controlling
the higher education system but which also reflects a deep-seated authoritarian
management style typical of both traditional Chinese bureaucratic conduct and
CCP dominance of the system.
The essay draws very effectively on the critical discourse within the Chinese educa-
tional community on the processes of “administerization” and “de-administerization.”
Policies and practices of “administerization,” broadly speaking, involve tight
party-state control over the academic activities and the administration of universities,
whereas “de-administerization” seeks to reduce the scope of Party authority and
instead aims to empower experts and to recognize the importance of professional aca-
demic values.17 The emphasis upon the authority of leaders, given the sometimes
whimsical manner in which leaders construct policy and make decisions, creates
problems of sustaining initiatives and complicates university decision making and
implementation processes.
The contribution by Jun Li explores what he sees as a distinctively Chinese
alternative approach to the issue of “autonomy.” His paper offers a view very dif-
ferent from that laid out by Bodenhorn. Specifically, the essay characterizes “self-
mastery” (zizhu 自主), a principle given particular emphasis in the work of Ruth
Hayhoe,18 as significantly different in a number of respects from the notion of
“autonomy” as found in higher education institutions in the Western world. Li
argues that “self-mastery” is an important feature of the “Chinese University
3.0.” This emerging Chinese higher education model began to take shape in
the 1990s and has four key dimensions: self-mastery, intellectual freedom, a
humanist mission and institutional diversity. These characteristics, which owe
much to the Confucian “Doctrine of the Mean,” help to shape the “Chinese
University 3.0” in ways significantly different from universities found in many
other parts of the world. The essay points to a number of recent policy and legis-
lative documents – including, for example, the 2015 revised Higher Education
17 Reminiscent of the red versus expert conflict of old under Mao.

18 Hayhoe 1994; 1999.
Introduction 911
Law – to show how these values infuse official policies. The Higher Education
Law portrays self-mastery as a fundamental governing model for higher educa-
tion institutions. This model empowers university leaders, within overall CCP
control, in such areas as governance, human resources, finance, curriculum and
programme design, research and international collaboration. In Li’s view, self-
mastery has been a highly significant factor in the remarkable growth of the uni-
versity sector in China over the past two decades or so. Applied to Chinese uni-
versities, therefore, the concept of self-mastery enables university presidents,
administrators, faculty and other personnel to enjoy a degree of “procedural
autonomy” within which they exercise powers sufficient to deliver day-to-day
administration as well as to promote innovative learning, teaching and service
initiatives, despite (or in collaboration with) the controlling CCP.
The Party’s continuing dominance is, however, also reflected in various ways
in the spatial arrangements of universities and other institutions of higher
education. In his contribution entitled “Whither the global in Chinese higher
education? The production of space in China’s ‘new era’ universities,” James I.
McDougall assumes the role of cartographer, mapping and analysing the con-
struction of physical and symbolic space within mainland Chinese universities
and the organizational hierarchy which permeates such spacing. The essay exam-
ines how spatial mapping of the campus and the diagrammatic mapping of uni-
versity hierarchies reveal a strong penetration of Party and state in university
work. Perhaps the most obvious spatial example of developments in the past
few years has been a “territorial” growth of higher education, in particular
with the creation of university cities, often created in the “safe locations” of
the outer boundaries of large urban areas, in order to assist in accommodating
the rapidly expanding student population. McDougall notes how higher educa-
tion reforms have in comparative terms been an impressive achievement, provid-
ing quality education at a relatively low cost, and are driven by progressive policy
goals. Safe locations also offer effective coordination between central educational
powers and local authorities. But at the same time, this expansion also reflects a
Leninist press of domination from the centre and provokes various forms of local
resistance – spatially expressed, for example, in the manner in which students and
others choose to use campus space for such purposes as improper bike riding,
aggressive use of motor scooters, sprawling kiosks for student associations, clan-
destine romantic meetings, and so on. Moreover, in order to lay claims to trad-
itional Chinese culture and thereby to buttress national identity, there is a
self-orientalizing use of geomantic values ( fengshui 风水) and Daoist symbols.
In the “new era,” some of the local, unofficial, expressions have become con-
trolled more tightly by university authorities. Indeed, these authorities have
been quite aggressive in their approach to campus spatial arrangements, embed-
ding them with ideological statements and representations of the “new era” such
as the importance of core socialist values. Looked at closely, the campus may be
seen to be alive with hegemonic and counter hegemonic symbols and practices.
In 2015, higher educational reforms were intensified by the introduction of the

“double top” university plan.19 This is a party-state strategy conceived to develop
comprehensively a group of elite Chinese universities and individual university
departments into world class universities and disciplines by the end of 2050.
This is the third and latest of the major initiatives in higher education intended
to enhance significantly the standards of mainland PRC universities (following
on from the now withdrawn 211 and 985 projects, introduced in 1995 and
1998, respectively). The “double top” (top subjects, top universities) programme
reflects the broad agenda in Xi Jinping’s drive for national rejuvenation and an
integrated education-politics philosophy. In the new initiative, a small number of
leading institutions are expected to be pioneers in the leadership’s drive to secure
world ranking for China’s universities. The “double top” initiative strengthens
party-state control of the university system and undercuts the aspirations and
self-interested conduct of individual academics that might bring “decay” to the
overall system. At the same time, the system in several important ways maintains
control – for example, by careful supervision of academic grant funding, promo-
tions and competitive ranking processes.
Hong Kong certainly provides such competition. John P. Burns’ paper, “The
state and higher education in Hong Kong,” explores the issue of how this city is
able, relative to its size, to create so many high-quality universities. Adopting a
path dependency approach, Burns identifies critical turning points in the evolu-
tion of local universities since 1911. In the aftermath of the Second World
War, colonial officials re-focused higher education towards the local populace
and away from its earlier imperial pretensions, while Hong Kong’s changing
place in the global economy pressed the local state to expand university places,
emphasize research and to introduce managerialism in an environment of relative
autonomy. Since 1997, when China resumed sovereignty over Hong Kong, the
relationship between the state and the universities has been increasingly con-
tested. The central government has sought universities in Hong Kong that con-
tribute to China’s national development project but which do not destabilize
society either locally or on the mainland. The local government has, to a varying
extent, aligned itself with this project while, with some variation, attempting to
keep the universities relatively free of state control. Political conflict in Hong
Kong, however, has spilled over into university governance.
Issues of Equality and Justice

As we have stressed, two crucial strategic aims in the party-state’s development of
higher education in recent years have been the creation of “world-ranking” uni-
versities through such schemes as the 985 and 211 projects and “double top” pro-
gramme on the one hand, and the extension by “massification” of higher
education to a much greater number of students on the other. Although
19 Referred to also as “double first-class,” as in the essay by Miaoyan Yang and James Leibold.
Introduction 913
concentrated investment in elite institutions prompted by the first aim has inten-
sified differences in the status of universities, it is also the case that students from
a wide range of social backgrounds have been able to benefit from the greater
access to higher education created by the second aim – the massification policies
pursued over the past two decades. In order to assist in particular students from
poorer families, various grants and subsidies have been made available to such
students (and therefore, in effect, to their families). However, a number of papers
on this issue demonstrate that massification and associated changes have not
necessarily promoted greater social justice in the sense of equality of opportunity,
fairness and equitable resource allocation. The paper by Ren, Liang and Lee,
noted above, points to the robust efforts made in Republican times and more
recently to promote a fairer and more meritocratic approach, which would in
turn promote a greater degree of equality and social justice. The different contri-
butions by Qiang Zha, Michael Palmer and Ling Zhou also look at several social
justice issues in some detail.
Qiang Zha’s article, “Equality and equity in Chinese higher education in the
post-massification era: an analysis based on Chinese scholarly literature,”
explores the evidence to be found in mainland Chinese domestic discourses on
issues in the development of higher education following the introduction of the
policy of massification in the late 1990s. This major policy change might be
thought of as aimed at enhancing possibilities of greater equality and equity
(in the sense of procedural fairness in the system). However, the paper indicates
that progress has been slow. Domestic debate tends to focus on four main issues:
massification, the costs and financing of higher education, access to higher edu-
cation, and issues of social stratification and mobility. Their relative importance
has changed over time, and the concern with equality issues is seeming to fade. As
we have seen, a particular problem is that since the late 1990s, policies have
sought not only to expand student numbers but also to focus investment on
elite institutions. This investment has, however, contributed significantly to grow-
ing inequality, as wealthier families from more affluent areas have been more able
to secure places at elite universities. Increases in tuition and fees, too, have meant
that students entering non-elite (mainly local) universities have tended to pay
relatively more but to receive comparatively poor-quality education. Reflecting
these difficulties, the domestic discourse has shifted its predominant focus from
issues of equality (especially that of access) to those of equity (understood as pro-
viding students with an education appropriate to their individual needs and learn-
ing abilities in order that they be successful). Continuing problems of resource
inequality between schools in rural and urban areas, lack of balance in quota
arrangements between rural areas and cities and corruption in admissions pro-
cesses have resulted in ever-decreasing possibilities of social mobility through
higher education for rural students. It is not at all clear that efforts to improve
the position of rural students would in fact have a significantly beneficial impact.
Michael Palmer’s paper, “Lowering the bar? Students with disabilities in PRC
higher education,” also explores issues of equality, focusing in particular on the
situation and treatment of persons with disability in mainland China’s higher

education system. Palmer specifically points to provisions in the 2015 revised
Higher Education Law which provide that citizens – including persons with dis-
abilities – enjoy the right to receive higher education. However, the extent to
which the law and social practice enable students with disability to secure their
educational rights and interests is limited, even though the Higher Education
Law specifically enjoins Chinese higher education institutions to accept students
with disabilities who apply for places if such applicants meet the relevant admis-
sion requirements. There are various ways by which the institutions circumvent
this requirement in their admission standards and processes, which characterize
students with disabilities in an exclusionary rather than inclusive manner, putting
them in a “box” which separates them from ordinary students. Meaningful pro-
posals for reform, based in part upon the results of empirical research, do exist.
However, the political culture of mainland Chinese university campuses and gen-
eral social attitudes to disability are likely to undermine any attempt to imple-
ment such proposals successfully.
Ling Zhou’s article, entitled “Access to justice in higher education: the student
as consumer in China,” examines the shifting policies of expanding and privatiz-
ing higher education and the relationship between the development of private
higher education and the need to regard students more as consumers in the chan-
ging Chinese context. Her analysis examines, first, the legal and policy frame-
work by means of which private higher education institutions gradually
emerged from the mid-1990s onwards, and then it identifies some of the problems
that have arisen with the expansion of private higher education. These include the
difficulties that students as consumers of this private education face, especially
when trying to make complaints and to assert their rights. With the aid of the
analysis of several cases, Zhou is able to show that a continuing problem is a
reluctance to create meaningful avenues for access to justice for the student as
a consumer, with cases being dealt with either in terms of contract law or through
administrative processes consistent with China’s general inclination to paternal-
istic governance. This puts students at risk: if they receive substandard higher
education in profit-making private institutions, they may well fail to obtain
adequate compensation for the inferior treatment they have received.
Alternative avenues such as an ombudsperson for higher education are consid-
ered to be too independent, although a better system might emerge in the long
run from the introduction on a wider scale of the student charter system that is
beginning to gain a foothold, especially in the private sector. Zhou argues that
the welfare of students, in particular their ability to access educational justice,
may well be improved more promptly and effectively if China’s Law on the
Protection of Consumers’ Rights and Interests (2013, revised) is made applicable
to higher education cases in which the student is the aggrieved party.
The ability of lawyers to deliver justice depends in part on their principled stan-
dards of legal practice. In their essay, “Legal professionalism and the ethical chal-
lenge for legal education: insights from a comparative study of future lawyers in
Introduction 915
Greater China,” Richard Wu, Carlos Lo and Ning Liu examine the education of
lawyers and the issues of the ethical practice of law across constituent parts of
Greater China (but not Macau). They look at ideals of legal professionalism in
the Greater China region on the basis of a survey of the career orientations
and values of law students in Beijing, Hong Kong and Taipei. One major conclu-
sion of their comparative analysis is that there is a need for greater attention to
legal ethics in legal education as part of the efforts to enhance the development of
legal professionalism. Their findings also suggest that the differing legal educa-
tion systems in the studied region impact on the values of law students – future
legal professionals – and also their future career orientations. As a result, differ-
ences are detected between students in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Mainland students are relatively more focused on pursuing financial rewards
while Hong Kong students are relatively inclined to give attention to issues of
legal ethics. Taiwanese law students are also more inclined to observe ethical
rules than are their mainland Chinese counterparts, which is perhaps attributable
to the more democratic context in which the Taipei students are educated and
expect to practise law. The authors conclude, however, that in all three jurisdic-
tions there are ever-increasing financial pressures from the commercial world and
that much greater attention to legal ethics is needed in legal education if legal
professionalism is to take root in the Greater China region.
Minority Higher Education

Mainland China has pursued education policies that include substantial support
for the perceived educational needs of ethnic minorities since liberation in late
1949. Support has included special provision for institutions of higher learning
as well as secondary and primary schools and, since the 1980s, additional funding
and resources from central and provincial governments and other supportive
measures. Nevertheless, as the contribution from Miaoyan Yang and James
Leibold demonstrates, minority higher education faces a number of stresses
and strains.
Yang and Leibold’s article, “Building a ‘double first-class university’ on
China’s Qing-Zang Plateau: opportunities, strategies and challenges,” explores
efforts by university leaders in the Tibet Autonomous Region to take advantage
of possible new opportunities introduced by the “double top” programme for
university development. These possibilities are enhanced by a degree of add-
itional space that the “double top” system provides local institutions in respond-
ing to opportunities in higher education in China. Looking in particular at the
case of “Highland University” in Lhasa, which, in the eyes of a number of its
own students is a second-rate university which only attained its 211 status because
of ethnic minority preferential policies, the authors show the difficulties faced by
higher education institutions in Tibet. Local efforts to secure the possible benefits
offered by the new system have proceeded along two main lines. First, Tibet’s
sensitive geopolitical situation as a “national security buffer zone” is emphasized,
as is the felt need to maintain stability (weiwen 维稳) in the Qing-Zang Plateau
and to place Party work high on the list of administrative priorities at
“Highland University.” Second, the party-state’s policies supportive of ethnic
minorities are invoked, and academic specialities that can be justified as appro-
priate for Tibet (and which bring comparative advantage) such as ecology, eth-
nology and Chinese language and literature (including Tibetan) are emphasized
within the university’s curricula. Both state and local authorities promote
Highland University as the centre for international Tibetan studies and construct
a narrative about the importance of Tibet and Tibetan culture. Partnering with
elite inland and coastal universities is also pursued. But significant difficulties
remain, including an inability to recruit high quality staff (especially given the
low local salaries), policies that undermine international collaboration (so that,
for example, academic staff who write about Tibetan issues find it politically
risky to publish in international journals), and an emphasis on political correct-
ness in staff development that makes it difficult for some of the more talented fac-
ulty members to progress in their careers.
Reflections
In her reflections on the articles in this special issue, Ruth Hayhoe suggests that
the higher education issues revealed can be usefully seen in terms of three broad
areas of difficulty: the links between the state and higher education (traditionally
very strong in Chinese political culture), the emerging legal framework of higher
education (how the higher education regulatory context and institutions fit into
ideals of the rule of law, and how theory and practice diverge) and accountable
governance (inevitably problematic in an authoritarian regime). She also reminds
us that the theory and practice of higher education reform in the mainland and in
other parts of Greater China cannot be ignored, given China’s growing global
significance. Professor Hayhoe further suggests that despite the many difficulties
in the contemporary scene identified in the essays and elsewhere, China’s experi-
ence might yet be important – building in part on European university traditions,
in particular the French école normale – to further develop the Chinese shifan
daxue 师范大学 (normal university), with its emphasis on moral formation, inter-
disciplinarity and teaching over research. Integrated more firmly into global edu-
cational development, this Chinese higher education institution has the potential
to provide an education for students that better promotes the ideal of the respon-
sible citizen.
It is clear that significant changes have taken place over the past two decades,
contributing in many ways to success in China’s developmental project. From
imperial times through to the present, great value has been placed on education
in China, including its universities. Despite this cultural strength and the signifi-
cant reforms and improvements in higher education over the past two decades,
the party-state has not been able to address successfully a number of issues,
including those in university governance, social justice and ethnic minority higher
Introduction 917
education. The party-state has itself moved away from an emphasis on equality of
opportunity to the strengthening of key universities and subjects. In addition to
this policy factor, there are wider social economic and cultural factors contribut-
ing to growing inequalities The Chinese government is also concerned with ideo-
logical factors and the felt need to maintain citizen support of the state in the
interests of political stability and social harmony while also securing economic
growth.
Conflicts of interest
None.
Biographical notes
Terry BODENHORN served as a college dean, library director and professor of
modern Chinese history at a public university in China from June 2010 through
July 2019.
John P. BURNS is emeritus professor and honorary professor of politics and
public administration at the University of Hong Kong. He researches the politics
and public administration of China, including Hong Kong.
Michael PALMER is professor emeritus at SOAS University of London, and
Cheng Yu Tung visiting professor of law at the University of Hong Kong. He
is also joint editor of the Journal of Comparative Law and editor of Amicus
Curiae.
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Change Contradiction and The State Higher Education in Greater China

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Change Contradiction and The State Higher Education in Greater China

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903

Change, Contradiction and the State:

© SOAS University of London, 2020 doi:10.1017/S0305741020001228

into an education commission in order to ensure that such a wide-ranging pro-

6 Wang 2014, 98–99.

For example, thousands of Sino-foreign ventures in higher education were cre-

Control and Context

institutional autonomy and university internal management structures and prac-

17 Reminiscent of the red versus expert conflict of old under Mao.

In 2015, higher educational reforms were intensified by the introduction of the

Issues of Equality and Justice

situation and treatment of persons with disability in mainland China’s higher

Minority Higher Education

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