Building world-class universities in China

Abstract

The policy initiatives to build world-class universities (WCU) originated in China, which was followed by South Korea in 1999, Japan in 2002, Germany in 2004, and Malaysia in 2008. Although policies around this theme have been established in these countries, key question of whether an emerging nation can build a world-class university is confronting the policy-makers and scholars in such countries. This chapter is a case study of China, using Tsinghua University as the institution to be examined. Exploring causation rather than providing an immediate description, the author adopted four types of data collection - documentation, archival records, interviews, and participant observation, and by piecing these various sources of data together, the author uncovered the legitimation and strategies of building WCU in the context of China.