Notes from ChinaFile
04.29.24
Lessons from Tiananmen for Today’s University Presidents
Thirty-five years ago, in April 1989, Chinese students from Beijing’s elite universities began their occupation of Tiananmen Square. Their issues were different from those of American students today. Chinese demonstrators voiced concerns about...
Conversation
02.05.24
What Will Newly Increased Party Control Mean for China’s Universities?
In January, Radio Free Asia reported that the Chinese Communist Party is “taking a direct role in the running of universities across the country” by merging the presidents’ offices with their Party committees. Ideological controls on universities...
Viewpoint
02.02.24
New Security Measures Curtailing the Study of China Alarm Educators
Late last year, The New York Times reported on a new state-level bill in Florida that was creating unintended consequences for prospective Chinese graduate students. The bill restricts universities from accepting grants from or participating in...
Notes from ChinaFile
03.13.23
‘It Is Especially Scary to See Students’
As in many other aspects of public life in China under Xi Jinping, the space for independent inquiry and discussion within the academy has shrunk significantly in recent years. The Xi administration has released a slew of guidelines and communiques...
Conversation
03.02.22
Remembering Jonathan Spence
A few weeks after Jonathan Spence, the celebrated historian of China, died at Christmas, ChinaFile began collecting reminiscences from his classmates, doctoral students, and colleagues spanning the five decades of his extraordinary career as a...
Viewpoint
04.27.21
The Right Way to Bring Chinese STEM Talent Back to the U.S.
The Trump administration deployed a raft of restrictions on international students and workers, many of which directly targeted or disproportionally impacted Chinese STEM talent. While some measures had a basis in legitimate concerns like illicit...
Viewpoint
08.20.20
How To Teach China This Fall
The coming academic year presents unique challenges for university instructors teaching content related to China. The shift to online education, the souring of U.S.-China relations, and new national security legislation coming from Beijing have...
Conversation
11.04.19
How Should Universities Respond to China’s Growing Presence on Their Campuses?
How should universities encourage respectful dialogue on contentious issues involving China, while at the same time fostering an environment free of intimidation, harassment, and violence? And how should university administrators and governments...
Viewpoint
08.08.19
The U.S. Recently Erected a New Hurdle to U.S.-China Academic Cooperation. Here’s What It Might Mean.
A recent move by the U.S. Department of Commerce reminds us that academic relationships are not immune from the effects of deteriorating U.S.-China relations. In April 2019, the Department included several Chinese universities on its Unverified List...
Conversation
04.04.19
Are Confucius Institutes Good for American Universities?
Confucius Institutes continue to incite controversy in America. Since 2006, China’s government has given more than $158 million to dozens of U.S. universities to host the institutes, which offer Chinese language classes and hold events. To critics,...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.08.18China Tightens Grip on Foreign University Ventures
Financial Times
The directive, which took effect last year but whose existence is being revealed for the first time by the Financial Times, mandates foreign education institutions to include a clause that supports the establishment of a party organisation in any...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.12.18Chinese Professor Accused of Sexual Harassment Is Barred From Teaching
A major university in southern China has barred a professor from teaching after female students went public with sexual harassment allegations against him, unhappy that the university had not taken swifter, firmer action.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.09.18How China Managed to Play Censor at a Conference on U.S. Soil
Foreign Policy
The Beijing-backed Confucius Institute offers much-needed money to American universities — but with strings attached.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.19.18The Chinese Communist Party Is Setting Up Cells at Universities Across America
Foreign Policy
It’s a strategy to tighten ideological control. And it’s happening around the world.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.28.18‘America First’ Shouldn’t Stop the Us from Welcoming Chinese Students and Other Global Talent
South China Morning Post
Almost half a century after the “Nixon shock”, when US President Nixon unilaterally declared that the United States would abandon the dollar’s convertibility to gold and impose a 10 per cent import surcharge, the world is now being shaken by the “...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.09.18Chinese Students in America Say ‘Not My President’
Foreign Policy
The first posters appeared on a bulletin board at University of California, San Diego on March 1.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.25.18How China Is Winning Back More Graduates from Foreign Universities Than Ever Before
Forbes
Where it was once inevitable that those who left to study at prestigious foreign universities would remain on distant shores for years, China’s graduates are now answering the call of home more than ever before -- and many are turning down lucrative...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.05.17Ad Promises Students 'You Won't Feel Like You're in China When You're on Our Buses'
CNN
At first glance, it looks like any other email touting travel deals. In this case, it was a bus company offering its services to students of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.21.17Cambridge University Press Faces Backlash after Bowing to China Censorship Pressure
Washington Post
Cambridge University Press announced Friday it had removed 300 articles and book reviews from a version of the “China Quarterly” website available in China at the request of the government.
Sinica Podcast
08.01.17
Joan Kaufman on Foreign Nonprofits and Academia in China
from Sinica Podcast
Joan Kaufman is a fascinating figure: Her long and storied career in China started in the early 1980s, when she was what she calls a “cappuccino-and-croissant socialist from Berkeley.” Today, she is the director for academics at the Schwarzman...
Depth of Field
06.29.17
Love, Robots, and Fireworks
from Yuanjin Photo
Included in this Depth of Field column are stories of love, community, remembrance, and the future, told through the discerning eyes of some of China’s best photojournalists. Among them, the lives of African migrants in Guangzhou, seven years inside...
Conversation
05.25.17
Can Free Speech on American Campuses Withstand Chinese Nationalism?
Earlier this week, Kunming native Yang Shuping, a student at the University of Maryland, gave a commencement speech extolling the “fresh air” and “free speech” she experienced while studying in the United States. Video of her speech spread on the...
Books
03.27.17
Wish Lanterns
If China will rule the world one day, who will rule China? There are more than 320 million Chinese between the ages of 16 and 30. Children of the one-child policy, born after Mao, with no memory of the Tiananmen Square massacre, they are the first net native generation to come of age in a market-driven, more international China. Their experiences and aspirations were formed in a radically different country from the one that shaped their elders, and their lives will decide the future of their nation and its place in the world.Wish Lanterns offers a deep dive into the life stories of six young Chinese. Dahai is a military child, netizen, and self-styled loser. Xiaoxiao is a hipster from the freezing north. Fred, born on the tropical southern island of Hainan, is the daughter of a Party official, while Lucifer is a would-be international rock star. Snail is a country boy and Internet-gaming addict, and Mia is a fashionista rebel from far west Xinjiang. Following them as they grow up, go to college, and find work and love, all the while navigating the pressure of their parents and society, Wish Lanterns paints a vivid portrait of Chinese youth culture and of a millennial generation whose struggles and dreams reflect the larger issues confronting China today. —Arcade Publishing{chop}
ChinaFile Recommends
03.21.17Alienation 101
Economist
There were hopes that the flood of Chinese students into America would bring the countries closer. But a week at the University of Iowa suggested to Brook Larmer that the opposite may have happened
ChinaFile Recommends
02.16.17China’s Artificial Intelligence Boom
Atlantic
The country’s universities and tech giants are starting to surpass American ones when it comes to researching and implementing AI.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.16.17Chinese Students in the U.S. Are Using “Inclusion” and “Diversity” to Oppose a Dalai Lama Graduation Speech
Quartz
On Feb. 2, the University of California, San Diego formally announced that the Dalai Lama would make a keynote speech at the June commencement ceremony. The announcement triggered outrage among Chinese students who view the exiled Tibetan spiritual...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.09.16China Universities Must Become Communist Party 'Strongholds', Says Xi Jinping
Guardian
All teachers must be ‘staunch supporters’ of party governance, says president in what experts called an effort to reassert control
ChinaFile Recommends
12.06.16US University Admissions Officers Courted with Subsidized Trips to China
Reports that Chinese education agencies buy US college admissions staff trips to China have fueled speculation that bribery is part of the recruitment process
Excerpts
08.18.16
Why an Elite Chinese Student Decided Not to Join the Communist Party
“Wish Lanterns” follows the lives of six Chinese born between 1985 and 1990 as they grow up, go to school, and pursue their aspirations. Millennials are a transformational generation in China, heralding key societal and cultural shifts, and they are...
Conversation
06.03.16
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
It’s graduation time, and Chinese graduates from American colleges are now pondering what to do next: return to China or stay in the U.S. We reached out to recent graduates to ask about their decision-making process and how they view their prospects...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.16.16China Opens a New University Every Week
BBC
In 2013, 40% of Chinese graduates completed their studies in a Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) subject—more than twice the share of US graduates.
Media
11.18.15
Chinese Students in America: 300,000 and Counting
In 1981, when Erhfei Liu entered Brandeis University as an undergraduate, he was only the second student from mainland China in the school’s history. “I was a rare animal from Red China,” Liu said in a September 1 interview with Foreign Policy, “an...
Media
10.23.15
The Eagle, the Dragon, and the ‘Excellent Sheep’
Former Yale University English professor William Deresiewicz’s book, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life, created a firestorm in the United States when it was released in August 2014. “The...
The China Africa Project
02.18.15
Chinese Studies at the University of Botswana
It’s long been said that while China may have an Africa policy, Africans do not have a China policy. In particular, too many Africans do not understand the language, culture, and politics of their new number one trading partner. The University of...
Infographics
12.15.14
Is Studying Abroad Worth the Cost?
from Sohu
The number of Chinese students who choose to study abroad has increased by more than 1,000% since 2000. Yet education costs abroad also continue to rise. This infographic looks at reasons why Chinese students are choosing an education overseas.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.17.14Newspaper Calls on Chinese Academics to Cut the Criticism
New York Times
Liaoning Daily, a Communist Party-run newspaper in northeast China, published the article, “Teacher, Please Don’t Talk About China Like That: An Open Letter to Teachers of Philosophy and Social Science,” last week in response to a comment it...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.06.14Penn State Latest School to Drop China’s Confucius Institute
Wall Street Journal
The action signals increasing discontent on university campuses over the institutes' hiring practices and refusal to acknowledge unflattering chapters of Chinese history.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.14.14My Chinese Education
New York Times
One Tibetan recounts how Beijing’s education system suffocates minority culture serving to unify the country under the rule of the dominant Han ethnic group.
Sinica Podcast
07.18.14
Debating Societies in China
from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, we’re happy to welcome back Jeremy Goldkorn in conversation with David Weeks, founder and President of the National High School Debate League of China, a debating society currently established in twenty-seven cities throughout...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.17.14Blacklisting Scholars
New York Times
China is increasingly denying entry to foreign scholars to punish those who work on issues that Beijing deems to be politically troublesome. If the government hopes to drive foreign scholars into self-censorship, this policy is self-defeating.&...
Infographics
07.16.14
Learn English, Chinese Style
from Sohu
In 2009, the number of people studying English in China was roughly equal to the population of the U.S. In 2012, Chinese people spent a total of $4.8 billion on English lessons. China is the world’s biggest market for English-as-a-foreign-language...
Conversation
07.01.14
The Debate Over Confucius Institutes PART II
Last week, ChinaFile published a discussion on the debate over Confucius Institutes–Chinese language and culture programs affiliated with China’s Ministry of Education—and their role on university campuses. The topic, and several of the...
Conversation
06.23.14
The Debate Over Confucius Institutes
Last week, the American Association of University Professors joined a growing chorus of voices calling on North American universities to rethink their relationship with Confucius Institutes, the state-sponsored Chinese-language programs...
The NYRB China Archive
04.08.14
Solving China’s Schools: An Interview with Jiang Xueqin
from New York Review of Books
In December, China stunned the world when the most widely used international education assessment revealed that Shanghai’s schools now outperform those of any other country—not only in math and science but also in reading. Some education experts...
Viewpoint
09.03.13
China’s Higher Education Bubble
The number of university graduates in China has exploded.In 1997, 400,000 students graduated from four-year university programs. Today, Chinese schools produce more than 3 million per year. But employment rates at graduation have plunged. And remote...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.12.13Are China’s Colleges Too Easy?
Economic Observer
China may have the lowest college dropout rate in the world. Some chalk this up to the success of China’s rigorous college entrance exam and family support systems. But others say the country’s universities have become too easy.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.18.13In China, Families Bet It All on College for Their Children
New York Times
Wu Yiebing has been going down coal shafts practically every workday of his life, wrestling an electric drill for $500 a month in the choking dust of claustrophobic tunnels, with one goal in mind: paying for his daughter’s education.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.19.12A Liberal Arts Education, Made in China
New York Times
No one, it seems, is pleased with China’s educational system. Chinese nationalists fret that students are graduating without the critical and creative skills necessary to compete globally. Foreign observers worry that heavy political indoctrination...
Out of School
07.15.12
France’s Baccalauréat Sparks Debate on Chinese Education
What does one gain by working?Are all beliefs contrary to reason?Comment on an excerpt of Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise Do we have a duty to seek the truth?Would we be freer without the state?Explicate an excerpt of Émile by Jean-...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.26.12Is Its Educational System Pulling China Up or Holding It Back?
Atlantic
China wants inventors and entrepreneurs, but its schools, built around the notorious gaokao exam, are still designed to produce cookie-cutter engineers and accountants.
Media
05.16.12
IV Drips Sustain Students Studying for College Entrance Examination
The Xiaogan No.1 High School in China's Hubei Province allegedly hooked students up to intravenous drips filled with amino acids to sustain them while studying for the country's notoriously difficult national college entrance exams:A photo...