Connor Horsfall and Pippa Ebel
China’s top two universities, Tsinghua and Peking, have edged closer to the global top ten; they are now ranked 12th and 13th respectively. Their ascent highlights China’s growing influence in global research and higher education. Both institutions have held the top positions in Asian university rankings for five years, underscoring China’s growing dominance in the region, with two-thirds of Asia’s top universities now based in Mainland China and Hong Kong.
China’s success is no longer confined to a few elite institutions. Whereas only Tsinghua and Peking appeared in the top 100 in 2018, today, four Chinese universities have made it into the top 50, seven are in the top 100, and 13 are in the top 200. Such progress is no accident; it reflects deliberate government investment and policy efforts to elevate the academic and research quality of Chinese institutions. Yet this increasing investment still lags behind rival countries like the U.K., U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, which spend over 5 percent of GDP on the sector. China spends 4 percent. Funding alone does not explain China’s success.
Beijing’s focus on education is longstanding, but progress has accelerated markedly under Xi Jinping. Deng Xiaoping, in his drive to modernize China, emphasized the importance of learning from other nations. Xi echoed this vision at the recent national science and technology conference, highlighting “sci-tech modernization” as key to China’s ambitions of becoming a global leader by 2035.
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