Governance in Chinese Universities

This paper focuses on governance in higher education in China. It sees that governance as distinctive on the world scale and the potential source of distinctiveness in other domains of higher education. By taking an historical approach, reviewing relevant literature and drawing on empirical research on governance at one leading research university, the paper discusses system organisation, government–university relations and the role of the Communist Party (CCP), centralisation and devolution, institutional leadership, interior governance, academic freedom and responsibility, and the relevance of collegial norms. It concludes that the party-state and Chinese higher education will need to find a Way in governance that leads into a fuller space for plural knowledges, ideas and approaches. This would advance both indigenous and global knowledge, so helping global society to also find its Way. Keywords Higher education Higher education system Governance Government higher education policy Regulation of higher education China University autonomy Academic freedom Citation Wen, W. and Marginson, S. (2023), "Governance in Chinese Universities", Sahlin, K. and Eriksson-Zetterquist, U. (Ed.) University Collegiality and the Erosion of Faculty Authority (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 86), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 171-197. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20230000086008 Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited Copyright © 2024 Wen Wen and Simon Marginson License Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited. These works are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of these works (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode. Introduction Is there or can there be a distinctive Chinese higher education? On one hand China has the oldest continuous higher education tradition in the world, if 'continuous' is interpreted broadly. The state academies that trained scholar-officials have been traced back as far as the Western Zhou dynasty (1047–772 bce). On the other hand, when China began to build modern universities at the end of the Qing dynasty (1636–1912 ce), in terms of form they were transplants from the West. German, British, French and United States' (US) prototypes left their mark. Japan was another influence. Later, after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took power in 1949 Soviet Russian models of higher education and research were dominant for a time. Still later, in the global opening after 1977, US institutional models patterned reform and development, and the Shanghai ranking launched in 2003 (Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), 2023) defined the 'world-class university' in terms of the norms of the Anglo-American science university. China's universities now excel in the ARWU ranking. One interpretation is that China does Western science very well. Yet China has a matchless scholarly heritage, and science and higher education grew more rapidly after the mid-1990s than they have ever done in a Western (Euro-American) country, indicating an indigenous dynamic (Marginson, 2011). The East/West patterning is read in various ways. Mei Yiqi, an influential president of Tsinghua University, said in 1941 that 'today's Chinese higher education, tracing its origin, is actually imported from the West'. However, he added: The system and the spirit are two different things. As far as the system is concerned, there is certainly no similar structures in the history of Chinese education. But as far as the spirit is concerned, the experience of civilized mankind is more or less the same, and there is a lot to share. ('今日中国之大学教育, 溯其源流, 实自西洋移植而来, 顾制度为一事, 而精神又为一事。就制度º言, 中国教育史中固不见有形式相似之组织, 就精神言, 则文明人类之经验大致相同, 而事有可通者'。《大学一解》) (Mei, 1941) Moving in the other direction, today's party-state in China calls for world-class universities with 'Chinese characteristics' (Kirby, 2022). This raises the question of what are those Chinese characteristics, and whether they are ancient, or modern, or both. For Rui Yang (2022b), a feature of Chinese culture is its capacity to take in multiple elements and develop new combinations. The practical reconciliation of diverse ideas, as distinct from the Euro-American habit of singular, universalising frameworks and methods, is itself a core Chinese cultural trait (Hayhoe, 2011). Yang sees Chinese universities as creatively fusing indigenous and Euro-American elements. In future this will enable them 'to bring into the global community aspects of their rich educational and cultural heritage' (R. Yang, 2022b, p. 117) – providing they fully engage with that heritage. Only when Chinese universities reach their own deep roots can they achieve luxuriant leaves (Wang, 2004; Yang, R. 2011b). The strands of East and West are each multiple and part of both the past and the present. China's higher education is shaped by Chinese statecraft, Confucian self-cultivation in the home, and social relations both continuous and ever changing (Wen, 2013), plus twentieth century Leninism which entered China from Russia, neoliberal modernisation and new public management, and state-driven internationalisation (Wen et al., 2023). The point is though that the reconciliation is China-determined. 'The emphasis on agency and diversity is essential to understand the Chinese reinvention of tradition in a context of global modernity' (Muhlhahn, 2019, p. 350). This paper focuses on governance in higher education in China. It sees that governance as distinctive on the world scale and the potential source of distinctiveness in other domains, though that latter potential is yet to be fully realised. Governance takes into account culture and structure, and social relations and human behaviours that are affected by both (Bess, 1988). The paper discusses government–university relations and the role of the CCP, centralisation and devolution, institutional leadership, interior governance, academic freedom and responsibility, and the relevance of collegial norms. But first there is a prior question: how to understand and investigate higher education governance in China. The Western-Centric Lens The 'West' is a loaded, constructed, and debateable concept (Hall, 1992). There is internal diversity and differences among the West in terms of governance, autonomy and academic freedom. For example, in terms of university governance there exist at least four different models, Humboldt, Napoleon, US and UK, and there exist various traditions of and perceptions towards institutional autonomy and academic freedom. There have been historical variations and there are significant differences among countries. However, for many non-Western countries, the West is both hegemonic and threatening, powers that have created damage and inspire caution, as well as models that have left imprints and still need to be learnt from or collaborated with (Marginson & Xu, 2022). Westerners have also taken attitudes to China that have been similar, all positioning Western tradition as superior. It is in this sense that the West/non-West distinction is important and is applied in this paper. In a comparison of 20 higher education systems, Shin and Kim (2018, pp. 232–233) establish three categories in relation to governance. The first is 'collegial governance' in which managers control finance and personnel while the faculty are supreme in other domains. This category includes only Japan, Taiwan and Finland. In the second group, 'managerial governance', managers are the main actors in decision-making but faculty exercise some influence. This includes the Anglophone and most European systems, Brazil and Argentina, and South Korea and Hong Kong SAR in East Asia. In the third category 'bureaucratic governance' is characterised by 'strong managerial power with state influence and minimal influence from academics' and 'strong top-down decision-making patterns'. This group includes Mexico, Malaysia and China. But does context play any role in the comparison? Can all systems be validly arranged on a single grid on the basis of a fixed set of criteria? Is the role of government in higher education a constant differing only in quantity? Are grass-roots power and top-down decision-making power always zero-sum in relation to each other? After two years in China from 1919 to 1921, the foremost Euro-American philosopher of education in the twentieth century, John Dewey, reached the conclusion that 'China can be understood only in terms of the institutions and ideas which have been worked out in its own historical evolution'; and Chinese politics 'has to be understood in terms of itself', not translated into an 'alien' political classification (Wang, 2007, p. 76). Harvard historian John Fairbank stated that 'our first requirement, then, if we are to understand China, is to try to avoid imposing a European scale of judgment' (Fairbank & Goldman, 2006, p. 47). Ka Ho Mok (2021) comments that the conceptual tools adopted from international literature with very different historical, institutional and political orientations would not be appropriate for analysing the unique state-education market and university relationships in China. Harvard political scientist Elizabeth Perry (2020) may disagree. For her the fundamental explanatory categories are the Manichean US distinction between free democracy and authoritarianism. In this mode of thought egalitarian social democratic Finland is equivalent to plutocratic United States, where money controls both sides of the aisle, and the non-contestable polities are also of a type. Perry's contribution is to modify the ideological assumption that higher education can only flourish under liberal democracy. She notes that 'authoritarian' regimes also foster higher education. As in the imperial past, authoritarian rule in China today is buttressed by a pattern of educated acquiescence, with academia acceding to political compliance in exchange for the many benefits conferred on it by the state. (p. 1) One sign of this 'political compliance' is that 'faculty are urged to prepare policy papers for submission to party and government agencies' (p. 15). In Perry's eyes this function, seen as a virtuous public contribution in systems all over the world, takes on sinister implications when the receiving government is an 'authoritarian' communist party-state. The term 'authoritarian' shuts down Perry's obligation to look properly at governance in China. Instead she expands on her claim about 'authoritarianism', referring to Russia's 5-in-100 programme for creating world-class universities, higher education in the Gulf States, and even cutting-edge technologies in North Korea (p. 18). The contexts, systems and outcomes are not the same as China. None have built higher education and science as China has done. But they are necessary to Perry's argument, in which all non-contested polities occupy a lower-level twilight world where government is essentially Machiavellian and the whole faculty is craven and smitten by the Stockholm syndrome. The underlying assumption is that the further the distance between a given higher education system and the US system, the more the former must be in deficit. The narcissist framing indicates how the commentator positions herself. It also perpetuates the old unequal order. As Muhlhahn (2019) remarks: 'Constructing and upholding difference between the Westerners and the Chinese, or between the centre and the periphery, has long been identified as a key tenet of colonial rule' (p. 105). The present paper is closer to Dewey and Fairbank than to Perry. Governance and faculty relations in China can be understood only by closely engaging in the historical context and the present specifics. Sweeping Western-centric norms will not be employed. Essence of Higher Education There is another aspect to the 'how' of understanding higher education governance which again invokes cross-cultural differences. Western analyses focus mostly on formal structures, less on culture and behaviour and still less on purposes. Discussing the governance of the country, ancient Chinese philosophers considered not the 'regime', the form of the political system, but the 'Way', the goal and operation of the political system which was the essence of political power. In the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods (770–221 bce) scholars had different views – Confucianism valued the people, Legalism valued the emperor, Mohism universal love and Daoism noble souls – but all took the Way as the starting point for discussion. Even given monarchy as the political system, ideas and methods of governing the country, and the outcomes of governance, could be very different (Wang, 2012). The same is true of contemporary higher education. The Western question is: 'what is the model (idea) of the university?' Daoism (道) asks the ontological question of 'what is the nature of University?', and believes that only by mastering the nature and the law of University could a university develop harmoniously with its outside environment. Confucianism asks axiological questions such as 'what ideals, values, missions and goals should universities pursue?' One answer is that: 'The way of Great Learning lies in the enlightenment of brilliant virtues, the remoulding of people, and the pursuit of ultimate goodness' ('大学之道在明明德, 在亲民, 在止于至善',《大学》). Both Daosim and Confucianism questions are more reflexive and creative in relation to the nature of the university, and are useful in the West as well as in the East. There is something too fixed and would-be eternal about Newman's (1852/1982) Idea of a University. All higher education has purposes that it is moving towards; it is not being but becoming as the Dao states. Continual self-conscious reform and improvement are part of every kind of modern university. Traditions of Governance Marginson and Considine (2000, p. 7) provide a definition of university governance that might apply in both East and West. It is concerned with the determination of values inside universities, their mission and purposes, patterns of authority and hierarchy, and the relations of universities as institutions to the different academic worlds within and the worlds of government, business and community without. However, despite the many resemblances between universities in the Euro-American and Chinese worlds, they are situated in political cultures that are substantially different. This generates variations in the role of government in higher education, institutional autonomy and academic freedom (L. Yang, 2022a). Western States and Higher Education Western governance is rooted in divided powers and a limited state. Modern Euro-American society is divided between government-as-state, the seat of political authority; the economic market; public civil society; and the individual, who enjoys an ill-defined normative primacy. Within the state there is a further division between executive, legislature and judiciary. The authority of the law provides a binding coherence. The Euro-American state has a capacity for focused intervention but the boundary between the state and all other spheres is endemically contested, tense and unstable. The medieval university developed from the church in the space between the church and the city/state, becoming incorporated in its own right. It was another part of the division of powers, in a varying relation with the state that became its main funder: in some countries part of government and in others located between state and civil society, and everywhere with a partial and problematic autonomy. As noted, from these starting points there have been significantly different Western (Euro-American) traditions in higher education. But one Western tradition has been especially impactful in the non-Western world. In the twentieth century, in which higher education moved into the mainstream of societies, the practices of universities in many countries were influenced by the US American ideology of a system-market in which executive-steered institutions raised part of their own revenues, and focused on their own growth, performance and status as measured by student demand, research outputs and social/economic links. In Clark's (1998) concept of the 'entrepreneurial university' the research and teaching institution is an active builder of organisational power, status and revenues through engagement with external stakeholders and markets, though it still rests on the epistemic capacity of the 'academic heartland'. Higher education became partly shaped by neoliberal and new public management reforms that imagined institutions as business firms. Summarising trends in higher education governance, Shattock (2014, p. 185) noted the common use of state steering from a distance via mechanisms including planning and targets, competition for funds, performance measures and accountability/audit. In those European systems where universities had been closely integrated with the state, there was part-separation, though the extent of devolution varied. In many systems the executive leadership on universities was more professionalised. More universal was the growth of administrative functions and the partial evacuation of the former faculty role in governance, especially in decisions on finance and priorities. Berdahl et al. (1971) distinguish the 'substantive autonomy' of universities to determine their own goals and programmes from 'procedural autonomy' to determine how these are achieved. Neoliberal reform often enhances state control over the goals of higher education, while enhancing institutional capacity in procedural execution. At the same time mechanisms that micro-manage performance, such as research audits, cut into both forms of autonomy. Roots of the Party-State in China China's governance tradition is that of a comprehensive state, not divided powers and a limited liberal state. Government, politics and statecraft are customarily supreme over all other domains including the landowning aristocracy in Imperial times, merchants and the economy, the cities, the professions, the military and religion (Gernet, 2002; Zhao, 2015). The law in China is 'a tool of administration in general' and never independent of central state power. 'The idea of the separation of powers could not take root in the absence of the supremacy of the law' (Fairbank & Goldman, 2006, pp. 185, 241). Unlimited dynastic states typically oscillate between periods of openness and grass-roots expression, and periods of tightening control and closure. In the CCP period these oscillations have been marked. The comprehensive Sinic state was not invented by the CCP. The archetypal state, comprehensive and centralising, was that of the Qin dynasty (221–206 bce) which first unified China territorially. The chief minister of the Qin, Li Si, wanted to 'make the state the sole source of education and truth'. The Warring States period had seen notable intellectual diversity, but privileging the comprehensive over the partial, Li 'identified all-encompassing truth with Qin-imposed unity' (Lewis, 2007, p. 208). The Qin standardised written language and measures. It also murdered non-conforming scholars and burned their works. Later generations of scholars rejected the Qin but the comprehensive state tradition and its characteristic blending of state and society, private and public, had been established. Except during the Republic from 1911 to 1949 when Western forms were intermittently used, in China's long history there has been no discursive limit to the authority of the state and no rival authority is permitted (Fairbank & Goldman, 2006, p. 28; Muhlhahn, 2019, p. 77). Potentially the state can freely surveil people's lives and intervene as it sees fit. Civil society in China has always been smaller than in the Euro-American polities, more closely managed and with only intermittent freedoms. The autonomy of cities and urban-based groups potentially threatens unity and order in the state (Fairbank & Goldman, 2006, p. 257). While this form of state is not formally contestable it incorporates a mechanism for downward accountability that dates from the Western Zhou dynasty (Zhao, 2015, pp. 52–55); less agentic than episodic elections but fostering an ongoing responsiveness. The emperor presided over tianxia, the world without border, on the basis of the mandate of heaven (Tianming 天命), which was understood as a supreme moral force. Over time Tianming came to be seen in terms of the welfare of human beings. 'The mandate was dependent on the ruler's ability to educate the people and to offer protection from human and natural harm'. If the emperor ceased to rule wisely or justly criticism and rebellion would follow (Muhlhahn, 2019, p. 38). This might signal the end of the dynasty. In the first three decades after 1949 the CCP's overriding objective was the creation of a socialist society. Following the famine induced by the Great Leap Forward and the destabilisation of the Cultural Revolution, which jeopardised the Party's claim to Tianming, 'the core mission of the CCP as a ruling party' became 'making China strong and prosperous' (p. 543), as in the imperial polity. Growing opportunities in an expanding higher education system serve to align people's welfare and access to social and geographic mobility with national economic prosperity. In addition to the comprehensive state, a second Chinese tradition that affects higher education governance is collectivism. China's culture has been shaped by Confucian notions (L. Yang, 2022a) in which hierarchy establishes order: elite control is seen to promote prosperity and harmony. This is accompanied by a collectivist culture in which relationships among people are based on reciprocal responsibilities and a consensual moral orientation. The older vertical collectivism was foundational to the early stage of socialist construction under the CCP in the 1950s. At first the higher education system and associated policy formulation were closely controlled by central government ministries and provincial governments with a top-down approach, and this kind of collectivism is still embedded in the culture of university governance. The slogans 'being red and professional' (又红又专) and 'being compliant and productive' (听话出活) are still used in Tsinghua University today. The early Chinese communists were inspired more by Russian Leninism than Marxism. With its method of democratic centralism, in which all party members were committed to carrying out the agreed strategy and tactics, Leninism was especially effective as a mode of disciplined organisation focused on specific goals (Liebman, 1975). The early communists were also strong nationalists and saw in Leninism the means of creating a modern nation-state able to sustain national independence and development (Muhlhahn, 2019, pp. 256–257). In the outcome the post-1949 Leninist state has proven more potent than the imperial state. Whereas the active writ of the emperor traditionally stopped at the level of the village, in the first decade after 1949 the CCP began to establish itself at every level of society, so that society and government could scarcely be distinguished. 'The Party injected itself into local society, and interacted deeply within it'. This not only established one-party rule, it 'also produced a community of unprecedented social unity and stability' (p. 373). Party networks and governmental institutions are closely engaged, with leaders at each level often holding simultaneous appointments in both structures: hence the descriptor 'party-state' (p. 372). For most of its history the party-state has exhibited 'resilience, flexibility and pragmatism' without compromising top-down central control (Lai, 2016, p. 301) or opening its internal decision-making to scrutiny. Approaches to governance are nuanced according to locality and social sector and are not fixed but continually evolving (Stromseth et al., 2017, p. 276). The party-state enables ad hoc local adjustment and from time to time, experimentation (Muhlhahn, 2019, p. 363). Local and provincial level officials mostly have discretion, while continuing to be accountable up the line. Keeping tabs on them is an ongoing issue and the party-state uses selective transparency and consultation, mobilising local populations in the scrutiny of policy implementation by lower-level officials. This leads 'simultaneously to improved governance and more effective one party rule' (Stromseth et al., 2017, p. 4). Devolution and Dual Leadership Selective devolution embedded within firmly maintained central control has a long history in China. While Leninism does not have a good worldwide track record as a stable mode of governance, it has flourished in China because it has become hybridised with traditional imperial statecraft with its wealth of historical lessons and methods of how to manage a large and diverse country in which grass-roots initiative is inevitable and necessary. For example, following the history of rebellion in the borderlands under the Tang dynasty (618–907 ce), the Song dynasty (960–1279 ce) developed a localised political elite that was Academy trained and locally assigned by the centre of the state. Local officials depended on central support for career progression. 'Localisation and the consolidation of unified imperial power appear to be positively correlated' (Blockmans & De Weerdt, 2016, p. 311). This approach continued under the Ming (1368–1644 ce) and Qing dynasties and essentially is still in use. In addition to centrally managed devolution, successive Imperial dynasties typically used dual structures of leadership, to pluralise the flow of information upward to the emperor and diminish the potential for concentrated power. Under the Qin emperor each territorial commandery was headed by a governor but there was an imperial inspector to watch the governor (Fairbank & Goldman, 2006, p. 56). At the start of the Western Han the chancellor dominated the bureaucracy; by the end the supreme commander and the imperial counsellor had become equally important (Zhao, 2015, p. 287). In the Song dynasty a military complex operated alongside the civil administration. Each had different social origins and while the administrators tended to conservatism, the military officials were capable of arbitrary action (Fairbank & Goldman, 2006, pp. 110–111). Under the Ming the palace eunuchs ran a shadow administration alongside and often in conflict with the civil service, which had different social and regional origins. Each informed on the other (Gernet, 2002, pp. 406–407). The non-Chinese Manchu Qing dynasty used dual appointments: 'The formula was to have capable Chinese do the work and loyal Manchus check up on them' (Fairbank & Goldman, 2006, p. 148). Manchu governors-general were paired with Chinese governors. They 'duplicated one another's efforts and monitored one another's adherence to central directives. A similar structure was found at lower levels of the bureaucracy' (Muhlhahn, 2019, p. 45). Meanwhile, censors reported to the emperor on both sets of officials (Fairbank & Goldman, 2006, p. 149). By comparison the dual leadership of today's Chinese universities, with party secretary alongside the president and an expectation of harmonious collaboration, is simpler. It is significant that the dual system has roots not only in the Leninist practice of political commissars as co-leaders with army commanders, but longstanding Chinese statecraft. All of this suggests that the Sinic tradition of deep devolution and bottom-up initiative, located in a framework of top-down central control across heterogeneous sites, and with inbuilt checks and balances such as dual leadership structure and multiple administrative functions, provides important clues to the 'Chinese characteristics' that render today's university governance as distinctive on the world scale. In the post-Cultural Revolution era, the late 1970s and beyond, universities have exhibited advanced and growing levels of institutional and individual responsibility, and faculty have exercised freedom in research development and international relations – in most disciplines their scope for action is similar to that of their counterparts elsewhere – while targets are met, government policy objectives are achieved, and the party-state maintains stable political control. Devolution does not mean autonomy in the form of independence. While the brilliant Jixia Academy in the Warring States period was notable for its institutional independence and contending epistemic diversity (Hartnett, 2011) this was not the typical Chinese form of higher education. In China issues of university autonomy play out within the boundary of the comprehensive party-state rather than at the junction between state and civil society as in the Euro-American polities. Higher Education and Statecraft The role of education in statecraft grew with each successive dynasty, beginning with the Han (206 bce–220 ce) that followed the Qin. The Han state joined Confucianism, the formation of people in virtuous conduct, to Legalism that embodied state power. Education and self-cultivation in Confucian virtue became necessary to political order and universities became the moral centre of society. The Han Confucian Master Dong Zhongshu stated: In ancient times, when emperors ruled the country, they made education a top priority. Setting up higher learning institutions in the country for education, setting up schools in cities and towns for education, using benevolence to guide