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Given Chinese universities’ responsibility of turning out talent that is both politically correct and professionally competent, it is reasonable that the party, functioning like a board of supervision, gets involved in choosing chief executives of these universities to make sure they are on the right track. That acknowledged, however, it is incomprehensible that presidents are rotated from one school to another and there is a term limit for their service.
For example, having been president of the prestigious Beijing University for some nine years, Xu Zhihong stepped down after surpassing the retirement age of 65. His position was filled on Nov. 14 by Zhou Qifeng, an alumnus of the university and president of Jilin University in the northeast.
In turn, Zhou’s position at Jilin University was taken by Zhan Tao, formerly president of Shandong University, and Zhan’s position went to Xu Xianming, president of the Chinese University of Politics and Law and a former executive vice president of Shandong University. The replacement chain could be endless.
Zhou had been with Jilin University for about four years and was praised by its faculty and students. At 61, he has only four years to lead Beijing University. It would have been more rational to let him finish his stint at Jilin instead of being transferred to Beijing. Under the current arrangement, Beijing University will have another president around 2012, which is definitely not beneficial to the university’s quest for excellence.
Similarly, it would have made more sense to ask Zhan Tao, who was only 37 years old when he was appointed president of Shandong University in 2000, to stay on and work to improve that university.
However, this change of the guard represents an interesting phenomenon in China, the so-called “office-centeredness.” That is, Chinese universities, most of which are state-owned like their counterpart institutions and enterprises, have official rank in the Chinese bureaucracy. Such key universities as Beijing, Jilin and Shandong are at the vice-ministerial level; that is to say, the presidents and party secretaries of these universities are vice-ministerial-level officials.
In addition, Beijing University is a “key of keys” – one of two top universities, the other being Qinghua University. The status of the presidents at these two institutions is higher than that of their counterparts at other vice-ministerial universities. Likewise, some 40 schools named as part of China’s “985 Program,” aimed at developing world-class research institutions, have higher status than those not in this program.
Given this, it is understandable that moving Zhou Qifeng from a 985 Program university to a key 985 Program university and moving Xu Xianming from a non-985 Program university to a 985 Program university indicates promotions for both.
However, frequent presidential shuffles at Chinese universities, especially the key ones, actually runs against the purpose of the 985 Program, so named to commemorate the speech by former Chinese President Jiang Zemin in May 1998 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Beijing University. Developing world-class universities requires commitment and takes time, which are luxuries not granted to China’s mobile university administrators.
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(Cong Cao is a senior research associate with the Neil D. Levin Graduate Institute of International Relations and Commerce at the State University of New York. He received his PhD in sociology from Columbia University in 1997 and has worked at the University of Oregon and the National University of Singapore. Dr. Cao is interested in the social studies of science and technology with a focus on China. ©Copyright Cong Cao.)
