Qinghua University

Qinghua University is one of the two most prestigious universities in the PRC, the other being Peking University. With part of the ‘Boxer Indemnity’, it was established in 1911 as Tsinghua hsueh-t’ang, a preparatory school for students who would be sent by the government to study in the USA. In 1925 the school was renamed Tsinghua School and a university section was also instituted. The name ‘National Tsinghua University’ was adopted in 1928, and a Research Institute was set up in 1929. The scholars Wang Guowei, Liang Qichao, Chen Yinque and Zhao Yuanren (the ‘Four Tutors’) helped lay the foundation of a research tradition that sought to combine the academic styles of East and West.

During World War II, Qinghua became part of Xinan Lianda (Southwest Associated University) in Kunming, along with Peking and Nankai Universities. Subsequently, it moved back to Beijing. After 1949, Qinghua University was remoulded into a polytechnic institution, focusing on engineering, as part of a nationwide ‘restructuring of universities and colleges’ undertaken in 1952. Since 1978, it has re-established departments in the sciences, economics and management, and the humanities. As of the end of 2000, there were 7,100 faculty and staff working for the 8 colleges and 43 departments, 44 research institutes, 9 engineering research centres, 163 laboratories and 16 postdoctoral research centres, including 15 national key laboratories. Altogether there were 37 bachelor’s, 107 master’s and 64 doctoral programmes, and student enrolment had reached 20,000.

WANG XIAOLU