In Chinese society today, too many things, people, topics and moments are regarded as ‘sensitive,’ to the point that just about anything dealing with the people’s welfare is called ‘sensitive.’

All sorts of things require permits and approvals in China, things that in other countries are done without the least involvement or interference by the government. In our country, for example, women must first obtain “birth permits” before a child can be brought legally into the world. Legacies of the planned economy, these permit systems are perpetuated today by special interests who are personally enriched by the bureaucracies they create. But these “birth permits” seriously hold us back — and nowhere is this more evident than with our higher education system.
For three years now preparations have been in the works for a new university in Shenzhen. Modeled on the nearby Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) — and having already signed a cooperative agreement with the top-ranking Hong Kong institution — Nanfang University of Science and Technology has pledged to operate with a non-bureaucratic style and could serve as a new model of higher education in China. The new university’s president has been hired. The financing for the university is in place. The faculty are all there and ready to teach. Even the first class of 50 students have been enrolled, and are due to begin classes on March 1 this year.
But the university’s “birth permit” has yet to be approved by authorities at China’s Ministry of Education. Imagine a woman who is nine months pregnant. Her water has broken. But because of a bureaucratic hold-up, she has no birth permit in hand, and she is told her child must remain pent up in her womb for the time being.
The lack of approval is a major hurdle for Nanfang University of Science and Technology (NUST). Without its “birth permit,” the university cannot formally award degrees to its graduating students. Why? Because all degrees in China, regardless of which university they are from, are conferred by the Ministry of Education. The role of our universities is simply to pass diplomas on to students.
In this sense, there is only one university in China — the University of the Ministry of Education. All of the other institutions we refer to as universities are really just branch campuses of this one main university.
This is a legacy of state economic planning and an awkward distinction China has from higher education in the rest of the world. Economic reforms have gone ahead for 30 years, and in most sectors of our economy people clamor to make sure they are recognized as part of the market economy, operating according to its principles.
It’s only in higher education that the whiff of centralized planning is still so strong. Nearly all aspects of higher education are subject to approval and planning by the Ministry of Education — administrative evaluations, undergraduate evaluations, research student evaluations, facility evaluations. Even the design of degree programs, procedures for student recruitment, postgraduate admissions standards (for national examinations) and postgraduate examination papers are set or approved by the Ministry of Education.
Right before our eyes, in much the same way as our cities are all beginning to look alike through the latest feverish round of urbanization, all of the universities across our country are rapidly being homogenized.
No one in the world does things like we do. Every university in the world issues its own diplomas. Only in China are diplomas conferred instead by a government ministry. Not only that, but historically our universities issued their own degrees. Universities during the Republican Era, such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, Nankai University and Southwest Associated University (西南联大) — universities we now generally believe to have been excellently established — all conferred their own degrees.
Why do we insist on swimming against the current of history and world norms? And why do our universities have such a fear of the market?
This bureaucratic university system of ours, so powerful in the sense that it holds all the assets of national higher education in its hands, is actually very weak. When a handful of universities in Hong Kong began recruiting mainland students a few years ago, our finest universities, Peking University and Tsinghua University, trembled in their boots. This is the root of the fear that has held back approvals for the new Nanfang University of Science and Technology. If just a handful of universities like the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology were to appear on the mainland landscape, they would not only suck away the best students, but the best professors would quickly follow.
For our puffed up university system, which has grown complacent playing by its own game rules, Nanfang University of Science and Technology poses a major challenge. No one in Chinese higher education would dare openly oppose its approval by the Ministry of Education. That, after all, might invite scandal in the age of the Internet and the microblog. But they can apply pressure behind the scenes, pushing approval of NUST’s “birth permit” further and further into the future, until the child dies in the womb.
Responding to the constant foot-dragging over the approval, NUST president Zhu Qingshi (朱清时) told media recently that Nanfang University of Science and Technology will wait no longer. If they don’t receive approval from the Ministry of Education for the conferment of degrees, he said, they’ll issue their own diplomas instead.
This puts NUST in a risky position. It’s possible that from this point on it will be impossible for the university to get its permit approved. It might become a “black university” operating outside of the state system, and its graduates might be unable to claim their degrees when applying for all sorts of positions, government or otherwise. If, on the other hand, the university does indeed successfully come into the world without government approval, this will have a different sort of ripple effect, encouraging others to jump ahead with their own experiments in open opposition to the Ministry of Education.
What we need instead is serious reform, an institutional rethink of how higher education operates in China. On the surface, the obstacles reform has run up against in China are ideological in nature. But in fact they all have to do with resistance from vested interests. Our education sector today is ripe with opportunities for special interests to line their pockets. So long as the system remains in place, these opportunities will abound.
But must we all be educated inside this dark crucible? Unless this crucible is broken, there will be no hope for universities in our country.
This is a translated and edited version of an editorial first appearing in Southern Metropolis Daily.

On Christmas Day, veteran investigative reporter and CMP fellow Wang Keqin (王克勤) posted his investigation, undertaken with journalism student Feng Jun (冯军), of the so-called Li Gang Gate (李刚门), or “drag racing case” (飙车案). The case, which unfolded last October, involved the son of an influential Hebei police official, who struck and killed one female student and injured another at Hebei University while driving his car across campus. The driver, Li Qiming (李启铭), reportedly stepped out of the car and shouted when he was finally stopped by security guards, “My father is Li Gang, just you try to sue me!”
Since the initial story sparked outrage and concern nationwide, and the warning from the young Li became a national catchphrase encompassing the problem of abuse of power and official privilege, the case has taken many turns. In late October, China’s Central Propaganda Department finally issued a directive against further coverage of the story, and reporters working on the story were ordered to leave Hebei.
Most recently, there was news that Zhang Kai (张凯), the lawyer representing the family of the victim, Chen Xiaofeng (陈晓凤), was attacked by unknown assailants [link in Chinese], and that Chen’s parents had agreed to a settlement, or “reconciliation,” with Li Gang.
Sitting down with CMP back in November, Wang Keqin told us quietly that he was busy working on a report on Li Gang Gate. The December 25 post, released on his blog, is the first part of Wang’s report with student Feng Jun. The report deals with the issue of the supposed “reconciliation” between Chen Xiaofeng’s family and Li Gang and the political machinations behind the scenes.
The report begins:

“From Li Gang-gate to apology-gate to silencing-gate to plagiarism-gate to luxury housing-gate to media ban-gate to speed detection-gate to autopsy-gate to disappearance-gate to dismissal-gate to settlement-gate to silence-gate . . .
So ran the dazzling and bewildering saga of the so-called “drag racing case” (飙车案) at Hebei University, along tortuous turns that neither the public nor Web users, and neither the relatives of the victims nor their lawyer, could possibly
have foreseen.
One sentence, “My father is Li Gang,” threw our entire country into a discussion and action, but things settled once again into silence. How did this case unfold? And what were the forces hidden behind the scenes?

Thanks to the good work of ChinaGeeks, a translation of Wang’s report became available in English yesterday. You can read it HERE.

There has been a storm of accusations online in China since the death earlier this month of 23 year-old policeman Zhang Ninghai (张宁海), who fell from a cliff in the rugged Huangshan Mountains while escorting 18 young hikers from Shanghai’s Fudan University to safety. The students had apparently gone off climbing on their own, without purchasing tickets for entry to the popular tourist park, and they were ill-prepared. But much of the anger vented online in the wake of this tragedy has been misplaced, and blame has been heaped unnecessarily on the students.
Many have denounced the students for putting themselves in harm’s way and bringing about the young policeman’s sacrifice as a result. Others have accused them of cold insensitivity, saying for example that they have shown insufficient respect for officer Zhang Ninghai.
This last accusation has no basis in fact, and the remorse felt by the students has been demonstrated quite clearly. As for their having gone off without purchasing tickets, the management authorities in Huangshan have something to answer for on this account. The natural scenery of Huangshan does not belong to the local authorities. What makes them think they can cordon off a resource that belongs to all of us and then charge us a premium to enjoy it? If I were a student in the same position, I think I might have done exactly what these students did, finding a way to enter the park without a ticket.
The real error these students made was to not make adequate preparations for the risks they were taking on. Having chosen to put themselves in a relatively dangerous situation, they should done more to prepare properly. They should have known what the weather conditions might be, and taken the necessary equipment and precautions, minimizing risk.
Yes, of course the tragic death of Zhang Ninghai was related to their risk-taking. But do they really deserve such a surge of criticism and ridicule? We should applaud the officer’s spirit of personal sacrifice, but linking this sacrifice directly to the actions and choices of the students is entirely unnecessary. As a police officer serving in the Huangshan region, it was Zhang Ninghai’s duty to answer the call and rush to the rescue, a duty that comes with definite risks.
There are plenty of people in the world who take risks, plenty who find themselves in need of rescue, and plenty who put themselves in harm’s way to help others. But is it right to slur the risk takers because their actions led others to sacrifice themselves?
We may eulogize those who put their lives on the line for the sake of others. But that doesn’t mean, by extension, that we have to cast those they saved as arch-criminals who engineered their untimely deaths. That sort of thinking seems to imply that their sacrifices were pointless to begin with.
We’ve all been young before. Our recklessness and risk-taking agitated our parents to no end and brought reprimand from our teachers, but all of us now look back on those days with a certain pride. What could we possibly accomplish if we never dared to take risks, if we were completely drained of that adventurous spirit of youth?
Speaking as a university educator, I believe one thing we sorely need today is to encourage young people to go and take risks, and to test their limits. If we coddle the next generation, like soft chicks who must make no missteps, they may still grow up with some level of ability, but they will grow callow and conventional.
There is room to criticize the Fudan University students for their poor decisions. But there is no need to go overboard in assigning blame. Many others have acted just as they did. I did the same sorts of things when I was in school, and I consider myself richer for them. So I hope the university authorities are wise enough to deal with these students leniently.
In fact, one aspect of this whole affair that is most deserving of censure is the wave of pro-censorship jargon that appeared on Fudan University’s internal online bulletin-board site (BBS) in the wake of the tragedy — posts about the need to conscientiously control the news media on the story, to properly spin this public relations crisis. There was even a thread about how news reporters for the university needed to “hold their media position” in order to ensure a positive outcome.
This idea, that a news incident is best handled by slamming the lid down tight, is a backwards and ignorant frame of mind we’re accustomed to hearing from certain government officials. That this attitude should find such active proponents on the internal BBS of one of China’s premier academic institutions should be heard as another warning signal of how seriously wrong things are in our current education system.
This editorial first appeared in Chinese at Southern Metropolis Daily.