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China

Gaoming Zheng

Abstract

In the Post-Mao era, Chinese higher education is changing under the international impact. The introduction of new public management is one of the major influential force. However, Chinese reality, e.g. Chinese ideology and its traditional Ti-yong thinking, does not allow China to simply copy international successful experiences. The conflicts between international impact and Chinese reality lead to a higher education system with Chinese characteristics. By employing the governance equalizer, this paper analyzes the development of Chinese university governance in five dimensions: state regulation, stakeholder guidance, academic self-governance, managerial self-governance, and competition, and also discusses the conflicts between the international influence and the Chinese reality presenting in the university governance reform. 

Keywords: university governance, new public management, changes, conflict, governance equalizer, educational reform  

 

Introduction

Since 1980s, the New Public Management (NPM) has been the dominant paradigm in public administration theory and practice. Its rise, which mainly dated back to the UK experience, is one of the striking international trends in public administration. (Levy, 2010; Hood,1991, Leisty & Dee, 2010; De Boer, Enders, & Schimank 2007; Ziegele, 2008). According to Hood (1991), the NPM’s rise can be interpreted to be related to: 1) attempts to slow down or reverse government growths in terms of overt public spending and staffing; 2) the shift towards privatization and quasi-privatization and away from core government institutions, with renewed emphasis on ‘subsidiarity’ in service provision; 3) the development of automation, particularly in information technology, in the production and distribution of public services; 4) the development of a more international agenda, increasingly focused on general issues of public management, policy design, decision styles and intergovernmental cooperation, on top of the older tradition of individual country specialism in public administration. When it comes to the employment of NPM in the field of higher education, the term ‘management’ involves both the state management of higher education institutions and the management of decentralized levels within a single institutions, e.g. faculties, institutes, central units, by a particular management level (Ziegele, 2008). The reform from old public management to new public management in higher education, is a shift of management from ‘government to governance’, or more accurate, to be ‘less government and more governance’ (Leisyte, 2007; De Boer et al, 2007; Ziegele, 2008). The shift from the old public management to the new was further depicted into four aspects: from input-oriented to output-oriented, from process-political single interventions to regulatory policy framework, from ex-ante management to ex-post management, and from precision management to macro management (Ziegele, 2008). The analysis of higher education and university governance has been at the center of higher education research for decades.

Cai (2010) maintained that since 1980s, western countries has undergone two rounds of educational governance reform: the first round of reforms during the 1980s and much of the 1990s is much ideology driven with a particular emphasis on marketisation, privatization and decentralization. The second one after the end of last century is more driven by a pragmatic motive to correct the flaws of the early reforms, characterized by coordination, accountability, re-regulation and performance management. Under international impact, China commits to educational reform in the post-Mao era, but mostly corresponds to the first round of governance reform (Ibid.). The changes of Chinese higher education system under the reform include a shift from centralization to decentralization, diversification of funding sources, the establishment of an increasingly efficient educational, a devolution of authority in human resources from government to universities, privatization in educational provision (Cai, 2012; Yan 2010).

But actually, countries carry out the educational reform under the external impacts depending on their own context. The educational reform in Chinese is also not a simple copy of western experiences in a passive way. The ideology of the country and the Chinese Ti-yong theory encourage Chinese universities to adapt what is useful from western world and to abandon what is unfit to Chinese reality in order to preserve the core value of Chinese tradition (Cai 2012). Nevertheless, exposing to the western experiences will no doubt bring the exposure to the western thoughts and culture. Borrowing international experiences, as a shortcut for China to catch up with the western world, does not turn out fruitfully successful. Conflicts and challenges exist in the Chinese university governance reform. As to develop the Chinese higher education system, it is of significance for researchers, policy-makers and practitioners to be aware of and understand these these conflicts and the cause of the conflicts. The author assumes that the conflict between international influence and the Chinese reality is one of the reasons for the conflicts exist in the Chinese university governance reform. Hence , this paper aims at seek out the answers to a research question: what are the conflicts between international impacts and Chinese reality presenting in the Chinese university governance reform in the post-Mao era? In order to answer this research question, three sub-questions are needed to be answered: 1) in what way Chinese educational reform is under the western impact and the impact of Chinese reality? 2) what are the changes in the Chinese university governance the post-Mao era along with the educational reform? 3) Do conflicts exist in the educational reform of the university governance? What are they?

The paper starts with an introduction of the methodology and the analytical framework, and a brief description of the international impacts on Chinese higher education system and the Chinese Ti-yong theory, and then explores the reforms in Chinese university governance from the five dimensions: state regulation, stakeholder guidance, academic self-governance, managerial self-governance, and competition. After that, the paper discusses the changes and conflicts in the Chinese university governance reform. The last section summarizes the paper and concludes with some remarks based on the analysis and discussion.

 

Methodology

This is primarily a qualitative study to answer the research question. It is mainly based on desk research including the analysis of existing academic literature and government policy documents. After reviewing the documents, the author processed the information through using approaches such as key-words-in-context and mental maps to select, group and sort out data. There was no time to collect original empirical data.

 

Analytical framework

Several efforts have been contributed to develop the analytical framework of the university governance (Leisyte, 2007; De Boer et al, 2007). One of the most well-known and classic example is Clark’s ‘triangle of coordination’(1983) (the state, the market, and the academic oligarchy). De Boer et al (2007) viewed the governance perspective provides a general analytical framework for studying all kinds of coordination problems in higher education system concerning the NPM and used a governance equalizer as an analytical tool for that. The governance equalizer is a model consisting of basic dimensions of the governance: state regulation, stakeholder guidance, academic self-governance, managerial self-governance, and competition (Ibid.). The five dimensions are further depicted as follows:

1) ‘State regulation concerns the traditional notion of top-down authority vested in the state. This dimension refers to regulation by directives; the government prescribes in detail behaviors under particular circumstances.

2) Stakeholder guidance concerns activities that direct universities through goal setting and advice. In public university systems, the government is usually an important stakeholder, but is certainly not necessarily the only player in this respect. It may delegate certain powers to guide to other actors, such as intermediary bodies or representatives of industry in university boards.

3) Academic self-governance concerns the role of professional communities within the university system. This mechanism is institutionalized in collegial decision-making within universities and the peer review-based self-steering of academic communities, for instance in decisions of funding agencies.

4) Managerial self-governance concerns hierarchies within universities as organizations. Here the role of university leadership – rectors or presidents on the top-level, deans on the intermediate level - in internal goal setting, regulation, and decision-making is at stake.

5) Competition for scarce resources – money, personnel, and prestige - within and between universities takes place mostly not on “real” markets but on “quasi-markets” where performance evaluations by peers substitute the demand pull from customers.’ (p.138-139).

De Boer et al (2007) believed that ‘a configuration of governance is made up of a specific mixture of the five dimensions at a particular point of time’ (p.139). In the governance equalizer model, each of the five governance dimensions can be turned up or down independently from each other (Ibid.). In this study, the governance equalizer model is used as an analytical framework to explore the university governance reform in China. 

 

Background information

In the past decades, China`s higher education system has been undertaken tremendous changes. When the country was founded, it followed the Soviet-Model and the state regulated almost everything. In the Mao era (1949-1976), the Chinese higher education system was 'traditionally a centrally planned system: governments allocating higher education resources, appointing university leaders, assigning jobs for graduates and even deciding enrollment numbers as well as curricula' (Cai 2010, p.6). University life and work during Mao era was dominated by the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thoughts, and the university was not one conducive to intellectual development or exploration (Ruth 2008). Only after the implementation of the “Opening-up and Reform” policy in 1978, the Chinese higher education system is opened to the outside world and began to be under reform. As a developing country, China’s development is under the influence of developed western countries. The influence is on-going in two ways: actively and subtly. The development of modern Chinese higher education is through borrowing foreign experience actively (Cai, 2012). On one hand, China introduces the advanced theories or models from western countries into its higher education system. On the other hand, the state encourages academics and students to go abroad to learn advanced knowledge. The going-abroad population grows almost from zero in 1978 to about 240,000 in 2009. Though only less than half of the people, around 100,000 will return to China, it is a great progress for the country (Fan 2012). Apart from actively embraces the western influence, the Chinese higher education is also under the subtle influence. Internationalization is seen as the most influential force. From 1980s, super-national organization, e.g. World Bank (WB), World Trade Organization (WTO), and UNESCO, began to influence Chinese higher education policy (Yang, Vidovich and Currie, 2007). The UNESCO reports and WB reports state the requirement for Chinese higher education institutions to reform in certain areas. Modernization can be seen as another important influence. As a late-comer in modernization, China undergoes a typical 'exogenous modernization' (Cai, 2012, p.3). Even though China borrows western experience in modernization, but goes in a different direction: the modernization in the West is mainly a process of change from spiritual cultural to material, while in China, the process started from the material level, then gradually moved to institutional layer and affected the spiritual core (Ibid.). The reason behind this difference is that the Chinese reality is quite different from the western countries’.

There are two Chinese elements needed to take into account when considering Chinese reality: the ideology of the country and Chinese Ti-yong theory. In China, the government and the Communist Party of China (CPC) have never been clearly separated. The role of the government is to implement the CPC’s guidelines (Cai 2010). Unlike that in western countries, political party influence university at a distance, in Chinese universities, CPC is one of the key stakeholders. Not only the ideology does not allow China to simply copy the western pattern, but also its culture and traditional thoughts do. From the beginning of 20th century, an idea “Zhong(Chinese) Ti(essence) Xi(Western) Yong(means)”, called Ti-Yong theory, proposes that Chinese people should maintain the Chinese morality while making use of western science and technology (Cai, 2012). In this sense, the application of western experiences in China is either used as an instrumental strategy or as to solve some similar problems, rather than making a fundamental shift of value orientation (Ibid.). The contradictions between the impacts of the Ti-yong theory and the Chinese ideology, and the international impacts have influenced the Chinese university governance reform, which will be explored in the following sections.    

 

Analysis

In the Mao era, the Chinese higher education system followed Soviet Model. State highly regulated university. There is almost no competition or self-governance in university. The state is the only decision-maker. In the post-Mao era, through educational reform, the state decentralizes its control on university and university governance changes gradually.

 

State Regulation

Since the publication of the article “Giving More Autonomy to Higher Education Institutions” in 1979 raised heated discussion in the society, the central government began to reconsider its role in Chinese higher education. Along with the implementation of “Opening-up and Reform” policy, market elements stepped into university–government relations and the central government began to turn into a “market manager” (Yang et al, 2007). State tries to shift its role from a controller to a supervisor in Post-Mao era. And this role-shifting process takes place in two levels: vertical and horizontal dimension (Zhou, 2012). In vertical dimension, the central government shifted its regulation responsibility to the local governments. In 2013, among 2,442 higher education institutions in China, only 102 are directly under the central government’s governance (MoE, 2013). In the horizontal dimension, the government shifts its governance to universities and gives greater autonomy to universities.

The issue of Higher Education Law (HEL) in 1998 is a turning point of Chinese university autonomy (MoE, 1998). The HEL states that a Chinese higher education institution has its autonomy in university governance. A Chinese higher education institution is a corporate organization since it is founded and a university president is the representative of the corporate. The HEL identifies Chinese university autonomy in seven areas (MoE, 1998): students enrollment, curriculum design, teaching activities, research, academic cooperation, faculty appointment and budgeting. Since then, de-regulation has become the major theme of educational reform. In 2011,  the issue of Temporary Measures on establishing the Constitution of Higher Educational Institutes (“Measures”) (MoE, 2011a) meaned a greater autonomy for the Chinese universities. 26 key universities under the direct governance of MoE began to establish their university constitutions. The university constitution is the fundamental principle for university to use their autonomy to manage the university democratically. “Measures” states that it is important to separate university management from state’s control and the constitution of university must be established in the purpose of protecting university autonomy. With the increase of university autonomy, the state control on university gets looser.

Currently, the Chinese government chooses to act as a regulator, an enable and a facilitator rather than an involver in the governance of university (Mok, 2005). Nevertheless, the state still play a key role in university governance. 

 

Stakeholder Guidance

In terms of this dimension, the privatization in educational provision and the diversification of university finance are the most important and remarkable reform. From 1985, the establishments of private higher education institutions were allowed by the government, and then in 1998 the HEL guaranteed the legality of establishing private institutes (MoE, 1998). Since then, the state has been encouraging enterprises, social groups and other sectors or persons to establish private higher education institutions legally. The Chinese government supported private institutes in two ways: first, to establish minimum standards for licensing; and second, to provide potential consumers (students, families and employers) with information so that properly informed choices can be made (OECD, 2003). The Regulations on Establishment and Administration of Min-Ban(Private) Institutes in 2007 (MoE, 2007) and the Measures on Establishment and Administration of Independent Colleges in 2008 (MoE, 2008) put the establishment and governance of private higher education institutions on a more solid legal footing. With the encouragement and support of the state, the number of private institutes grew rapidly in the past three decades. In 2013, the number of private institutes is 706 (MoE, 2013). With the privatization of higher education institutions, the only-pubic-university situation in China has been changed. 

Before 1985, the Chinese government covered all the tuition fees for students. Since 1985, self-support students have been recruited in universities, which symbolized the very beginning of the diversification of university fundings. Student tuition fees have gradually become an important part of university fundings. Since 1993, the “Outline for Education Reform and Development in China” (“Outline”)(CPCC & SC, 1993) promoted the establishment of university diversified finance mechanism, though in which state funding is still the major finance resource. In 1998, the HEL encourages social groups, enterprise, private sectors or person and other social sectors to invest in higher education institutions (MoE, 1998). When the state decentralizes its regulation on university, it shifts the finance responsibility of universities from the central government to the provincial governments. By recruiting self-support students, the finance responsibility shifts form the state to the students’ family. At present, the major funding resources for public universities in China can be summed up in five groups (OECD, 2003; Cai 2010; Wang 2001): first, a per capita payment made to the institution by the central or provincial government; second, additional government funds provided (mainly) to the key universities; third, student tuition fees; fourth, additional income that universities and colleges are able to raise through supplementary teaching, research and other activities; fifth, other social incomes, including donations and endowments. For private institutes, most of the financial resources come from student tuition and entrepreneurial earnings (OECD, 2003).

With the privatization of educational sectors and diversification of financing, enterprises, social groups and other social sectors and persons have become important stakeholders for Chinese higher education system. However, the state is still the most influential stakeholder in public universities. Considering the majority of Chinese universities are public universities, the state is still the biggest stakeholder of Chinese higher education system. The state guides the university through setting up the agenda, financing, quality assurance and co-ordination. 

 

Academic Self-governance

In Mao era, there is seldom academic freedom or academic self-governance in Chinese universities. The situation has been improved since the end of Cultural Revolution in 1976. When considering academic self-governance, twos aspects should be taken into consideration: academic autonomy in the governance and academic freedom (Yang et al, 2007).

Regarding academic autonomy in the governance, as mentioned before, with the decrease of state regulation, universities are given more autonomy to govern themselves in the post-Mao era. According to the HEL (MoE, 1998), every university should establish an academic board. The Academic Board is responsible for all the academic issues, including formulation of courses, majors and departments, creating and implementing teaching process and research programs, evaluation of the teaching and research outcome (Ibid.). The Academic Board consists of professors and associate professors, and some of them are administrators in university. According to Bo and Wang (2012), there are two major changes in the academic autonomy in governance in Chinese universities since 1978: first, the expansion of academic power in the university governance. With the trend of de-administration, the administrative power is shifting from university administrators to academics. Academics are given greater autonomy of decision-making in academic field. Second, the change of university administrators’ role. The role of university administrators shifts from governors to servers. Instead of administering academics and giving them tasks, administrators begin to serve scholars and try to provide supportive environment to them. In the post-Mao era, more and more academic freedom is allowed. The Chinese lecturers can decide what to say in class and how to assess students’ learning; the national government now rarely interferes in curriculum design (Yang et al, 2007). But at the same time there are continuing constraints, especially in the aspects of political education, sensitive areas of research and the appointment of the President and Party secretaries within universities by central government (Ibid.). Besides, the academic corruption and dishonesty behavior, occurring in recent years from time to time, has drawn the government’s attention. As to solve the problem, academics also hope the state to to get involved to solve the corruption problem, acting as a monitor instead of  only a regulator (Zha, 2010). In response to that, the state began to place more constraints on academic field (Ibid.). The development of university academic self-governance is a “dancing in a cage” process: increasing but limited (Yang et al, 2007). Compare to the development in the former two dimensions (state regulation and stakeholder guidance), academic self-governance confronts more difficulties and there are still more to come in the future.

 

Managerial self-governance

Considering Chinese ideology, the Chinese university self-governance is quite different from that in western countries. Bo and Wang (2012) summarized three types of managerial models in universities: first, European model, of which French and German model is the representative. In this managerial model, academic power is dominant in management; second, American model. In this model, managers dominates university management; third, English model, which is a corporate management structure. Both university managers and academics are in power in different areas and try to keep a power balance. Then what about Chinese universities? Chinese universities try to work out a mixed managerial model of European and American model: the external management follows the American model and internal management follows the European model. It is hoped that a managerial structure with government’s administration as an external governance power and academics’ self-governance as an internal power, would be established (Ibid.). According to the HEL (MoE 1998), Chinese higher education institutions should establish a managerial structure with the university president as a representative under the guidance of CPC Committee of higher education institutions. CPC Committee of higher education institutions decides universities’ direction of development and supports the president to fulfill his/her mission of managing the university. So, managerial self-governance in Chinese universities consists of three groups of power: political power, administrative power and academic power. The ideal managerial governance structure is a “check and balance” model.

However, in reality, this managerial model has never kept a balance. To the contrary, it is an imbalanced managerial structure. On one hand, the CPC has the strongest power in the university management and the CPC committee is the decision-maker of universities’ management. A Chinese university president, as a representative of administrative staff is the executive of the CPC’s decision. These two streams of power are strong in university management and cooperate closely. On the other hand, the academic power is too weak in Chinese universities’ management and usually only has the decision-making power in the academic field. This imbalanced managerial structure declines academics’ initiative in managing university and academics call for more academic autonomy in management of university (Bo and Wang, 2012). In reply for the demand of increasing academic autonomy, some measures are put into practice in recent years: First, involve more and more academics into university management, and at the same time, increase the number of administrators in the academic board. A dual identity of academics can make them think about university issues from both sides. Second, employ a distinguished professor as a university president. A university president should not only be the executive of the CPC committee , but also an expert in his/her disciplinary. In this way, he/she can perform for both sides and represents both sides’ needs. Third, establish a university constitution. According to “Measures” (MoE, 2011a), university should establish its constitution based on the principle that political power and administrative power as well as the CPC’s governance and university administration are separated.

 

Competition

Competition of universities in the Post-Mao China has been increasingly heated since 1980s. The Chinese government’s attempts to internationalize the country, for example, by following the models set out by some of the supranational organizations such as WB and WTO, put the country in international market to compete with the rest of the world (Mok & Lo, 2007). The emergence of private educational institutions, the shift of state responsibility in educational provision to families and individuals, the permit of fee-charging, as well as the introduction of internal competition among educational institutions, clearly suggest that Chinese higher education system has been going through a process of marketisation (Mok, 2002). The marketisation, accompanied with adherence to neo-liberalism must courage the domestic competition among universities (Ibid.).

In response to the international competition, in 1995, the Chinese government launched an ambitious project called “Project 211”. It aims to develop 100 world-class institutions during the 21st Century (OECD, 2003). Later in 1998, another program, the “Project 985” was launched. This project aims to develop several world-class research-oriented institutions in the future (Ibid.). Until the closure of the doors to these two projects in 2011, 39 universities are admitted to join the “Project 985” and 112 are admitted to the “Project 211”. Both projects aim to increase the competitiveness of Chinese higher education institutions and develop Chinese world-class universities in the world. University Rankings, the launch of key university policy and the encouragement of developing world-class university, make universities more sensitive about their competitiveness. Actually since 1993, the introduction of marketisation and neo-liberalism into higher education by no means have led universities to compete with each other almost for everything, including funding, students, prestigious professors and better facility, etc. Diversification of financing and the decline of state’s financial support force university to compete for funding. For example, the reason why universities compete to join in “Project 985” is not only that “Project 985” becomes a brand of excellence in China, but also universities in the project can get extra research fundings from the state (Hu, 2012). Moreover, stemming from the idea “better students, better future”, every year the competition of student recruitment between universities are fierce. Besides, the competition for excellent personnel is also fierce. Universities are trying to attract more excellent academics to join the university by offering better working environment, experimental facilities, fundings. etc..

According to Tang, Lam and Ma (2010), competition lies at the heart of the socialist market economy policy. The introduction of marketisation in Chinese higher education will unavoidably lead to increasing competition in this field.

 

Discussion

Based on the analyses above, the transformation of the Chinese university governance could be summarized in six points: first, the governance of Chinese universities has undergone substantial change in most respects rather gradually, and changes are going in the direction of NPM. Second, starting with a strong state regulation, the state regulation on Chinese universities decentralizes in the post-Mao era. Third, the stakeholders of universities have been diversified, even though the state is still the most influential stakeholder guiding the development of university. Fourth, opposite to the decentralization of academic self-governance in the western countries, Chinese academic self-governance started in a very low level and academics are still striving to have greater autonomy in the future. Fifth, regarding the university leadership, the CPC secretariat and the university president, as the representatives of the political power and the administrative power, take up the dominant role in the university self-governance. Sixth, the competition of Chinese university is increasingly fierce currently.

Besides changes, conflicts in the Chinese university governance must be seen and paid attention to as well. In the dimension of state regulation, conflicts exit in the process of decentralization and de-regulation. Take the key university policy as an example, the MoE tries to loose its control on the universities while keeping its eyes closely on key universities. Though there are only 102 (out of 2,344) universities under the direct governance of central government now, most of them are key universities in China. The central government is regulating Chinese higher education system through key university policy, thus guiding the development of the whole system. And among these 102 universities, 73 are under the direct governance of the MoE. In 2012, Regulations on Administrating Higher Educational Institutes under the Ministry of Education (“Regulations”) is issued. The “Regulations” gives a clear guideline about how to administrate universities under the MoE in key areas including constructing university, establish research projects, auditing, financing and quality assurance mechanism.

Actually regarding the state is the most influential stakeholder in university, it is noticeable that the situation of stakeholder guidance in university governance is closely related to the state regulation. Hence the same conflicts arise in this dimension. The privatization of educational sectors and the diversification of university financial resources are unavoidably accompanied with the introduction of market. In recent years, economic crisis influences all over the world and almost all the areas, including higher education, which tells people that market force do not necessarily produce positive effects. This causes the tensions between the state guidance and the universities’ wishes of operating more freely in a higher education marketplace. Besides, the diversification of stakeholders requires university to take into account their different needs, and this process may encounter conflicts as well.

While academics are granted greater autonomy, some problems occurred and conflicts exist in the development of academic self-governance. First, while there may be greater autonomy in governance, the introduction of performance management put pressure of accountability on academics, which constraints the academic autonomy. Second, the situation of the academic autonomy differentiates depending on the tiers of universities. Universities under the governance of central government have more academic freedom than provincial universities. This imbalance of development causes conflicts between universities. Third, though the government allows the academic board to be in charge of the degree conferment in university, there are still strict constraints in this area, especially in conferment of the post-graduate degrees. Until 2010, only public universities can confer master degrees and doctorial degrees can be only conferred by the state (Zha, 2010). Fourth, the state regulation in political education not only limits the academic freedom in this area but also discourages scholars’ passion in other fields.

The conflicts in the dimension of the managerial self-governance are closely related to the conflicts in the state regulation and the academic self-governance. If we situate the Chinese higher education system in Clark (1983)’s triangle of coordination, it is quite closed to the state and the market and far from the academic oligarchy. Here the market is not a free market, but rather a state-led market. De-administration, to some extend, relieves the tension between administrators and academics in the university management, but tracing what behind the tension is the tension between the still relatively strong state regulation and the relatively weak academic autonomy.

Internationalization, university rankings, the key university policy, the privatization of higher education institutions, the diversification of university fundings, marketization all contribute to the increasing competition within and between universities. While the key university policy and all types of university ranking encourage universities to become world-class universities, it encourage the development of the vertical diversity in Chinese universities. And meanwhile, the massification of higher education, the privatization of higher education institutions and the diversification of the university fundings have developed the horizontal diversity in the Chinese higher education system. Then how to balance these two diversities, and to solve the conflicts in distributing educational resources to different types of universities is a big challenge. 

Conflicts exist in all five dimensions and the fundamental reason lies in the conflicts between western impact and Chinese reality. China once followed the Soviet-model, the management structure of Chinese universities is still under great influence of bureaucracy (Zhou, 2012). While decentralization must be accompanied by the introduction of market-oriented elements, the conflict between the bureaucracy management and the need to follow the market hinders the university to march in its decentralization road. Even though the de-administration may free the university governance from the bureaucratic burden, the academic autonomy is still relative weak to take up the managerial role. The constraint on political education dis-encourages academics passion to conduct academic activities in other fields. It becomes an invisible constraint on academic freedom. Moreover, the Ti-Yong theory is planted deeply in China. When following the international trend to reform in the university governance, China is trying to preserve its essence. That is to say, while the Chinese higher education system is under the transformation of decentralization of state regulation, de-administration, privatization of the higher education institutions, diversification of the fundings, increase of the vertical and horizontal diversity, the Chinese universities also persist on the essence of Chinese university governance, e.g. bureaucratic management, state-led development, ideology education, etc.. Even though under the international impact, the Chinese government is motivated to loose the control of universities, the Chinese government is redundant to let go of that. Then how to face these conflicts and to march through these conflicts have become a challenge for the Chinese governance as well as the Chinese universities to face.  

 

Conclusion

In 2010, the MoE published the Outline on National medium and long-term education reform and development (2010-2020) (MoE, 2010) and later in 2011, Suggestions on development of Higher Education during the period of 'Twelfth Five-Year Plan’ was released (MoE, 2011b). The Chinese government encourages the Chinese universities to further reform in university governance (MoE, 2010; MoE, 2011b). When carrying on the governance reform, policy-makers and practitioners might need to first to consider what is a good governance?The UNDP defined it as a governance addresses the allocation and management of resources to respond to collective problems; it is characterized by participation, transparency, accountability, rule of law, effectiveness and equity and strategic vision (UNDP, 1997). Comparing the current status of the Chinese university governance to this standards as well as the NPM standards, it should be noticed there is still a long way for the Chinese universities to go. Changes will take place in the future and conflicts will still exit. The conflicts between international impacts and Chinese reality will still cause continuous different conflicts in the development of university governance. By encountering the conflicts through education reform, China higher education system has been changing. China will develop or has been developing a higher education system with Chinese characteristics in the Post-Mao era.

 

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