When China Rules the World

Predicting the future of a language is fraught with difficulty. As the linguistic authority David Crystal writes: ‘If, in the Middle Ages, you had dared to predict the death of Latin as the language of education, people would have laughed in your face – as they would, in the eighteenth century, if you had suggested that any language other than French could be a future norm of polite society.’ [1303] The rise of English has coincided with, and been a product of, the global dominance of the United States. By the same token, the decline of the United States will adversely affect the position of English: the global use of a language does not exist in some kind of vacuum but is closely aligned with the power of a nation-state. [1304] The nascent competition between English and Mandarin for the status of global lingua franca, a contest which is likely to endure for this century and perhaps the next as well, is fascinating not least because, as languages and cultural forms, they could hardly be more different: one alphabetic, the other pictographic; one the vehicle for a single spoken language, the other (in its written form) embracing many different ones; English having grown by overseas expansion and conquest, Mandarin by a gradual process of territorial enlargement.

THE RISE OF CHINESE UNIVERSITIES

An important way in which the United States has left its mark on the world has been through its universities. It possesses what are generally regarded as the world’s best universities, which attract some of the finest academics and students from around the globe. At the top US universities, researchers can enjoy facilities and resources second to none, while a degree from a university like Harvard, Berkeley or MIT carries more kudos than a degree from anywhere else, with the possible exception of Oxbridge. Great universities, of course, require huge national wealth and resources, be they public or private institutions. It is not surprising, therefore, that hitherto the West has dominated the league tables for the top universities. In the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2007, US universities accounted for six of the top ten and the UK four. In the top twenty there were two Asian universities, with Tokyo University 17th and Hong Kong University 18th. There were six Chinese universities in the top 200, with Beijing University 36th, Tsinghua University 40th, Fudan University 85th, Nanjing University 125th, University of Science and Technology of China 155th, and Shanghai Jiaotong University 163rd. [1305] There were five Chinese universities in the top 200 in 2004. The Shanghai Jiaotong University ’s Academic Ranking of World Universities [1306] and a similar one published by the China Scientific Review Research Centre confirm that the top Chinese universities are making progress up the global rankings. China is also emerging as a main centre of top-flight business education, according to a Financial Times ranking of Executive MBAs, which shows four of the top twenty programmes are based there (including Hong Kong). [1307]

Growing numbers of foreign students are taking courses at Chinese universities. During the 2003 academic year, 77,628 foreign students were seeking advanced degrees at Chinese universities, of whom around 80 per cent were from other Asian countries. South Korea accounted for by far the largest number, almost half, but others came from Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Nepal and elsewhere. [1308] In addition, Chinese students study abroad in large numbers, especially in the United States but also in the UK. The number of Chinese studying in the United States has been around 60,000 a year since 2001, while Chinese enrolments in the UK leapt to over 50,000 in 2003-4. [1309]

Figure 53. Origin of international students in the United States, 2007.

It seems likely that Chinese universities will, over the next two decades, rise steadily up the global rankings to eventually occupy positions within the top ten. In order to accelerate this process the government is making determined attempts to attract leading overseas Chinese scholars to take up appointments at Chinese universities. [1310] Universities like Beijing, Tsinghua, Fudan and Renmin will, in time, become institutions of recognized global excellence that are increasingly able to attract some of the best scholars from around the world, Chinese or otherwise, while the trend already evident for Chinese universities to become a magnet for students in East Asia will grow as they begin to perform an equivalent academic role in the region to that played by the Chinese economy.

CHINESE CULTURE AS SOFT POWER