Peking University

From its establishment on July 3, 1898, the school was known as the Imperial University of Peking (simplified Chinese: 京师大学堂; traditional Chinese: 京師大學堂; pinyin: Jīngshī Dàxuétáng; lit.: 'Capital Grand Study Hall'). The school was established to replace the Taixue, specifically the Guozijian, or Imperial College, as part of the Hundred Days' Reform initiated by the Guangxu Emperor. Liang Qichao drafted the University's organising regulations. The university was authorised to administrate and supervise all provincial schools. Sun Jianai, who then served as the minister of the Ministry of Personnel under the Qing court, was appointed to manage the university. Recommended by Li Hongzhang, Emperor Guangxu appointed American missionary William Alexander Parson Martin to serve as the dean of Department of Western Learning.

William Alexander Parson Martin, Dean of the Department of Western Learning with his students.

The plaque of the Imperial University of Peking.

The Guangxu Emperor's reform initiatives were intensely opposed by powerful conservatives of the Qing court. On Sep 21,1898, Empress Dowager Cixi, with support from conservatives, abruptly ended the Hundred Days' Reform and put Guangxu under house arrest at Zhongnanhai. Cixi's coup d'état was followed by immediate rescinding of all policies and laws enacted by Guangxu and his reform-minded supporters, the Imperial University of Peking was the only part of the reform that survived.

In 1900, the university was paralyzed by the Boxer Rebellion, later in the year, the "Eight-Power Allied Forces" (八国联军) entered Beijing and the university's operating was continually suspended. In 1902, "Jingshitongwenguan", a school established by the Qing court in 1862 for foreign language learning was incorporated into the Imperial University of Peking. In 1904, the university sent 47 students to study abroad, which marked the first time for Chinese higher education institution to send students to foreign countries.

Following the Xinhai Revolution, the Imperial University of Peking was renamed "Government University of Peking" in 1912 and then "National University of Peking" in 1919[20] (simplified Chinese: 国立北京大学; traditional Chinese: 國立北京大學; pinyin: Guólì Běijīng Dàxué).

The noted scholar Cai Yuanpei was appointed president on January 4, 1917, and helped transform Peking University into the country's largest institution of higher learning, with 14 departments and an enrollment of more than 2,000 students. President Cai, inspired by the German model of academic freedom, introduced faculty governance and democratic management to the university. Cai recruited an intellectually diverse faculty that included some of the most prominent figures in the progressive New Culture Movement, including Hu Shih, Liu Banlong, Ma Yinchu, Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, Lu Xun and Liang Shuming. Meanwhile, leading conservatives Gu Hongming and Huang Kan also taught at the university.[21] A firm supporter for freedom of thought, Cai advocated for educational independence and resigned several times protesting the government's policy and interference.

The faculty of Peking University Institute for Chinese Classics in 1924

Statue of Cai Yuanpei on Peking University's campus

Peking University students protesting the Treaty of Versallies in the May Fourth Movement.

On May 1, 1919, some students of Peking University learned that the Treaty of Versailles would allow Japan to receive Germany's colonising rights in Shandong province. An assembly at Peking University that included these students and representatives from other universities in Beijing was quickly organised. On May 4, students from thirteen universities marched to Tiananmen to protest the terms of Treaty of Versailles, demanded the Beiyang government to refuse to sign the treaty. Demonstrators also demanded the immediate resignation of three officials: Cao Rulin, Minister of the Ministry of Transportation, Zhang Zongxiang, China's Ambassador to Japan and Lu Zongyu, Minister of Currency, who they believed were in cooperation with Japanese. The protest ended up with some protesters being beaten and arrested, and Cao Rulin's house burned by protesters. Following the protest on May 4, students, workers and merchants from nearly all China's major cities went on strike and boycotted Japanese goods in China. The Beiyang government eventually agreed to release the arrested students and fired the three officials under intense public pressure, China's representatives in Paris refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles.[22]

These protests, now known as the May Fourth Movement, has been widely regarded as one of the most important turning points in modern China's history. In its broader sense, the May Fourth Movement led to the establishment of radical Chinese intellectuals who went on to mobilize peasants and workers into the Communist party and gain the organizational strength that would solidify the success of the Communist Revolution.

Following the May Fourth Movement, Li Dazhao, who was then the director of Peking University Library and also a professor of economics, founded the first communist organisation in Beijing while Chen Duxiu founded another communist organisation in Shanghai.

In 1920, Peking University became the first Chinese university to accept female students.

After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and the resulting expansion of Japanese territorial control in east China, Peking University was relocated to the southwestern city of Changsha and formed the Changsha Temporary University along with nearby schools Tsinghua University and Nankai University. In 1938, the three schools moved again, this time further southwest to Kunming, and formed the National Southwestern Associated University.

In 1946, after the Japanese surrender in World War II, Peking University moved back to Beijing. At that time, the university comprised six schools (Arts, Science, Law, Medicine, Engineering, and Agriculture), and a research institute for humanities. The total student enrollment grew up to 3,000.

In 1949, after the People's Republic of China was established, Peking University lost its "national" appellation to reflect the fact that all universities under the new socialist state would be public. In 1952, Mao Zedong's government re-grouped the country's higher education institutions with individual institutions tending to specialize in a certain field of study after the Soviet model. As a result, some arts and science faculties of Tsinghua University and former Yenching University were merged into Peking University. At the same time, however, the university lost its Law, Medicine, Engineering and Agriculture schools. These schools and faculties were either merged into other universities or to found new colleges. During the re-grouping, Yenching University was closed up. Peking University moved from downtown Beijing to the former Yenching campus.

Peking University's West Gate, one of the symbols of the university campus

The first disturbances of the Cultural Revolution began at Peking University in 1966; education there ceased between 1966 and 1970.

On May 4, 1998, at the 100th anniversary of Peking University, Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin announced that the government would initiate a national project to promote China's higher education by funding selected universities to achieve world-class level. The project was later named “985” based the date of its announcement.

In 2000, Beijing Medical University was merged back into Peking University and became the Peking University Health Science Campus. Beijing Medical University used to be Medical School of Peking University and was separated from Peking University at 1952. Peking University now has eight affiliated hospitals and 12 teaching hospitals.

In 2001, Peking University established the Yuanpei Program. It was formalized in 2007 as the Yuanpei College, named in honor of the highly respected former university president Cai Yuanpei. The college hosts an elite undergraduate liberal arts program that allows students to freely choose specialisations. In the same year, Peking University set up a satellite campus for graduate students in Shenzhen. The university's second business school, Peking University HSBC Business School was launched on the Shenzhen campus in 2004.

In 2014, Peking University established the Yenching Academy, a fully funded global fellowship program designed "to cultivate leaders who will advocate for global progress and cultural understanding."

In 2018, Peking University was subject to criticism over its handling of sexual assault allegations against a member of the faculty, Professor Shang Yang. The accuser, Gao Yan, a Chinese literature undergraduate, accused the teacher of rape; she committed suicide in 1998.[23] On April 9, 2018, student activist Yue Xin filed a freedom of information request to the university for documents related to the accusations, specifically Professor Yang's official self-criticism documents. According to Yue, the university faculty attempted on numerous occasions to coerce her into rescinding the request.[24] The incident has been referred to as being part of the international Me Too movement.[23] Following The Jasic Incident of 2018, Peking University began exerting pressure on its student-led Marxist group, The Peking University Marxist Society. During the autumn semester of 2018, The Marxist Society was informed that it would not be able to re-register as an academic club.[25][26] The group released a statement in September announcing that it would likely be shut down by the university in the near future.[27] Peking University undergraduate student and head of the Marxist Society Qiu Zhanxuan was arrested by Chinese police on December 28, while traveling off campus to a celebration of Mao Zedong's 125th birthday.[28][29]

According to CUAA's 2015 ranking of notable alumni in politics, Peking University has produced the most notable politicians among all universities in China.[72] As of 2017, 88 Peking University alumni currently serve in the government at vice-ministerial positions or higher,[73] two of the seven member Standing Committee of the CPC, Li Keqiang and Zhao Leji, are Peking University alumni. Bo Xilai, former member of the Politburo and Communist Party Secretary of Chongqing, who was convicted on corruption charges in 2013 and sentenced to life in prison, also graduated from Peking University.

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  Incumbent Premier of China, Li Keqiang.
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  Ex-member of the Politburo and Communist Party Secretary of Chongqing, Bo Xilai.

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  Lu Xun, leading figure of modern Chinese literature.
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  Hu Shih, influential Chinese philosopher and essayist.
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  Lin Yutang, Chinese writer, linguist, inventor and translator.
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  Liang Shuming, philosopher.
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  Gu Hongming, translator and educator.
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  Fei Xiaotong, sociologist and anthropologist.

• Deng Jiaxian 邓稼先 – a nuclear physics expert; a leading organizer and key contributor to the Chinese nuclear weapon programs.
• Qian Sanqiang 钱三强 – a nuclear physicist and education administrator; a leading organizer and key contributor to the Chinese nuclear weapon programs; former president of Zhejiang University
• Zhu Guangya 朱光亚 – a renowned nuclear physicist of China, key contributor to China's "Two Bombs, One Satellite" projects.
• Zhou Guangzhao 周光召 – expert on particle physics, discoverer of PCAC (partial conservation of axial current), an important step toward the understanding of symmetry breaking; former director of the Chinese Nuclear Weapons Research Institute and president of the Academica Sinica.
• Yitang Zhang 张益唐 – B.S. 1982, M.S. 1985, mathematician Discovered upper bond of prime numbers as close to 70, 000, 000, and won Ostrowski Prize (2013) Cole Prize (2014) Rolf Schock Prize (2014) MacArthur Fellowship (2014).
• Li Bulou 李步楼 – a translator and philosopher. Holds the honor of "Experts with outstanding contributions" given by the State Council of the People's Republic of China.
• Tu Youyou 屠呦呦 – a pharmaceutical chemist and educator. She is best known for discovering artemisinin (also known as qinghaosu) and dihydroartemisinin, used to treat malaria, which has saved millions of lives. For her work, Tu received the 2011 Lasker Award in clinical medicine and the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura. Tu received The State Preeminent Science and Technology Award (2016)
• Yu Min 于敏 – a prominent Chinese nuclear physicist, father of China's H-bomb. Yu received The State Preeminent Science and Technology Award (2014).
• Wang Xuan 王选 – a computer scientist and innovator of the Chinese printing industry. Wang received The State Preeminent Science and Technology Award (2001).
• Wang Zhongcheng 王忠诚 – a neurosurgery expert, pioneer and one of the founders of neurosurgery in China. Wang received The State Preeminent Science and Technology Award (2008).