page_title: Nankai University
section_title: 1976–present
hierarchical_section_title: Nankai University / History / 1976–present
caption_attribution_description: 天津南开大学第二主教学楼
context_page_description: Nankai University is a public research university located in Tianjin, China. It is a member of the prestigious 985 and 211 group of universities and a Chinese Ministry of Education Class A Double First Class University. It was founded in 1919, by educators Yan Xiu and Zhang Boling.
  During the Sino-Japanese War, Nankai University, Peking University and Tsinghua University merged and formed the National Changsha Provisional University, which later moved to Kunming and was renamed the National Southwestern Associated University. It was described as The North Star of Higher Learning. On 25 December 2000, the State Ministry of Education signed an agreement with Tianjin Municipal Government to jointly establish and develop Nankai University. Since then, Nankai has been listed among the universities to receive priority development investments from the Chinese government in the twenty-first century.
  Nankai has long been recognized as one of the most prestigious universities in China, constantly ranked among various top 10 lists of Chinese Universities.
context_section_description: After 1980, Nankai added a number of new specialities and institutes. In Arts, applied specialities on financing were set up and the School of Economics was reopened in 1983, while in Sciences, interdisciplinary, marginal and high and new technological specialities were added.
  Nankai was amongst the first universities in China to open its doors for students from America in the 1980s. In 1989 the university was ordered by the Tianjin public security bureau to send two Americans back home, following rising political tensions over pro-democracy demonstrations.
  By the late 1980s, Nankai University had grown to be a comprehensive university embracing Humanities, Natural Sciences, Applied Sciences, Life Sciences, Managements and Art.
  In 1994 Tianjin Foreign Trade College was merged to Nankai university. In 1999 under the combined efforts of Nankai and TEDA, TEDA College was set up. In 2000 the State Ministry of Education signed an agreement with Tianjin Municipal Government on jointly establishing and developing Nankai University. Experimental cooperation between Nankai University and Tianjin University was initiated on the principle of independent school-running and close cooperation. In 2002 under the cooperative efforts of Nankai, Government of Shenzhen and UC Berkeley, the Financial Engineering College was established in Shenzhen.
  In May 2006 Nankai's president Rao Zihe tendered 15 of the 21 university's college dean positions, restaffing key positions in an effort to further improve the university's educational programs.
  In February 2015, following Chinese media reports and statements from inside the Chinese Communist Party that universities would have to "be cleansed of liberal Western textbooks and other ideological heresies" , Nankai's president Gong Ke publicly stated: "Recently I've read people on the Internet saying that the ranks of academics must be cleansed, purified and rectified. I can't agree with this. This was the mentality of 1957 or 1966." and "We cannot re-enact this history of "leftist" errors against intellectuals."
caption: Second Main Building of NKU
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