Fortress state, cultural continuities and economic change: Higher education in mainland China and Taiwan

Abstract

Since 1949, the higher education systems in mainland China and Taiwan have been developed in disparate geopolitical and social contexts, but have faced similar dilemmas between economic and cultural tasks. The dilemma has lasted in China for more than two centuries and nowadays can also be located in many developing industrializing countries. The article offers the concept of 'fortress state' to explain how between 1949 and 1995 these two were affected by both domestic and international factors. In particular, the role of higher education as an agent of both political socialization and economic modernization is analyzed in the context of the transformations in the two contemporary Chinese societies. The article also examines how cultural traditions, the upholding of a national belief system, nation building and the foreign relations of mainland China and Taiwan help maintain the two-century old tension between economic modernization and the preservation of a cultural and national identity.