Xiamen, Fujian Province, China - 16. Xiamen University

Xiamen University was founded in 1921 by Tan Kah Kee, the well-known patriotic overseas Chinese leader. It was the first university in China founded by an overseas Chinese. At present it is the only key comprehensive university directly affiliated with the Education Ministry in any of the five special economic zones and is one of China's higher-level universities designated for the state key construction of the "211 Project" and the "985 Project." When the university was first founded, Tan Kah Kee chose the following for its motto: Pursue Excellence, Strive for Perfection. Over the past eighty-two years, as the result of painstaking efforts by several generations of faculty and graduates, Xiamen University has accumulated rich experience in offering its educational programs. The university presents its features as a university "in the Special Economic Zone on the coast near Taiwan and with close ties with overseas Chinese."

Following its fine tradition of "loving the motherland and the university", it has enjoyed a fine reputation both at home and abroad. In the past 82 years since its founding, over 120,000 students graduated from the university, and over 50 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) once have studied or worked at Xiamen University. During the Anti-Japanese War, for continuation, Xiamen University was forced to move to Changting, a mountainous town in west Fujian Province. In 1946 it returned to Xiamen campus. In 1952, it was defined as a comprehensive university for social and natural sciences. In 1963 it was designated as one of the key universities in China.