Author Description

"This book documents and reflects on the ways in which Canadian universities contributed to China's economic and social transformation from the early 1980s to the early 2000s, through a CIDA program that fostered linkages between the countries' universities. In 1982, China began an engagement with the World Bank that resulted in loans to the university and college system, a portion of which enabled higher education scholars to go abroad for study purposes and visiting experts to advise on curriculum development and research. The only other actor in terms of major development aid for China's universities and colleges in this early period was Canada. An agreement signed between the two countries in 1983 opened the way for a range of CIDA projects that focused on all aspects and levels of education in China, with $250 million being granted between 1983 and the late 1990s. To maximize the benefits of funding, the Trudeau government made a decision to focus on people-to-people relations through various partnerships that would foster learning in areas needed for modernization. This book takes up the story of three major university linkage programs: the Canada-China Management Education Program, the Canada-China University Linkage Program which embraced projects in medicine, agriculture, engineering, law, urban infrastructure, environment, education and minority cultures, and the subsequent Special University Linkage Consolidation Project. While all these projects went through a technical evaluation of their short-term achievements, no-one has looked at their longer-term consequences or at how they may have contributed to China's social and economic transformation. This book aims to fill that gap by bringing together senior scholars in both China and Canada who were directly involved in the leadership of these projects. They were asked to reflect on four key questions. In what ways did their project contribute to China's economic revitalization and rapid transformation? Ho