ABSTRACT
Tongji is one of about 45 universities in Shanghai (population 12 million), with a long history of adjustment and adaptation to social, political, economic, and cultural changes. Because of its early association with Germany, Tongji has survived and prospered in the complex, often turbulent history of modern Shanghai, China’s most international city, which has been influenced by the physical presence of powerful foreign interests of France, Britain, Japan, Germany, and the USA. This chapter looks briefly at those large-scale social, economic, and political changes which have moved China to its present determination to establish a market economy and which require adjustment and reform in virtually all aspects of Chinese society, industry and business, transportation and communication, health, employment, and, central to our purpose, education. The open-door policy was followed closely by the shift to a market economy, replacing exclusive reliance on the central government-controlled economy.
