ABSTRACT
Introduction Chinese education has enjoyed a long and distinguished history in the 'Middle Kingdom' (Zhongguo). A mixture of government-run and private institutions can be traced back at least to the Zhou Dynasty. Inftuential private schools such as that of Confucius (Kungfuzi) have had a continuing inftuence. The Imperial Civil Service examination, first set up in the sixth century AD, built up a critical mass of certified individuals with knowledge and skills able to run large organizations. It trained scholars and bureaucrats for over 1300 years, until it was abolished in 1905. No less famous was the super-elite Hanlin Academy, set up in Beijing in the eighth century AD, which produced its last graduates in 1911 (see Warner and Goodall 2009, p. 15) In the interwar years, the emerging modem universities subsequently promoted the study of economics and business administration on Western lines. However, a long-standing practice of 'bureaucratic' competitive selection for the civil service and large corporations was still entrenched and in this way, we may hypothesize, there was an ongoing link between (Conjucian) tradition and modemity that persists to this day (see Child and Warner 2003). Respect for older Chinese values (see Warner 2011), as a counterbalance to the newer materialist ones, is now part and parcel of the 'harmonious society' which the present Chinese leadership wishes to promote (Chinese Communist Party 2006).
