Introduction and History

January 1st, 2013: South China Sea Bulletin opens at Xiamen University.

November 3rd, 2012: The South China Sea Institute, Xiamen University is formally established.

May 30th, 2012: Xiamen University makes the decision to establish the South China Sea  Institute.

2011: The Marco Polo-ZHENG He Academy begins to receive applications in Shanghai (applications are thereafter accepted annually).  

2009: Xiamen University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, The Hong Kong  Polytechnic University and Sun Yat-sen University together establish China Oceans Law Review.

2006: The Marco Polo-ZHENG He Academy begins to receive applications in Xiamen (applications are thereafter accepted annually).  

2005: China Oceans Law Review opens at Xiamen University. November 27th,  

2003: XUM-COL is renamed XUM-COPL, becoming an affiliate institute of the Xiamen University.

January 15th, 2002: XUM-COLS becomes an affiliate institute of School of Law, Xiamen University.

XIAMEN UNIVERSITY At a Glance

Xiamen University (XMU) , established in 1921 by renowned patriotic overseas Chinese leader Mr. Tan Kah Kee, is the first university founded by an overseas Chinese in the history of modern Chinese education. XMU has long been listed among China’s leading universities on the national "211 Project", "985 Project" and "Double First-class" initiative, which have been launched by the Chinese government to support selected universities in achieving world-class standing. Xiamen University Malaysia Campus is the first overseas branch campus established by a prestigious Chinese university.

With a graduate school, 6 academic divisions consisting of 28 schools and colleges, and 14 research institutes, XMU boasts a total enrollment of nearly 40,000 full-time students (including 1,500 international students), i.e. 20,000 undergraduates, 16,400 graduate students toward a master’s degree, 3,600 doctoral candidates.

XMU currently has a faculty of over 2,600 full-time teachers and researchers, of whom 22 are the members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences or of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (including 9 who are employed simultaneously by other institutions), and 44 professors are Distinguished or Chair Professors on the Changjiang Scholars' Program.

XMU has forged partnerships with 236 universities in such countries as the UK, the US, Japan, France, Russia, etc., as well as China’s special administrative regions like Hong Kong and Macao and the Province of Taiwan; it has established 16 Confucius Institutes in collaboration with local universities in 13 countries.

Nestled snugly between green hills and the blue sea, XMU is renowned as China’s "most beautiful university" for its excellent education facilities and beautiful environment.

Forever inspired by the motto “Pursue Excellence, Strive for Perfection”, XMU has been dedicated to producing high-caliber talents with integrity, thereby making great contributions to the prosperity of the country, the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the progress of mankind in general.

XMU is increasingly becoming an internationally acclaimed world-class university.

(The data Updated in March, 2018)

Founder

TAN KAH KEE (1874-1961)

Tan Kah Kee rose from humble beginnings as a village boy from Fujian Province, to great prominence as an entrepreneur, social reformer, political activist, philanthropist, and community leader. He was acknowledged as a wise and generous friend of Chinese people inside China, and in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaya. When he died in Beijing in1961, at the age of 87, he was accorded a state funeral for his contribution to the country.

He was born on October 1874 in Fujian, China, after time of great turmoil. When he was a teenager, in 1890, Tan joined his father in Singapore, which was then under the jurisdiction of British-ruled India and part of Malaya. Many Chinese immigrants worked in the Singaporean rubber plantations and related businesses survived and failed around the plantations. When Tan’s father’s rice business failed in 1904, young Tan started a pineapple canning business. He was only 17 but Tan Kah Kee was thinking ahead, to rubber. He had a rubber plantation in mind and beyond that, rubber manufacture. Rubber was the commodity upon which he built a diversified conglomerate that made him one of the most successful overseas Chinese businessmen in Southeast Asia. By the 1920s, he presided over a huge business empire, including rubber plantation and manufacturing, shipping, import and export brokerage, real estate and rice trading, employing over 10,000 people living in most East and Southeast Asian cities. As one of the earliest industrial pioneers in the region, Tan Kah Kee earned the accolade Henry Ford of Malaya.

Philanthropy

Tan poured profits made during the World War I into political causes in China. And his business success put him in the leadership of the Hokkien community in Singapore, that is, the community of people, like himself, from Fujian province speaking the Hokkien dialect. He urged his fellows to avoid habits then prevalent, like gambling, opium-smoking and ritual extravagance but he was also concerned about the health and success of the all Chinese nationals who had left familiar places and people all across China in search of opportunity and success in Malaya and Singapore. Here are some examples:

In 1929, he established a Chinese Association to enable different linguistic and regional culture groups to overcome parochial interests and cooperate for the betterment of all.

He raised money, donated money, and directed efforts to improve lives of mainland Chinese through the turbulent twenties and thirties.

In Singapore, he helped found five primary and secondary Chinese schools. He supported English-medium schools, for example, donating $30,000 to the Anglo-Chinese School in 1919.

He wanted good teachers. In 1918, he established a normal school to train teachers in Fujian.

When he founded Xiamen University, in 1921, he ensured that the department of education had the best possible faculty.

In Singapore, for a decade he campaigned for a Nanyang Chinese Normal School to train teachers for Chinese schools and it was established in 1941.

Tan lived during a time of tremendous upheaval in China and Asia; the British Empire was global; the world capitalist system was ascendant, and China waking up the necessity of change and modernity. China struggled. But there was wealth-a tremendous wealth of scholarship and philosophy, Tan Kah Kee loved. This love for Chinese historical scholarship is reflected in his own memoirs, Nanqiao Huiyilu, which has been described as undoubtedly one of the best documented autobiographies ever written by an immigrant Chinese in Southeast Asia.”

Xiamen University is fortunate to have such an admirable founding father: purposeful, able brilliantly active. His energy and resources were focused on the uplift of the Chinese people. His gift to us is Xiamen University and it grows in his spirit.