History of China at Harvard

China and Harvard: Historical Connections

Harvard has a long history of intellectual engagement with China. 

In 1879, a scholar from Ningbo named Ge Kunhua became Harvard College’s first instructor in Mandarin Chinese. The books he brought from China were Harvard’s first books in an Asian language, and they formed the core of what is today the million-volume collection of the Harvard-Yenching Library. The Harvard-Yenching Library is the largest academic library for East Asian research outside of Asia. 

In 1880, Ding Chongji, also from the Ningbo area, became the first Chinese student to enroll at Harvard. The number of Chinese students grew, and by 1908, they had formed a Chinese Students Club. Between 1909 and 1929, about 250 Chinese students earned Harvard degrees. Nearly half became professors, and more than a dozen became university presidents in China. Graduates also built careers as writers, mathematicians, climatologists, and leaders in medicine, banking, and diplomacy.

Over the next several decades, Harvard’s commitment to the study of  China, and to learning both from and with Chinese scholars, steadily grew. The Harvard-Yenching Institute, founded in 1928, supported the development of what is today Harvard’s Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. The Institute offers doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships for study and research at East Asian and Southeast Asian universities. Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, founded in 1955, is named after John K. Fairbank, Harvard’s professor of modern Chinese history, who not only raised the quality of Western studies of East Asia, but also—through the diaspora of his students, who filled academic positions across the United States—effected the widespread integration of Chinese studies into the American university curriculum. Today, many consider the Fairbank Center to be the premier center for the study of China in the United States.

This rich history of intellectual exchange between China and Harvard continues today. China’s brilliant students, faculty, and researchers come to Harvard, immeasurably enriching our intellectual community; and Harvard’s students, faculty, and researchers pursue with equal fervor a deeper understanding of China. 

Scholars from around the world are supported by our libraries, which house the largest collection of East Asian materials outside of Asia. We are home to over 2,000 students and scholars, and a further 2,500 alumni, from Greater China.

China scholarship at Harvard flourishes as never before. The University has the greatest concentration of specialists in Chinese studies in the United States. From its beginnings with those books from Ge Kunhua, Harvard now promotes a deeper understanding of China through many institutions, of which the Fairbank Center is but one, including the Harvard-Yenching Institute and Library; the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations; the Asia Center; the Harvard China Fund; and the Harvard Center in Shanghai. 

Explore the history of Harvard’s engagement with China:

• 1800s: Establishing transpacific ties
• Early Twentieth Century: The foundations of a discipline
• Mid-Twentieth Century: Cold War exchanges
• Late-Twentieth Century: Opening up
• Turn of the millennium: Deepening mutual understanding
• Contemporary era: Scholarship amid tension

1800s: Establishing Transpacific Ties

1879: Ge Kunhua (戈鯤化) is appointed the first Chinese language instructor at Harvard at the invitation of Francis P. Knight and Harvard President Charles William Eliot. At the height of the Chinese Educational Mission, Ge — a little-known China Studies scholar in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province —became the first native Chinese speaker to teach Chinese in America.

Early Twentieth Century: The Foundations of a Discipline (1900-1940)

1907: Ernest Henry Wilson visits the city of Yichang in Hubei, China on his third trip to China and first plant collection expedition for the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, a botanical research institution and public museum of trees. Across four trips to China between 1899-1911, Wilson sends thousands of Chinese plant specimens and more than 4,000 photographic negatives back to America. The collection becomes an unmatched horticultural archive of China at the turn of the twentieth century.

1924: Liang Siyong, the second son of renowned scholar Liang Qichao and future director of the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, graduates from Tsinghua University and travels to Harvard University to begin his studies in archaeology. Liang would later work with Li Ji, a fellow Harvard graduate and the “Father of Chinese Archaeology,” to pioneer archaeological excavations in the Anyang area and inaugurate the field of archeological study in China.

1936: The Harvard Bixi Tercentenary Stele is gifted and erected by Harvard Chinese alumni in Harvard Yard, beside Boylston Hall. The 27-ton stele commemorates the founding of Harvard College in 1636 and celebrates the importance of cultural learning in and between the United States and China. (Visit https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/300th-anniversary-stele/ to access a 3D scan of the monument.)

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Mid-Twentieth Century: Cold War Exchanges (1940-1960)

1955: The Center for East Asian Studies opens on Dunster street, with John K. Fairbank as its director.

Late-Twentieth Century: Opening up (1960-1990)

1962: The Starr family donates two stone lions originally from Beijing to Harvard-Yenching Institute.

1979: Under U.S. President Jimmy Carter, the U.S. makes diplomatic relations with China, briefly severing their relations with Taiwan, but allowing scholastic exchange.

Turn of the Millennium: Deepening Mutual Understanding (1990-2010)

1997: Former President of the PRC Jiang Zemin visits the US and Harvard. His visit incited many protests by various human rights organizations.

2003: Former Premier of the People’s Republic of China, Wen Jiabao, visits Harvard, remarking, “I hope the young people of China and the young people of the United States will join their hands more closely.”2003: Former Premier of the People’s Republic of China, Wen Jiabao, visits Harvard, remarking, “I hope the young people of China and the young people of the United States will join their hands more closely.”

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Contemporary Era: Scholarship Amid Tension (2010-Present)

2011: Harvard University Press publishes Harvard Professor Ezra Vogel’s Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, a critically acclaimed biography detailing the enormous impact of this leader in world history.

2015: Harvard President Drew G. Faust met with President of China Xi Jinping in Beijing and “discussed a number of issues of mutual importance for China and Harvard, including efforts to combat the threat of climate change and continuing collaborations among faculty and scholars.”

2017: Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou gives a talk at the Harvard Law School about his experiences as the leader of Taiwan and how his time as a Harvard Law student impacted him. 

2017: President Tsai Ing-wen meets a delegation of cross-strait and U.S.-Sino relations scholars from the Fairbank Center to hear expert opinions and deliberate cross-strait relations and the future of Taiwan.

2018: China Ambassador Cui Tiankai visits the Fairbank Center.

2019: Harvard president Laurence Bacow meets President of China Xi Jingping “to discuss the importance of learning and of cultural and educational exchanges.”

Written, researched, and designed by Frank Zhou and Kareena Stowers, with help from James Evans.