China home to two of top three Asian universities: THE rankings

Chinese mainland is home to two of the top three universities in Asia, according to research published on Thursday by the Times Higher Education (THE).



The THE Asia University Rankings for 2017 rated Peking University and Tsinghua University, both in the Chinese capital of Beijing, as the second and third best universities in the continent. National University of Singapore is ranked the best.



In total, Chinese mainland has 54 institutions in the listing of top 300 universities in Asia.



After Peking University, known as Bei Da, and Tsinghua University, the next highest-placed Chinese university is the University of Science and Technology of China at 15, Fudan University at 16, Shanghai Jiao Tong University at 18 and Zhejiang University at 19 in the top 20.



Chinese mainland has the largest representation in the top 20 universities, with six institutions, followed by Hong Kong and South Korea with five institutions each.



Chinese mainland also has 15 new entrants in the list with China University of Geosciences (Beijing) (joint 72nd), Southeast University (joint 72nd) and Beihang University (92nd) ranked in the top 100.



This is the second year running that Peking University has reached the height of No. 2 university.



Phil Baty, editor of THE rankings, said: "China has introduced powerful policy drives, backed with serious funding, to produce world-class universities. In 2015, the country announced its World Class 2.0 excellence initiative, which aims to establish six of its universities in the leading group of global institutions by 2020, and for some of those to reach world top 15 status by 2030."



Chinese universities have also spent millions to recruit internationally renowned academics and build state-of-the-art facilities, said Baty.



"Overall this ranking of Asia's best 300 universities proves what a dynamic, diverse and competitive higher education region the continent is becoming -- and China is a key part of that development," said Baty.

