The Rebirth of Christian Colleges — From Mainland China to Hong Kong and Taiwan

 

The Rebirth of Christian Colleges — From Mainland China to Hong Kong and Taiwan

After 1949, when mainland China’s political landscape was transformed, all Christian universities were nationalized, and most foreign faculty expelled. These institutions — such as St. John’s University (聖約翰大學), Yenching University (燕京大學), and the University of Nanking (金陵大學) — had once served as key centers of modern Chinese education, medicine, and social thought. To preserve their intellectual and religious legacy, the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia supported the reestablishment of several colleges in exile — primarily in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

In Taiwan, former faculty and alumni from the University of Nanking (金陵大學), Ginling College (金陵女子大學), St. John’s University (聖約翰大學), Chekiang University (之江大學), and Soochow University (東吳大學) founded two new Christian universities in 1954: Soochow University (東吳大學) and Fu Jen Catholic University (輔仁大學). Soochow, revived under Methodist guidance, retained its motto “Unto a Full Grown Man” and upheld a liberal education ideal rooted in faith. Fu Jen, rebuilt by the Catholic Church, inherited the academic and moral vision of its pre-war Beijing predecessor. Both institutions became foundational pillars of Taiwan’s post-war higher education landscape.

In Hong Kong, the Chung Chi College (崇基學院) was founded in 1951 to accommodate displaced faculty and students from various Christian universities of China, including Yenching, West China Union University (華西協和大學), Chekiang (之江大學), Ginling (金陵大學), and South China Women’s College (華南女子文理學院). Later incorporated as one of the founding colleges of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Chung Chi became a space where Christian humanism and Chinese scholarship coexisted, shaping a distinct cultural and academic identity.

Whether in Taipei or Hong Kong, these institutions symbolized the resilience of Christian education amid political upheaval. They carried forward the belief that faith and reason complement each other and that moral education stands at the heart of knowledge itself. In their endurance, one sees not just institutional survival, but the preservation of a moral conscience within modern Chinese history.