Top universities join drive to recruit brightest students in thriving China

BEIJING (Kyodo) Faced with a declining number of young people and increased competition at home, some of Japan's top universities are opening up offices in bustling China to lure its young bright minds to Japan.

The University of Tokyo, widely regarded as Japan's top academic institution, became the latest entrant Wednesday in a field of about a dozen universities setting up activity bases in China.

"There is still much to do in terms of academic field exchanges in the Asian region, in China in particular," the university's president, Takeshi Sasaki, said at a news conference to announce its plan to open a liaison office in Beijing next April.

The trend began when Hiroshima University opened an office in Beijing in October 2002. Since then, established institutions that include Hitotsubashi University and Waseda University have established bases either inside Chinese universities or in separate buildings.

Behind the move is the declining birthrate in Japan and its rapidly aging society. The universities are keen to make up for the drop in Japanese students by recruiting Chinese students, who already make up more than 60 percent of non-Japanese studying in Japan.

Another reason is administrative reforms that will reduce government controls and introduce more competition and flexibility into state-run universities in April.

"Competition for survival is becoming fierce," said Hideyuki Yamaguchi, Beijing representative of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, an entity linked to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry.

Japan, however, is not necessarily at the top of Chinese students' list when they think of studying abroad, according to Yamaguchi.

"The first choice for Chinese students tends to be the United States or Europe," Yamaguchi said. "Japan is usually the second or third choice. We would like to have bright scholars come to Japan, so we want to raise our presence here."

Other universities have already decided to hold entrance examinations in China. Doshisha University in Kyoto said earlier this month it will hold an entrance exam at the Ocean University of China in Qingdao, Shandong Province.