A university campus with five classrooms opened on a floor of a building in Tokyo’s Yotsuya district in June.

Called Tokyo College, the educational institution is the first overseas branch of Shenzhen University based in the city of Shenzhen, known as the Silicon Valley of China.

The main major is Chinese and faculty members are dispatched from the main campus in China. Upon graduation, students can obtain the same bachelor’s degree as those from the main campus in China.

The first batch of students at the university’s Tokyo College numbered only five.

Shuichiro Takano, 24, was one of the enrollees, attracted by an environment where he can learn Chinese while living in Japan.

“I had never been to China, so studying there seemed like a high hurdle for me,” he said. 

The other four students have Chinese roots.

Itsumi Beni, 22, whose mother hails from Fujian province, is fond of the Chinese role-playing game “Genshin Impact.” She said she wants to work in the game industry, particularly in roles bridging Japan and China.

“What attracted me to the university was not only its Chinese language major but also the opportunity to study business and information technology as a minor,” she said.

Renowned Chinese universities such as Shenzhen are establishing branch campuses in Japan, attracting students with their top global rankings and support for employment at rapidly growing Chinese companies.

These universities are marketing themselves as educational institutions where “students can earn a bachelor’s degree from a renowned university while living in Japan.” However, it remains uncertain whether they will garner long-term success.

At Tokyo College, students have the opportunity to study at the main campus for six months during their third year. If they have basic Chinese language skills, they can graduate in two to three years.

Shenzhen University touts its global ranking of 271st by the U.S. News and World Report magazine, surpassing that of top private universities in Japan.

It also offers support for employment at fast-growing Chinese companies, including a visit and internship to the Japanese branch of the IT giant Tencent Holdings Ltd.

Tuition for the first year is 1.22 million yen ($8,200), roughly double the fee for foreign students studying at the main campus.

Tokyo College plans to enroll 50 students next spring and eventually aims to admit 100 annually, with a maximum capacity of 400.

TIE-UP WITH JAPANESE FIRMS

Branch campuses of universities specializing in Chinese medicine have sprung up in Japan, including a campus of the Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which opened in Kobe in 2006.

In recent years, comprehensive universities such as Shanghai University and Jinan University opened campuses in Tokyo, emphasizing Chinese language education.

The education ministry has accredited four Chinese universities with hosting Japanese campuses of foreign universities. Some have enrolled several hundreds of students. 

Shenzhen University is also applying for the designation.

Tokyo College will be independently financed. Its operations are managed by Shenzhen University in collaboration with Sprix Inc., a Japanese company that runs private tutoring schools such as Mori juku.

Although Mori juku had been operating in China, it withdrew in 2021 due to the Chinese government tightening regulations of tutoring schools.

With demand in Japan also expected to drop due to the declining birthrate, the company aims to diversify its business through operating the university.

PART OF BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE?

Beijing Language and Culture University Tokyo College, which was established in 2015, specializes in Chinese language education for foreign nationals.

A staff member said that the number of Japanese students studying in China decreased after the territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands in East China Sea, which are controlled by Japan but claimed by China.

“We are seeking to meet the demand of those who want to study Chinese in Japan,” the staffer said.

Recently, China has risen to a prominent position globally, leading in patent acquisitions and publication of academic papers. Its universities consistently rank among the top in Asia across various global university rankings.

“The establishment of the branch campus in Japan could boost the home university’s international ranking through increasing the number of international students,” said a staff member from Shanghai University Tokyo Campus, which currently has about 250 students.

In 2016, the Chinese education ministry released a document outlining a policy to spread Chinese language education to countries along the routes of the nation's Belt and Road initiative, an economic development program started a decade ago to connect China to Central Asia and Europe by land and sea.

Jinan University posted on its website that the team in charge of establishing overseas campuses for the Belt and Road initiative handled the administrative work for setting up its Tokyo campus.

In addition to Japan, some Chinese universities have also opened campuses in Southeast Asia and Europe, including Soochow University in Laos, Xiamen University in Malaysia, and Tongji University and Wenzhou University in Italy.

“The management of branch campuses is left to each Chinese university, and the decision to establish an overseas campus is assessed by each university as a business opportunity. But that also aligns with the Chinese government’s Belt and Road initiative,” said Toshiyuki Sawatani, a part-time lecturer of university organization and management at Kwansei Gakuin University, who is well versed in higher education in China.

U.S. UNIVERSITIES PREVIOUSLY FAILED

The expansion of Chinese universities is creating business opportunities for their Japanese partners.

All four universities that focus on Chinese language education are run by operators of Japanese language schools.

Some foreign students who graduated from Japanese language schools study Chinese at  branch campuses of universities which these language schools are affiliated with. 

Around 60 percent of the students at Beijing Language and Culture University Tokyo College are foreign nationals other than Japanese and Chinese. The university said demand is high among students from Southeast Asia, a region strengthening its ties with China.

Amid increasing restrictions on free speech in China, Japan can be considered a safe environment for students to learn Chinese for business purposes.

However, the long-term success of these Chinese universities’ campuses in Japan remains uncertain.

In the 1990s, amid the boom in English learning and study abroad programs, around 30 U.S. universities expanded into Japan. But many subsequently closed their campuses or withdrew, leading to social problems. 

In response, the education ministry established a system in 2005 to certify Japanese campuses of foreign universities.

The system aims to prevent students from suffering losses by granting qualification for admission to Japanese graduate schools and enabling the transfer of their credits to and from Japanese universities.

“U.S. universities were promoting themselves in that students could receive the same education in Japan as at their main campuses, but they lacked the ability to fulfill their promises as most of their students were Japanese,” Sawatani said.

“Challenges will lie ahead for Chinese university branch campuses, such as ensuring their graduates have the same job opportunities as those from the main campus,” he said.