China

There are major developments in e-learning in mainland China , and in view of increased interest in China from many European universities, a better understanding of Chinese approaches to pedagogy, technology and organisation would be helpful.

In contrast to the EU, some of the highest-ranking Chinese universities, such as Qinghua (Tsinghua), have impressive operational capability in e-learning and have developed their own learning environments.

Partners situated in China

None.

China in a nutshell

(sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_China)

The People's Republic of China (simplified Chinese: 中华人民共和国; traditional Chinese: 中華人民共和國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó), commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia with Beijing as its capital city. It is a single-party socialist republic comprising of:

• 22 provinces
• 5 autonomous regions
• 4 municipalities,
• 2 Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macao)

The country is vast, stretching for 5000 km across the East Asian landmass, and has a diverse landscape. In the north, near China's borders with Mongolia and Russia's Siberia, the Gobi Desert and forest steppes dominate the dry expanse while lush subtropical forests grow along its southern borders with Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar. The terrain in the west is rugged and high altitude with the Himalayas and the Tian Shan mountain ranges forming China's natural borders with India and Central Asia. In contrast, China's eastern seaboard is low-lying and has a 14,500-km long coastline bounded on the southeast by the South China Sea and on the east by the East China Sea beyond which lies Korea and Japan.

At 9.6 million km and with more than 1.3 billion people (a fifth of humanity), the People's Republic of China (PRC) is the third or fourth largest country by area and the most populous in the world.

The PRC is a major power holding a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and memberships in APEC, East Asia Summit, and Shanghai Cooperation Organization. China is a nuclear state as well as having the world's largest standing army and fourth largest defense budget. It is a fast-growing economic power having the world's fourth largest GDP in nominal terms or second largest in purchasing power and consuming as much as a third of the world's steel and over a half of its concrete. China is also the world's second largest exporter and the third largest importer. Since the introduction of market-based economic reforms in 1978, the poverty rate in China has gone down from 53% to 8% in 2001. However, China is now faced with a number of other economic problems including a rapidly ageing population, a widening rural-urban income gap, and rapid environmental degradation.

References

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