Educational Borrowing: Sino-German Exchange in Higher Technical Education (1921–1941)

The essence of the Sino-German higher technical education exchange from 1921 to 1941 was that, in the absence of qualitatively sufficient higher technical education, China “borrowed” German educational institutions to train high-level specialists for its industrialization. In the “educational borrowing”, the “home country” usually takes the initiative to learn from the “target country”. However, under certain circumstances, the “target country” would also actively export educational practices to the “home country”. In this case, both China as the “home country” and Germany as the “target country” promoted their education exchanges to produce positive effects for both sides.