China has had some successes in establishing universities in partnership with overseas higher educational institutes, with the Ministry of Education approving more than 2,600 such institutes and programs including 1,324 dedicated to higher education, according to Education Minister Chen Baocheng.

The development of the joint partnership institutes is the result of China's principle of "inviting in and going out," which has allowed the country to learn from the experience of some of the world's most prestigious universities.

"Our aim is to learn and benefit from each other so that Chinese students can receive high quality education at home, while our global partners can get a taste of Chinese culture in these joint institutes and educate talents that are required by both parties," the Minister says.

One of the latest and most successful examples is the Shenzhen MSU-BIT University. It is result of a partnership between the Shenzhen municipal government, the Beijing Institute of Technology and Russia's Lomonosov Moscow State University. It is the first Sino-Russian university and a new attempt at cooperation in the field of education between the two countries.

It opened in September last year with its first class of 113 undergraduate students. The Russian rector at the university, Victor Sadovnichy, said in an interview that he believed the university would pave the way for further educational cooperation between China and Russia.

Other joint institutes in China include the NYU-Shanghai University, the University of Nottingham Ningbo, and the Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University. The Ministry of Education approved a total of 61 new joint programs in last year.

The Education Minister says that while China's efforts have been reflected in the rise by China's universities in global rankings, it must not become complacent. "We should respect the rankings but they are not everything. The important thing is to follow our own path and build world-class universities with Chinese characteristics," Chen says.