Reflection on contemporary bilingual education in Chinese higher education with historical perspective

This paper reflects on the contemporary bilingual education in Chinese higher education, referring to the innovative bilingual teaching practices starting from the late Qing Dynasty. With the purposes of voicing for China and learning western sciences, bilingual programs were adopted in the first few original higher education institutes. These experiences leave us deliberation and speculation on the recurrent imbalance of native and foreign languages and cultures, and on future direction to research into bilingual education in universities to enhance the cultivation of internationalized talents and the internationalization of the country.