China's Peking University is starting to hire staff and accept students for its new British branch at the Oxford city in June, a few months after President Xi Jinping called for Chinese universities to be transformed into strongholds of Communist party rule.

The Chinese university signed a deal with the Open University in Britain last February to purchase a 15-acre medieval campus, Foxcombe Hall, in Oxford for $11 million, with plans to turn it into a business school. 

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Hai Wen, dean of HSBC Business School, said that a total of 100 international students will be accepted when the campus opens in August 2018, which is also the 120th founding anniversary of the elite Beijing University.

"The timing is monumental. In 1818, China's first foreign-founded school Ying Wa College was set up by a British missionary. Now 200 years later, a Chinese university will set up its own school in Britain," he noted.

Hai also revealed that the HSBC Business School's finance, management, and economic courses will feature Chinese business cases that will help students to become better acquainted with China's economy and reforms. 

Peking University made clear that its Oxford campus is not associated with the University of Oxford and is committed on providing "professional knowledge of China's economy, financial market, and corporate management." Students will initially take the first year course in the Oxford campus and the second year at Peking University's main campus in Shenzhen, Southern China.

The agreement marked the first instance a Chinese university utilized its own finance to build and manage a school overseas, Hai said. According to The Guardian, Peking University outbid three other rivals by offering "a very tempting price," giving the sellers "little room to say 'no'." The university's close connection to the Communist party also reportedly "expedite the transfer of money needed for the acquisition."

TagsPeking University, Oxford, HSBC Business School, Open University, Chinese education