"China doesn't have world-first-class universities right now," Xu Zhihong, the former president of Peking University, now an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, made the remark April 12 at Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

Xu said there are three benchmarks for first-class universities: First, there must be internationally famous professors doing important research. Second, the university must have made achievements that have had profound impact on human civilization and social development. Third, the university must have graduates that have made contributions to human civilization.

According to these standards, Xu said China currently has no first-class universities, despite the fact that the president of Moscow University has gone on record saying that Peking University is a world-class university.

Xu said that although Peking University produces almost the same number of papers as Yale, in terms of overall quality, Chinese universities still lag behind.

On May 4, 1998, the 100th anniversary of the founding of Peking University, China set up a 30 billion yuan project to fund the development of nine world-class universities – a number later increased to 30.

But Xu said the so-called "985 project" was an attempt to create instant success, and warned that the creation of world-class universities would not come easily.