Nine hundred branches and a district that once had no electricity, thirty paces from where you are standing.
Last reviewed 17 September 2026 · A three-minute read · 1867–2014
The short answer
Fengtai, on Beijing's southern edge, is home to the Open University of China, founded by executive order of Deng Xiaoping in 1978 to broadcast college lessons by radio and television to farmers, workers and soldiers across a country most of whom could never reach a campus.
PLA 307 Hospital — 2011 · 黄河山曲 · CC BY-SA 3.0
1978
A radio university rose from pig pens and farmland
Before 1978, this stretch of Fengtai had pig pens, goat pens, and no electricity in most homes. It was still mostly farmland on the edge of Beijing. That year, an executive order from Deng Xiaoping put a different kind of school on this ground.
It was called the China Central Radio and TV University. Its idea was simple. Most of China could not get to a college campus, so the college would come to them, over the air.
There was no quad, no lecture hall packed with eighteen-year-olds. Lessons went out by radio and television to farmers, factory workers, and soldiers, wherever a set could pick up the signal. The Open University of China grew from that single transmitter into a headquarters with 45 branches and 3,735 study centers. They spread across the country, urban and rural alike.
A country too big for classrooms built a school that used the sky instead.
2012 to 2023
The university dropped radio and took up ageing students
In 2012, the university dropped the words "Radio and TV" from its name and became the Open University of China. Television had stopped being the only way in. Students now split their time between screens and face-to-face sessions. The school added specialized colleges for groups the old system rarely reached. These included disabled students, overseas Chinese, and auxiliary police staff.
The reinvention did not stop there. In 2023, the Ministry of Education gave the university a new job on top of the old one. It named it the Seniors University of China, built to teach a country's aging population rather than replace the classroom for a young one.
Today the party secretary who runs it, Zhang Hui, oversees a school still doing what it was built for in 1978. It reaches people the standard system leaves behind, just no longer only by radio.
1949 and before
Fengtai had no name until 1949
Fengtai carried no fixed name until 1949, when it became a subdistrict of a rapidly growing capital. The wider district followed in 1952. Before that, the ground under the university and the surrounding blocks was farmland with no single administrative identity. It did not need one. Nobody was building anything here that needed a name.
Nothing dug up nearby predates the 20th century. No villa, no tomb, no findspot. The oldest paper trail on this exact patch of ground is the district record from 1952. That same decade, the radio university's predecessor institutions were still decades from existing.
2011 to 2014
One subway station needed two separate openings
Qilizhuang station opened in 2011 on Line 9. It was built to pull a still-thin edge of the city into the subway map. It sat there for three years only half finished in purpose. Line 14 opened past it in May 2013, and its trains ran straight through without stopping. Qilizhuang did not open to Line 14 until February 15, 2014, almost a year later.
The station now stacks two lines on top of each other underground. Six lettered exits spill onto the streets around it. It sits half a mile from the university gates. It took two separate openings to finish one station. That kind of delay is ordinary here. The infrastructure of Fengtai has mostly arrived in pieces, built out toward a district the city center reached last.
Undated, standing near the transit corridor
A single carved name stands among institutions built for millions
A stone memorial stands near the corridor that carries commuters toward Qilizhuang, marked only with a name: Cui Daqing. It commemorates one person rather than an institution, a school, or a station.
This makes it unusual. Most things on this ground were built for the many. A broadcast university reaches millions of unseen students. A subway station absorbs whoever steps off the train. A single carved name sits quietly among them, unexplained but not unnoticed, thirty paces from people who never learn who he was.
Most of what stands near this ground was built to serve strangers by the thousand; this stone was built for one man.
The transmitter that once carried lessons over Fengtai's rooftops has gone quiet, but the district it built for is still listening in other ways.
Sourced records, high and medium confidence. Era background is marked as such.
Medieval
born 1182
Jochi, a Mongol military leader who would go on to found the Golden Horde, was born in the city in 1182 and died in 1228.
Era background — not a record of this tile · Wikidata — Jochi
died 1328
John of Montecorvino, a Catholic diplomat sent to establish relations with the Mongol Empire, died in Beijing in 1328 after decades as the first Catholic archbishop in China.
Era background — not a record of this tile · Wikidata — John of Montecorvino
Early modern
died 1582
Zhang Juzheng, who served as Grand Secretary and effectively ran the Ming government, died in Beijing in 1582 after reforming the empire's tax system.
Era background — not a record of this tile · Wikidata — Zhang Juzheng
died and buried 1602
Li Zhi, a radical Ming-dynasty philosopher who challenged Confucian orthodoxy, died and was buried in the city in 1602.
Era background — not a record of this tile · Wikidata — Li Zhi
buried 1648
Daišan, known as the Great Beiler of the Four Beile of Later Jin, a senior Manchu politician, was buried in the city after his death in 1648.
Era background — not a record of this tile · Wikidata — Daišan
died 1666
Johann Adam Schall von Bell, a German Jesuit missionary who became an astronomer at the Chinese imperial court, died in Beijing in 1666.
Era background — not a record of this tile · Wikidata — Johann Adam Schall von Bell
died 1746
Teodorico Pedrini, a Vincentian missionary who served as a musician at the Qing court, died in Beijing in 1746.
Era background — not a record of this tile · Wikidata — Teodorico Pedrini
Modern
1867
Lai Afong, a pioneering Chinese photographer, made a photographic view of Beijing in 1867, one of the earliest surviving photographs of the city.
Deng Xiaoping ordered the university's creation by executive order in 1978, and it now runs distance learning nationwide from its Beijing headquarters under the Ministry of Education.
What was here before the Open University of China?
Before 1978, this stretch of Fengtai was farmland with pig pens and goat pens, and most homes nearby had no electricity.
What happened at Fengtai in 1978?
Deng Xiaoping issued an executive order creating the China Central Radio and TV University on this ground, teaching by radio and television rather than in a conventional lecture hall.
When did the Open University of China change its name?
It dropped the words 'Radio and TV' in 2012 and became the Open University of China, reflecting a shift toward mixed screen and face-to-face teaching.
What is the Seniors University of China?
In 2023 the Ministry of Education gave the Open University of China an additional role as the Seniors University of China, built to teach an ageing population rather than replace conventional schooling for the young.
Why did Qilizhuang station take so long to open fully?
Qilizhuang opened on Line 9 in 2011, but when Line 14 opened past it in May 2013 trains ran straight through without stopping; it did not begin serving Line 14 passengers until February 15, 2014.
When did Fengtai become an administrative district?
Fengtai became a subdistrict of Beijing in 1949 and the wider district followed in 1952, the oldest paper trail naming this ground.
