On December 25, 2000, the State Ministry of Education signed an agreement with Tianjin Municipal Government to jointly establish and develop Nankai University.

Nankai's alumni and faculty include the first Premier of the People's Republic of China Zhou Enlai, mathematician Shiing-Shen Chern and Nobel laureates Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee.

[10] The well-known Nankai Institute of Economics was established in 1927 and soon became one of the most prominent[11] in China being the first non-foreign entity to calculate a Chinese Consumer Price Index.

[12] By 1937, Nankai had expanded into a university of 3 colleges, 13 departments, and 2 research institutes, with 429 students and 110 faculty and staff members.

[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] About two-thirds of Nankai's school buildings including its library were destroyed by the Japanese Imperial Army.

A number of the school's artifacts, including the university bell,[22][23][24] were looted and remain in Japanese museums till this day.

[30] After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Nankai was readjusted and became a comprehensive university with emphasis on the arts and sciences, with 14 departments and 3 professional specialties in total.

[9] In 1976 a catastrophic earthquake broke out in Tangshan, bordering Tianjin, causing damage of varying degrees to the School's buildings.

"Nankai University has also been a destination for Indian students pursuing higher education in China, with many benefiting from international scholarship programs such as the Swami Vivekananda Scholarship, which promotes cultural and educational exchange between India and China.

[33] In 1989, the university was ordered by the Tianjin public security bureau to send two Americans back home, following rising political tensions over pro-democracy demonstrations.

[citation needed] In 2000, the State Ministry of Education signed an agreement with Tianjin Municipal Government on jointly establishing and developing Nankai University.

[35] In February 2015, following Chinese media reports and statements from inside the Chinese Communist Party that universities would have to "be cleansed of liberal Western textbooks and other ideological heresies", Nankai's president Gong Ke publicly stated: "Recently I've read people on the Internet saying that the ranks of academics must be cleansed, purified and rectified.

[52][53][54][55] In 2010 the US-China exchange program Study International was launched, with the plan to send 100,000 American students to china in a four-year time frame.

Nobel Laureates Chen Ning Yang, Tsung-Dao Lee, Samuel Chao Chung Ting, Robert A. Mundell, and Reinhard Selten as well as former President of Korea Kim Dae Jung and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were all conferred Honorary Professorships by Nankai University.

[57] In November 2016, Robert F. Engle, who won the 2003 Nobel Prize in economics, became an honorary professor at Nankai.

Dr. Heng-Kang Sang returned from the United States to found the College of Economic and Social Development in 1987.

Nankai University, a magnet for talented mathematicians known both at home and abroad, has become one of the most famous centers for mathematics worldwide.

[76][78][79] Chern, Shiing-Shen established the world's largest mathematics institute (in terms of office area) in Nankai University.