Posted on 05/07/2005 7:34:32 PM PDT by Racehorse
Chinese businessman Richard Liu may not be widely known in San Antonio, but at the University of Texas at San Antonio — especially at the College of Business — Liu is like a rock star.
Liu should be a star throughout San Antonio. Not many U.S. cities have business schools that receive $3 million from a successful Chinese businessman to fund a U.S.-China business student exchange program, setting up numerous future business ties and potential industrial development.
The UTSA business school this week added Liu's name to an auditorium as a display of appreciation to Liu (pronounced "loo"). He lives in Hong Kong but has two Texas homes, a house in Arlington and a 1,000-plus-acre ranch near Abilene, where he likes to hunt and fish.
His affinity for Texas goes back to his first visit to the United States in 1974.
Liu had finished college in his native Taiwan and had scholarship offers for U.S. graduate studies but couldn't afford the airline ticket to the United States.
Liu started a leather goods business instead. Later, his initial U.S. visit brought him first to San Antonio, a stay he recalled Thursday during the auditorium dedication.
"I fell in love with this city and its mixed culture," Liu said, along with the way it "allows foreigners to make a living."
His first U.S. business deal was with Tandy Brands in Yoakum. Liu's company supplied leather products that Tandy sold retail. Today, Liu owns a factory with 10,000 workers in Guangzhou, formerly called Canton, near Hong Kong.
His company, Superior Holdings International Ltd., provides leather products that reach U.S. consumers in many product brand names and retail chains like Fossil watches, Old Navy, Abercrombie & Fitch and American Eagle.
When he donated the first $1 million to launch the U.S.-China Business Education Initiative in 1998, Liu told UTSA business faculty members he would judge the program by the business success of the students.
The 100-plus Chinese graduate business and executive master's business degree students who have spent entire semesters at UTSA learning about the U.S. market and business practices since 2000 have routinely returned to China to receive promotions at their jobs or better first jobs.
[. . .]
Liu's gifts are the biggest in UTSA's history so far. UTSA College of Business Dean Lynda de la Viña — no longer the interim dean — said the exchange program is creating future U.S.-China partners, "not our competition."
Current funding of the exchange program is due to run out in 2008, but Liu hinted Thursday his support won't expire any time soon.
"I'm determined to do this program," Liu said.
"Being a businessman, this is the best investment. I will be your best promoter. This is the best school."
Richard Liu may not be widely known, but the respect and regard with which he is held by local business people is rather awe inspiring.
Sorry, I'm suspicious. Too many Chinese in our schools already and since when has Beijing denounced its totalitarian aims or reduced its military? Industrial espionage is one of their main exports..
AND... why would any self respecting US businessman want to do business with a country that relies upon slave labor to make our Walmart trinkets? China is just busy doing what Marx and Lenin said: selling us enough rope to hang ourselves.
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