A Rhodes-style China scholarship

The private-equity tycoon Stephen A. Schwarzman, backed by an array of mostly western blue-chip companies with interests in China, is creating a $300 million scholarship for study in China that he hopes will rival the Rhodes scholarship in prestige and influence.

The programme, whose endowment represents one of the largest single gifts to education in the world and one of the largest philanthropic gifts ever in China, was announced by Mr. Schwarzman in Beijing on Sunday.

The Schwarzman Scholars programme will pay all expenses for 200 students each year from around the world for a one-year master’s programme at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

The programme’s creation underlines the tremendous importance of China and its market to Wall Street financiers and corporate leaders, who have become increasingly anxious as security and economic frictions grow between China and the West.

The donors include Boeing, which is aggressively marketing jets in China, the world’s second-largest aircraft market, and Caterpillar, which sells earthmoving equipment in what has become the world’s largest construction market. They also include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Credit Suisse, which provide financial services to the Chinese government and state-owned banks.

The personal foundation of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York is also a donor.

The scholarship’s advisory board is a who’s who of investors, diplomats and other influential figures, some of whom also have political or financial ties to China. It includes three former Secretaries of State, Condoleezza Rice, Colin L. Powell and Henry A. Kissinger; two former Treasury Secretaries, Robert E. Rubin and Henry M. Paulson Jr.; a number of university presidents and cultural figures, including the cellist Yo-Yo Ma; former President Nicolas Sarkozy of France; and the former Prime Ministers of three countries, Tony Blair of Britain, Kevin Rudd of Australia and ....

“The idea was to deal with this problem in a generational manner,” he said in a video interview from New York, adding later in an e-mail, “I feel grateful to be able to have the resources to help change future leaders to impact their countries’ and China’s destinies.”

The programme plans to take in 10,000 students over the next 50 years, forming an international network that can bridge differences between China and the West, he said. Forty-five per cent will come from the United States, 20 per cent from China, and 35 per cent from Australia, Canada, Europe, Latin America and the rest of Asia. Africa may be added later."

Sorry Africa.

Stephen Schwarzman unveils $300m China scholarship fund
21 April 2013 Last updated at 04:53 ET
www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-rhodesstyle-china-scholarship/article4640414.ece

Let's see, Cecil Rhodes intention was to select promising young students, send them to Oxford for grooming in British thought, then send them back into their countries to help maintain and build the British Empire. Bill Clinton and Susan Rice are Rhodes scholars, for example.

Schwarzman wants to send our brightest to China to learn what? To come back and show us all how to use a pair of chopsticks? Or build whose empire?

Maybe he will give each rising young prospect their very own copies of Mao's Little Red Book.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.