Blackstone chief, others launch $300-mn Chinese scholarship

Private equity tycoon Stephen A Schwarzman, chairman of US investment and advisory firm Blackstone, backed by an array of mostly Western blue-chip companies with interests in China, has announced the creation of a $300-million scholarship for study in China which he hopes will rival the Rhodes scholarship in prestige and influence.

The programme – the endowment of which 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 Schwarzman in Beijing on Sunday.

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

Hailing the scholarship programme, China's President Xi Jinping urged a deepening of exchanges among learners across the world to promote mutual understanding and a better future for the mankind.

Xi made the remarks in a congratulatory letter to Sunday's launch ceremony of the Schwarzman Scholars programme.

"The human society needs to foster talents, pass on knowledge and explore the unknown through the means of education in order to understand and transform the world and create a better future for human beings," Xi said in the letter.

Vice Premier Liu Yandong said at the launch ceremony that higher education, as a key part of humanistic exchange, should create a favourable environment for the fostering of students with global vision and outstanding comprehensive capabilities so as to contribute to peace and development in the 21st century.

US President Barack Obama also sent a congratulatory letter to the launch ceremony, calling for cooperation between nations and peoples to cope with various challenges.

The creation of the programme underlines the tremendous importance of China and its market to Wall Street financiers and corporate leaders.

Schwarzman said his goal was to reduce such tensions by educating the world's future leaders, but his role in the project will also raise his political profile in China, potentially giving him and his Blackstone Group, increased access to Chinese leaders. Many of them, including Xi Jinping, who became president of China last month, attended Tsinghua, one of the country's top universities.

Schwarzman said he was donating $100 million from his personal fortune, which Forbes estimated last month at $6.5 billion. He said he had raised $100 million from donors, and expected to raise the remaining $100 million by the end of this year.

Many of the donors have sprawling business interests in China and frequently deal with government regulators and state-owned enterprises that have wide discretion over the activities of foreign companies.

The other donors include Boeing Co – keen to tap the world's second-largest aircraft market - and Caterpillar, which sells earth-moving 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 biggest donor after Schwarzman is BP, which produces and imports natural gas in China and also has joint venture chemical plants and other operations in the country.

The personal foundation of New York Mayor Michael R Bloomberg is also a donor. Bloomberg's media company is trying to lease more news and data terminals to state-owned banks, but it has been stymied by the government since the company's publication last year of an investigation into the financial dealings of Xi's family.

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 Rubinand Henry M Paulson Jr; a number of university presidents and cultural figures, including the cellist Yo-Yo Ma; former French President Nicolas Sarkozy; and the former prime ministers of three countries, Tony Blair of Britain, Kevin Rudd of Australia and Brian Mulroney of Canada.