Yale donation sets tongues wagging
By Wu Zhong, China Editor
HONG KONG - A Chinese millionaire's record-setting donation of nearly US$9
million to his graduate school at Yale University has become explosive news in
China, sparking a nationwide debate on whether he should have instead given the
money to a Chinese school.
Following a Yale announcement, one of China's state-run newspapers, the Global
Times, broke the story on January 8 that Zhang Lei, a graduate from Yale's
School of Management and the founder and managing partner of Hillhouse Capital
Management - a New York-registered, Beijing-based company - would donate
$8,888,888 to his alumni school. Sounding like "fortune", eight is an
auspicious number in Chinese numerology. Other major
Chinese media such as the Xinhua News Agency, China Central Television and
China Daily immediately carried follow-up reports.
According to Yale's official website, the Yale president, Richard C Levin,
announced on January 4, "Lei Zhang has pledged the largest gift ever to the
Yale School of Management by a graduate of the school. Zhang's pledge, made
less than 10 years after his graduation from Yale, also represents the largest
gift to date from a young Yale University alumnus."
The Yale school seeks to raise $300 million by 2011 to ensure its "leadership
in 21st century management education", according to its website. Another ethnic
Chinese donor listed on the site is Laura Cha, a member of Hong Kong's
executive council who in the late 1990s worked as a vice chairwoman of Hong
Kong's Securities and Futures Commission, and was also vice chairwoman of the
China Securities Regulation Commission, from 2001-2004.
As Zhang is relatively little-known in China, curious reporters and bloggers
immediately began to dig up information about him. Some bloggers even launched
a so-called "renrou shousuo", literally "human flesh search", meaning a
cyber relay to find information about a specific person.
According to Dahe Daily, a sister publication of the Henan Daily - the official
newspaper of the Henan provincial Communist Party committee - Zhang, 38, was
born and grew up in Zhumadian city in the central province of Henan.
In 1989, he passed entrance exams with excellent scores and was admitted to the
Beijing-based Renmin University of China to study international finance. In
1998, he went to Yale to pursue his graduate studies. Through his high school
mate, Liang Yu, Zhang told Dahe Daily that he chose Yale because it was at that
time the only foreign school known to his parents.
"Yale SOM [School of Management] has changed my life. This is not an
exaggeration," Zhang was quoted as saying. He said Yale once financially
supported him when he started his own business. Coming back to invest in China
in 2005 with a capital of $30 million, Hillhouse Capital Management now manages
$2.5 billion total assets, Zhang said. (The Dahe Daily report said some suspect
that Hillhouse manages Yale's investment fund in China, but no evidence was
given).
On his broader vision, Zhang said another reason for his decision to donate to
Yale was because it is a well-known and respected school in China. Yale has
helped China for more than a century. Many Chinese officials have been educated
at Yale. "But for a long time, such help was one-way. So I wanted to change
this," Zhang said.
Information about Zhang's background as well as his explanation have fueled
fierce debate.
On the Global Times website, a few bloggers criticized Zhang's claim that Yale
had changed his life. "You have attended Chinese schools for more than a
decade. You would have been nothing without education in China!" one said.
"The current situation of tertiary education in China is worrisome. Many
university graduates cannot find employment. You, however, give money away to a
foreign school rather then helping China's education. This is really hard to
understand.," said another. "We did not see Hillhouse Capital Management donate
such a huge sum for disaster relief after the Sichuan earthquake [in May
2008]."
One blogger simply called him a "national traitor. Trash."
On the website of Zhang's alma mater, Renmin University, many asked why Zhang
had not donated to that university.
However, on both websites, many supported Zhang, saying it was up to him what
he did with his own money. They pointed out problems with China's education
system, saying Zhang's move might provoke reflection on problems affecting
China's education system, such as corruption, exam cheating, fake degrees being
awarded and high levels of graduate unemployment. "A Chinese student with
excellent scores in the national entrance exams said Yale has changed his life.
Isn't it a big failure of China's tertiary education?" one person asked on the
Global Times website.
Significantly, commentaries in the state-run media have come to Zhang's
defense.
A signed commentary in the Guangzhou Daily said that since Chinese universities
were still run by officials, it was doubtful whether donations would help the
education system. "When people have suspicions and doubts about how such
donations would be spent, their enthusiasm to donate would inevitably be hurt."
A signed commentary on the Securities Times, one of the three leading financial
dailies in China, cautioned against linking Zhang's donation with nationalism.
"As a Yale graduate, Mr Zhang Lei made a donation to his alma mater out of
gratitude. What's wrong with that? What has this anything to do with
patriotism? If a donation to Yale is not a patriotic move, then what can we
call those foreigners who have donated to Chinese schools?
"Education is no boundary. A donation to help education has nothing to do with
nationality ... In 1919, American John Leighton Stuart (1876-1962) was assigned
to raise funds to set up Yenching University in Beijing. By 1937 he had raised
some $2.5 million in the United States. In 1927, warlord Sun Chuanfang
curiously asked him: 'Why do you foreigners want to donate to a university in
China?' Stuart replied: 'Civilization is not national but international.' If
one follows the logic [of calling Zhang's donation traitorous], then John
Leighton Stuart should have been called an American traitor."
Apparently, the Chinese authorities want to rein in irrational nationalistic
anger over Zhang's donation. After all, the move is legal. Moreover, the harsh
accusations will only damage China's international image.
Observers have countered Zhang's critics by saying that Chinese should take
pride in Zhang's gesture to Yale - the first such large donation any Chinese
person has ever made to a foreign school. After all, they say, this is evidence
that Chinese are now so much better off that some are able to make large
donations - even to a foreign school. In the final analysis, isn't it a sign of
China's rise?
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