By Mika Brzezinski
Mika Brzezinski: According to The New York Times, its one of the biggest single gifts for education in the entire world. Over the weekend, Stephen Schwarzman, founder, chairman and CEO of Blackstone Group announced his plans to create a$300 million scholarship for study in China.
Brian Shactman: You know, Stephen, I was looking at the Times story this weekend, a great story in The New York Times. You cant buy those as you know.
Mika: No.
Brian: But you got one.
Mika: You did.
Brian: And you know what? I was reading it. You know, theres so many things we do that sort of blow away with the wind and when we die, they are gone. I was reading this and saying this is something people will be influenced by a hundred years from now. Tell us what youve done in China. Its remarkable.
Stephen Schwarzman: What...what were trying to do is bring 200 students of the Rhodes Scholar quality type over to China for one year to learn about China and they are going to get a pretty unique experience. They are going to meet the leaders of the country. They are going to be able to travel around to several different cities. They are going to get a mentor from the community. So, for example, if they were studying law, they would get the head of the largest law firm in Beijing to adopt them and see how a law firm work, and meet their families and so forth. Plus, we are going to have pretty robust program designed by both Western academics as well as the professors at Tsinghua.
There...theres eight Chinese students coming to the United States for every one that goes to China. And, in the world were living in, its not good enough just to be in your home country. Youve got to learn whats going on globally, and in terms of geopolitical power, and economic power, it...it seems pretty clear at this point that China will be that…that place for the balance of this century at least.
米卡·布热津斯基:根据《纽约时报》的报道,这是全世界对教育最大手笔的单项奖励之一。刚刚过去的这个周末(译者注:2013年4月21日),黑石集团创立人之一,同时也是黑石集团董事长兼首席执行官的史蒂文·施瓦茨曼宣布在中国设立一项3亿美元的奖学金。
布莱恩·沙克特曼:你知道吗,史蒂文,我这周末还在《纽约时报》上看这篇报道呢,确实是《纽约时报》上的一篇好文章。你知道的,这是花钱买不来的。
米卡:对。
布莱恩:但你做到了。
米卡:的确如此。
布莱恩:你知道吗?当时我在读这篇报道时就在想,你也知道的,当你离开人世的时候,你做过的大多事情也随之灰飞烟灭,不复存在。而这篇文章报道的这件事,我知道这将会是一件从此影响人类百年的大事。跟我们说说你在中国做过的事情,这真是值得关注的事情。
史蒂文·施瓦茨曼:我们要做的事是要把200名具备类似罗兹学者资格的学生带到中国,让他们在中国待上一年,学习了解有关中国的各个方面,他们会得到一些特别的学习经历。他们将与国家领导人会面,去走访不同的城市,还能得到社会团体最优秀导师的指导。所以,举个例子,如果他们是法律专业的学生,他们就能被北京最大的律师事务所的负责人接纳,看看一个律师事务所如何运营,还能和事务所员工的家人见面,诸如此类。此外,我们还会有高质量的课程,是由西方的学者以及清华大学的教授共同设计的。
美国留学生去中国与中国留美学生的比例是1∶8。然而,在我们所处的这个时代,只待在自己的国家是不够的。你必须了解全球发展的趋势,而从地缘政治格局和经济格局来看,现在似乎很明确的是,至少在这个世纪,中国掌控着整个格局的平衡。
背景小知识
罗兹奖学金(Rhodes Scholarships)是英国大学历史最长、声誉最高的奖学金项目,由英国著名矿业大亨、政治家塞西尔·罗兹先生创立。自1902年创设以来,每年一次,奖励学术和品格优秀的学生,获得者将在牛津大学万灵学院学习两到三年,历史上的罗兹学者包括多位全球影响力极大的领导人、跨国企业公司董事长、诺贝尔奖得主等等。
而近日,美国著名私募股权投资基金巨头史蒂文·施瓦茨曼宣布将在清华大学设立3亿美元的奖学金,用于资助来自世界各地的学生来华学习。据了解,施瓦茨曼本人将捐出1亿美元,其余2亿美元来自募捐,迄今(编者注:到2013年5月9日)已筹得一亿美元,此举因其奖金之高而引起了广泛关注,可谓是与罗兹奖学金“打对头”。
上百年来,西方诸强能够长盛不衰的秘诀之一就在于广揽各国人才,各种官方或民间的高端奖学金就是其中的战略手段之一。美国人100年前把庚子赔款作为中国留美学生的奖学金,培养了一大批“知美”的中国精英;英裔南非矿业大亨罗兹为“把世界纳入大英帝国的统治下”,设立罗兹奖学金,培养了40多名各国领导人和70多名跨国公司董事长。而施瓦茨曼此举是否又是件影响世界百年的大事?