China’s first Rhodes Scholars: the journalist, LGBT activist and lawyer fighting for social justice
Students are determined to use their newfound success for the benefit of all
Zhang Chunying has a dream: one day she hopes to set up a news platform in China that will focus on the lives of ordinary people, some of which reveal the shortcomings of government policies.
“I love telling stories,” says Zhang, currently completing a masters degree in journalism at Columbia University in the US. “The lives of celebrities are too distant but the experiences of ordinary people are more relatable to others.”
The Nanjing native is among four mainland recipients of the Rhodes scholarship in 2015 – the first year that the prestigious international programme has included students from China. Together with two awards for applicants from the United Arab Emirates, this brings the total number of Rhodes awards each year to 89.
The scholarship’s expansion into China seems to fly in the face of Chinese authorities’ drive to prevent the spread of “Western values” in its centres of higher learning. Last year, officials across the country were instructed to vet the use of foreign materials in a selection of colleges in their provinces, in the wake of education minister Yuan Guiren’s pledge to increase ideological control in Chinese universities.
China’s first Rhodes scholars seem to share a liberal streak: besides Zhang, there is an activist on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) issues and a law student who wants to tackle social injustice.
But Hong Kong observers believe the Chinese authorities will be on guard against what they view as subversive influences.