Li Ka-shing isn’t the first Chinese to feel snubbed by university he helped build
- Li is not the first philanthropist to lose influence over a university he founded. China has a long history of similar appropriation
That Li Ka-shing should be disheartened by the erasure of his educational philanthropy is most understandable (“Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing ‘disheartened’ by university snub”, June 28). I can think of only two universities founded by Chinese people with their own funds. These are Nankai University, founded in 1919 by Zhang Boling and Yan Xiu, and Xiamen University, founded in 1921 by Tan Kah Kee. Tan’s descendants in Singapore continue to pour money into education in China.
Many other institutions were founded with foreign initiative and help. St John’s College in Shanghai, founded in 1879 and later renamed St John’s University, was known as the Harvard of China in its time, and educated many who went on to distinguish themselves, including Zhang Boling. It was closed in the 1950s – the building left a derelict Gothic ruin.
Perhaps most significantly, Yenching University, formed around 1919, was abolished in 1952, and Peking University, founded in 1898 during the Qing dynasty, moved into Yenching’s classically Chinese campus. All universities in China are now safely under state control.
Arguably, China has the longest tradition of education in the world. State appropriation, however, also has a long tradition. So my sincere condolences to Mr Li. He deserves a founder’s arch. Let him remember the fates of the handful of Chinese educational philanthropists before him. He is in very good company.
Arthur Waldron, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia