By Li Xiguang

Amid tight security, Tsinghua University started a week-long centennial celebration yesterday.

At least 100 presidents of top universities from around the world would come to the event and Chinese President Hu Jintao is scheduled to give a keynote speech.

But it's always been controversial to talk about the circumstances of Tsinghua's foundation in 1911.

In January 1901, US Secretary of State John Hay instructed the American representative to China to claim $ 25 million in damages after the Boxer Uprising (1898-1901) and the subsequent intervention by Western powers.
The total indemnity of $330 million demanded by the eight Western allies was a nightmare for Chinese. After 1901, more than half of the national revenue of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), which might otherwise have benefited Chinese, went into the hands of foreign invaders.

Because of the debt, the equivalent of $61 billion today, the Qing Dynasty did not fund any important programs for its people in the early 20th century.

Beyond the financial burden the indemnity left on China, there was a growing movement against Western imperialism which culminated in the May 4th Movement of 1911.

In 1904, Liang Cheng, the Chinese ambassador to Washington, told Hay, "In order to pay the indemnity, our government has levied heavy taxation on our people, which has made our people hate foreigners and that might bring disasters to China and thus upset China's foreign trade, in which American merchants have an important stake."

Hay was impressed by Liang's remarks and said, "We have demanded too much from you." Hay was willing to reduce the indemnity by half. 

But Hay would not return the surplus indemnity to China until then US President Theodore Roosevelt approved it.
From the beginning, the US government made a demand that the Qing government should use the funds for education. The Qing government, preoccupied with more pressing problems, particularly with Manchurian crisis, resisted American pressure to link the funds to education.

In May 1905, the Qing government received Liang's report on his efforts in getting back the indemnity and forwarded a copy to Yuan Shikai, commander-in-chief of the Beiyang Fleet.

Yuan suggested the funds be devoted to mining and railway affairs and a large portion of it go to Manchuria for defense against Japan and Russia – where he was building up his own private armies.

But the Westerners were sensitive to any hints that China might take up for itself the mining and railway projects normally reserved for Western exploitation. Yuan's proposal was ignored.

Roosevelt believed the education plan would create an influential body of American-educated Chinese leaders achieving nothing less than "the intellectual and spiritual domination of its leaders."

The idea of using the indemnity for education had strong appeal to most Americans. They thought China's aversion to Western values made education a necessary first step toward destroying the old order and introducing the civilized American way of life.

Behind education would come the introduction of the gold standard, greater freedom for commerce, and increased reliance by the Chinese on US specialists.

Some Chinese politicians looked at the education project as a dangerous assault on Chinese values. Zhang Zhidong, who advocated "Western studies for practical affairs; Chinese studies for the essentials," resisted the attempt to put Western values at the center of Chinese education.

A century later, many Tsinghua faculty and students still share this view that the indemnity remission, rather than an act of benevolence, was instead a scheme to subject China to exploitation.

It was true that Roosevelt had the illusion of education as an easy route to exert greater influence on China, and Tsinghua would serve as the first successful case for building US influence.

But the great irony is that many top Chinese leaders of today, including President Hu Jintao and Vice-president Xi Jinping, are Tsinghua alumni. These Chinese leaders are managing the global economic crisis better than their US counterparts.

Most of the scientists who contributed to China's nuclear,  missile and space technology also came from the university. 

Tsinghua did not become a source of power for the US but a rich source of both soft and hard power for China.

The author is dean of Tsinghua University Center for International Communication. xiguang@tsinghua.edu.cn