Oh, boy, do the Chinese love Harvard!

Chinese students (together with other East Asians such as Singaporeans, Japanese and South Koreans) have (on average) superior mathematic, reading and science skills. These are readily available facts. No one is in the dark any longer. Even the UN study of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment, confirms that much: students from Shanghai, Macao, Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei are on top of the world. Why not their universities?

Beijing, meanwhile, is pushing hard to reverse the brain drain and, by extension. Tsinghua University, for example, has attracted a $300-million donation from the Schwarzman Group as part of its initiative to train "future world leaders". Not wanting to fall behind Tsinghua, Peking University has announced the establishment of its own "future world leaders" program - the Yenching Academy.

China needs, no wait, China deserves its own Harvard. It is entirely conceivable precisely because Chinese students have momentum and a competitive advantage (which currently spurns them into succeeding anywhere in the world). But as long as the elites in China don't believe in their own civilization and would rather invest their wealth in education elsewhere, nothing short of a miracle is needed to wake a billion people and this once so proud nation from its deeply historical slumber.

The author is a German writer, linguist and cultural critic, and has books such as The East-West Dichotomy, Shengren and Inside Peking University, and many articles on Chinese-Western relations to his credit.