According to incomplete statistics by Nanfang Weekend reporters, as of the end of May 2007, 57 current vice provincial, ministerial level or higher officials obtained undergraduate or post-graduate degrees from China's prestigious Peking University (PKU).

Li Cheng, an expert on China and a visiting scholar at Washington-based Brookings Institution, started to build a database of Chinese mainland officials from 1980's. Statistics from the database show that the number of Chinese officials that are PKU alumni has been rising in recent years.

Another rough estimate by Nanfang Weekend reporters show that there are 37 senior officials, of provincial, ministerial level or above, who have studied at Tsinghua University.

PKU and Tsinghua University are the most prestigious universities in China. For the past couple of decades, Tsinghua trained several state leaders for this country, a fact that was labeled the "Tsinghua phenomena" by political observers. Four of the nine current Standing Committee members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee are graduates of Tsinghua.

A ranking on universities concerning how many "prestigious politicians" they have trained, published by cuaa.net in January 2007, showed that Tsinghua had trained 41 "prestigious politicians," followed by PKU, which had trained 34.

2007 CUAA.net Rankings on China's Universities Where "Prestigious Politicians" Grow Up

Zhao Deguo, Chief Operating Officer of cuaa.net, explains that "prestigious politicians" refer to state leaders, provincial or ministerial level officials, or members and alternate members of 14th, 15th, and 16th CPC Central Committee.

But according to Li, the increasing number of officials with PKU background is a phenomenon worth more attention.

The current Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai graduated from PKU's Department of History. 15 newly-promoted senior officials such as Yuan Chunqing, Governor of Shaanxi Province, Guo Gengmao, Governor of Hebei Province, and Hu Chunhua, First Secretary, Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China, are all graduates of PKU.

Tsinghua graduates are generally believed to be persons who do not shy away from taking risks, but are also modest and cooperative, seen as good managers and social leaders. PKU graduates have a reputation for being idealistic and having strong personalities. Their outgoing manner is far from the traditional moderate and austere manners expected in a Chinese government official.

But PKU has changed the situation in recent years. More government officials are willing to participate in training courses organized by PKU and obtain a degree bearing its prestigious name. At the same time, PKU invites government officials to teach in the university. For example, Xu Guangchun, former Vice Minister of the CPC Central Committee Publicity Department, Wang Chen, president of People's Daily, the official Party paper, and Nan Zhenzhong, Chief Editor of Xinhua News Agency, were hired by PKU as part-time professors.

Another fact is that a lot of current PKU-graduated officials enjoy low profiles. Zhao Leji, Party Chief of Shaanxi Province, can be cited as an example. One of his principles is that he refuses any kind of exclusive interviews by any media. Other officials like Li Keqiang, a graduate from PKU's Law School, now Party secretary of Liaoning, and Li Yuanchao, with a Masters' degree in economy and management from PKU, now Party Secretary of Jiangsu, are examples of a more reserved breed of PKU graduates. They are rarely flamboyant in front of the media, and shy away from revealing too much about their personal characteristics, a far cry from the stereotypical "Bei Da" student.

According to public materials, as of the end of May 2007, 75 percent of Party secretaries and governors across 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions had an education in the arts or in a social science.

Of the 57 PKU-graduated officials, the majority majored in subjects such as history, philosophy, laws, economy and politics. Only two of them graduated from School of Physics and College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering.

"As the social management process is becoming more complicated, the country needs more officials with an educational background in an arts subject or a social science," said Xu Xianglin, Vice Dean of School of Government, PKU.

PKU-graduated ministerial-level government officials

(China.org.cn by Zhang Yunxing, October 17, 2007)