Stanford University Campus. Photo/Beijing News
Media recently reported that a Chinese billionaire family spent 6.5 million US dollars (about RMB 43,769,050) to enroll their children at Stanford University. Foreign media pointed out that the person involved in the high-priced enrollment incident was Yusi'Molly'Zhao, and his father was the chairman of Stepan Pharmaceuticals, and the student has been expelled from Stanford University.
This fraud case of enrollment in a well-known university not only shocked the United States, but also triggered heated discussions in China across the ocean.
Stepchang Pharmaceutical Company is a veteran domestic pharmaceutical company. Its chairman Zhao Tao has a net worth of tens of billions and has won the titles of "Top Ten Chinese Talents" and "Top Ten Philanthropists" in China. Previously, Zhao Tao said in a speech entitled "Social Entrepreneurs, Those who are capable of helping the world": Entrepreneurs should "help the world" and take into account more human and social problems, social ecology and enterprise development problems, and social pollution problems; take into account social humanistic and environmental problems; create wealth in the first half of their lives, and use these wealth in the second half of their lives to continue to transform the world, "this is also what Chinese entrepreneurs need to do."
However, we have not seen that Zhao Tao uses the wealth in his hands to help transform the world, make the world more fair and better, and realize his dream of "helping the world". On the contrary, wealth became his tool for "doing evil". Behind the purchase of a large sum of money into a world-renowned university is an improper and disgraceful value, which not only brings shame to him and his family, but also makes his compatriots lose face.
"do evil", the word "doing evil" is not an exaggeration at all. Although it is just an admissions fraud case, it seems to be commonplace in China, and there are mostly jokes about this matter on the Internet. But we have to say that this is a serious problem, because it not only undermines the fairness of university admissions, but also insults the holiness of knowledge and defiles the sacred spiritual palace of human beings of the university.
Zhao Tao may not have thought that money could not settle everything, even if he spent 40 million yuan. In a society that adheres to rules and the rule of law, money is not omnipotent, and things will leave traces when done. No one can cover up the sky with one hand, and no one dares to trample on the law. Therefore, it is not surprising that his daughter's scandal was eventually discovered and expelled from Stanford.
In fact, Zhao Tao didn't need to do this. The wealth he has was enough to give his children better educational conditions and development space, so that they can win the favor of famous European and American schools with their own abilities and qualities. This process will not come so fast, but you will walk firmly and at ease with each step. But Zhao Tao and his family abandoned this right path and tried to take shortcuts through the power of wealth. This means that the huge wealth they have did not help them, but instead harmed them.
The distorted outlook on life and right and wrong brought by wealth is not an individual case. It is definitely not uncommon among the rich people in China. American scholar Xue Yong once criticized that many rich people in China only use wealth to define their status and lack moral consciousness and social responsibility. Therefore, there is no spiritual tradition that restricts its extravagance and desire. It must be admitted that the spiritual degeneration of some rich people has a certain relationship with the overall social environment. But the rich are different from ordinary people. They have influence that ordinary people do not have and have "resource advantages" that ordinary people cannot compare to. In other words, they have the ability to refuse the convergence of filth, and even have the ability to assume greater responsibilities, transform the humanistic environment of society, and actively create a more sunny and fairer social culture.
Wealth should never be a tool for "doing evil", on the contrary, it should make society better. The high-priced fraud in studying was exposed, which actually taught the rich in China a lesson: respecting rules and the rule of law. Even if there is huge wealth, it cannot cross this bottom line. Only by learning to treat wealth with a modern and civilized mindset and using wealth can the rich in China gain true respect from their compatriots and the outside world.
edit He Rui Proofreading Jia Ning
