Lakeside University, co-founded by Jack Ma, founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, and others, has been found to have quietly removed the word “university” from its name.
On Sunday (May 16), a video circulating on the Internet showed that the word “university” in “Lakeside University” carved on a huge stone was erased by workers with an electric grinder, and only the word “Lakeside “two words remain on the stone. Observers believe that this move shows that the University of Lakeside, known as the “elite club” is lowering itself to preserve itself.
Meanwhile, a netizen uploaded a screenshot of Lakeside University’s official microblog page, which has been renamed “Lakeside Creative Research Center”. Sina Technology reported that Lakeside University’s WeChat public number was “quietly” changed to “Lakeside Hupan”, with the main body of the account being “Zhejiang Lakeside University Entrepreneurship Research Center”. There are comments that it is unclear how long the word “Lakeside” can remain.
The official microblog of Lakeside University has been renamed as “Lakeside Entrepreneurship Research Center”. (Screenshot from Weibo)
The Financial Times reported last month that Lakeside University had halted enrollment for the new academic year, which was expected to begin in late March, because of pressure from Chinese authorities. The Financial Times said a major reason why Lakeside University was restricted by authorities was because they feared that China’s top entrepreneurs might be organized to achieve goals set up by Jack Ma rather than the Chinese Communist Party. In China, the CCP has clearly declared that the Party leads everything, including the government, the military, the people and the business sector. Any organization or group that is independent of the Party causes unease to the CCP authorities, and it always finds a way to bring it under its control.
Over the past two or three decades, technology companies like Alibaba, Tencent, Byte Jump and Baidu have expanded dramatically, and the huge variety of resources they control has unnerved the CCP. Late last year, Chinese regulators launched an investigation into Alibaba and other companies in the name of anti-monopoly and called a last-minute halt to the IPO of Alibaba’s online bank Ant Group. Jack Ma was also interviewed by the authorities.
China’s antitrust regulator fined Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. $2.8 billion on April 10 for abusing its dominant market position over competitors and merchants within its e-commerce platform.
Taiwan’s Central News Agency cited several media reports that Lakeside University responded to the name change by saying that Lakeside has always been a private non-enterprise unit registered with the civil affairs department and is not part of the academic education sequence. The name change is to avoid causing misunderstanding, now renamed “Zhejiang Lakeside Entrepreneurship Research Center”, referred to as “Lakeside Creative Research Center”.
The staff of the Lakeside Center for Entrepreneurship and Research said that the renamed Lakeside Center for Entrepreneurship and Research is still in the process of opening classes.
Founded in January 2015, Lakeside University is a private coaching organization for China’s top business leaders. Its nine founding members include Lenovo Chairman Liu Chuanzhi, Fosun Chairman Guo Guangchang and Giant Interactive’s Shi Yuzhu.
Members from academia include Qian Yingyi, former dean of Tsinghua University’s School of Management, and Cai Hongbin, former dean of Peking University’s Guanghua School. Jack Ma is one of the nine founders and was the school’s president.
Lakeside University is a private school that was never officially approved by China’s Ministry of Education, but the influence of Ma and other co-founders has made it a magnet for potential business leaders in China. On the fifth anniversary of Lakeside University in October 2020, Ma reportedly said it had received 11,788 applications in five years and had admitted only 254. That ratio makes Lakeside University a higher bar than top U.S. business schools such as Harvard and Stanford.
Lakeside requires applicants to have at least three years of entrepreneurial experience, including at a company with at least 30 full-time employees and 30 million yuan (about $4.6 million) in annual revenue.
The first cohort of Lakeside University students included Wang Lifen, the CEO of Umi.com, and Wang Xiaofei, the founder of South Beauty, the second cohort included Huo Qiwen, the vice president of Huo Yingdong Group, and Wu Guoping, the founder of Grandma’s Home, and the third cohort included Zhang Xuhao, the CEO of Hungry Hands, and Suhua, the founder of Racer. .
Lakeside University has also generated considerable controversy since its inception. Critics have called it more of an elite social club centered on its charismatic founder Jack Ma than a school. Ma has reportedly said he wants to train up to 3,000 entrepreneurs in China over the next 30 years. Ma, who is considered to be high-profile in his dealings, has also said that the school will last 300 years.
In March 2018, Ma made a high-profile claim that Lakeside University would last 300 years.
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