Historians date the beginning of China’s modern economy from 1978, two years after the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the disastrous cultural revolution. But many modern institutions, notably in business education, are even younger. Wang Chunqi earned the first MBA degree granted by a mainland Chinese university in 1993, when China was on the cusp of its period of supercharged growth.
历史学家认为中国现代经济开端于1978年，即毛泽东逝世以及灾难性的文化大革命结束两年以后。但中国的许多现代机构，特别是商学教育机构，起步的时间要更晚。1993年，王淳奇拿到了中国大陆大学授予的第一个MBA学位，当时的中国即将进入高速增长期。
Ironically, Wang himself did not seek out the opportunity but — in an echo of the planned economy from which China was emerging — had it thrust upon him. After finishing his first degree in engineering in 1977, he was sent to work at Yizheng Chemical Fibre, building automated production lines. By 1991, the company was the world’s fourth-largest producer of polyester yarn.
讽刺的是，王淳奇本人并没有去寻找读MBA的机会，而是这个机会硬找上了他，这反映出计划经济的特点，而当时的中国正在逐渐摆脱这种经济模式。1977年，王淳奇拿到了他的第一个学位（工科学位），而后被分配到仪征化纤(Yizheng Chemical)工作，负责建设自动化生产线。到1991年时，仪征化纤已成为全球第四大涤纶纱生产商。
“I had no [management] experience, but at that time getting into university had nothing to do with your background,” Wang says, speaking in the lobby of his office tower in Shanghai’s Pudong district. The area was still mostly farmland when he began his MBA but is now a dense cluster of skyscrapers.
“我没有（管理）经验，但那个时候进大学读书与你的背景毫无关系。”王淳奇在其位于上海浦东新区的写字楼的大厅里说道。他开始读MBA的时候，浦东基本上还是农田，而今已经高楼林立。

“The company leader recommended me. I had a certain status there,” Wang says. “There were a few of us who were recommended to take the test, but I was the only one who passed. Actually, I really didn’t understand what this discipline was all about.”
王淳奇说：“公司领导推荐的我。我在那儿有一定地位。我们有好几个人被推荐参加考试，只有我考上了。其实，我当时并不明白这门学科是怎么一回事。”
The Chinese government selected nine universities to pioneer domestic MBA education. The inaugural year was 1991 and the group included Beijing’s three top universities — Peking, Renmin and Tsinghua.
中国政府选择了9所大学率先开展国内MBA教育。1991年是中国国内MBA教育的元年，这9所大学中有3所是位于北京的一流高校，它们分别是北京大学(Peking University)、中国人民大学(Renmin University)以及清华大学(Tsinghua University)。
Tsinghua, which is known as China’s answer to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was famous for its engineering department. Future central bank governor and premier Zhu Rongji, an architect of China’s economic reform during the early 2000s under President Jiang Zemin, was appointed as founding dean of the new School of Economics and Management.
清华大学被称为中国的麻省理工学院(MIT)，当时以工科著称。中国后来的央行行长和国务院总理朱镕基当时被任命为新成立的清华大学经济管理学院(School of Economics and Management)的首任院长。2000年代早期，在时任国家主席的江泽民的领导下，朱镕基成为了中国经济改革的设计师。
For Wang, business school meant leaving his wife in Nanjing to live in a dorm room with two classmates in Beijing. But the schools had been instructed from on high to launch MBAs and were not fully prepared. With no standardised course materials, professors often taught from handwritten notes. A distinct business curriculum had not yet been established, so Wang took classes with masters students in engineering for the programme’s first year.
对王淳奇来说，读商学院意味着要离开南京的妻子、去北京跟两位同学住在一间宿舍里。相关的大学虽然受高层指示启动了MBA项目，但当时却没做好充分的准备。由于没有规范的教材，教授们经常用手写的笔记教学。因为专门的商学课程尚未设置好，所以王淳奇在头一个学年是与工科硕士研究生一起上课。
In the second year, 15 of 70 masters students were chosen to proceed to the formal MBA programme. Much like the so-called “third generation” of Chinese political leaders centred around Jiang, Zhu and former premier Li Peng, who all trained as engineers, the selection process for MBA students placed a premium on engineering skills.
第二年，70名硕士研究生中有15人被选中进入正式的MBA项目。这一选拔过程将学生的工科技能作为重要考虑因素之一，这一特点很像以江泽民、朱镕基及前总理李鹏为主要人物的中国“第三代”政治领导集体，他们全都是学工科出身的。
“They didn’t want teachers; they wanted people with experience managing factories — people with experience in industrial science,” Wang says. “If you studied the humanities, foreign languages or something like that, they didn’t want you.”
王淳奇说：“他们不要教师，他们要的是有管理工厂经验的人——有工业科技经验的人。如果你以前学的是人文、外语之类的专业，他们不要你的。”
For an engineering student, topics such as marketing strategy, joint venture management and western accounting were unfamiliar. The course required three years of full-time study and Wang recalls working into the night by torchlight after the dormitory shut off the electricity at 10 o’clock.
对一名工科学生而言，像营销策略、合资企业管理和西方会计学这样的科目是很陌生的。全部课程需要全日制学习3年。王淳奇回忆起，在宿舍晚上10点停电后，他会打着手电筒学到深夜。
“Compared with engineering, it wasn’t really difficult, but it required a new way of thinking. Sometimes I didn’t understand what I was reading,” he says.
王淳奇说：“与工程学相比，MBA并不是很难，但它要求你具备一种新的思维方式。有时候我搞不懂自己到底在学什么。”
Wang earned the distinction of becoming China’s first MBA because he asked for permission to graduate several months early. “When I graduated, they hadn’t even figured out what the diploma should look like. They just gave me an engineering diploma,” he says. “Later I swapped it for the real thing.”
王淳奇之所以获得“中国MBA第一人”这一殊荣，是因为他当时请求校方允许他提前几个月毕业。他说：“我毕业的时候，他们连文凭的式样都没设计好。他们只好授予我一份工科文凭。后来我才把这份文凭换成了MBA文凭。”
Yizheng Chemical was preparing to be one of the first mainland companies to complete an initial public offering in Hong Kong. For his MBA thesis, Wang researched issues surrounding Yizheng Chemical’s listing and was given special permission to return to the company to participate in the road show.
仪征化纤当时正准备成为第一家在香港完成首次公开发行(IPO)的大陆公司。为了完成MBA论文，王淳奇研究了仪征化纤上市相关问题，他还获得特批回到公司参加上市路演。
Though not of his own choosing, the experience fundamentally changed the course of Wang’s career. Shortly after the IPO, he left Yizheng Chemical to join First Eastern Investment, a Hong Kong-based private equity firm.
虽然不是自己的选择，但这段经历从根本上改变了王淳奇职业生涯的轨迹。仪征化纤上市后不久，他就离开了这家公司，加入了位于香港的私人股本公司第一东方投资(First Eastern Investment)。
Wang’s career shift neatly tracks the changes in China’s economy. Yizheng Chemical thrived in the 1990s and early 2000s, when the country grew rapidly by mastering existing technology from rich countries and taking advantage of cheap labour costs to seize market share.
王淳奇职业生涯的轨迹紧随中国经济的变化而变。仪征化纤在1990年代和2000年代初蓬勃发展。当时，中国通过掌握富裕国家现有技术和利用劳动力成本低的优势抢占市场份额，实现了快速增长。
Now high-pollution, low-margin industries such as chemical fibre are giving way to higher-value-added industries, including financial services. Yizheng Chemical, which today is owned by state oil refiner Sinopec, is struggling to survive in an industry beset by overcapacity, and its shares are in danger of being delisted.
而现在，像化纤这样高污染、低利润率的产业正让位给高附加值产业，其中包括金融服务业。仪征化纤——现为国有炼油企业中石化(Sinopec)所有——正在一个为产能过剩所累的行业里挣扎求生，其股票有被摘牌的危险。
Yet Wang maintains a traditional view of what makes an effective business leader. “You need to understand technology and industrial science,” he says. “A lot of investment bankers who do IPOs come at it from the perspective of the humanities and make all kinds of promises to investors. That won’t fly.”
尽管如此，对于高效的企业领袖应具备何种素质，王淳奇仍持传统观点。他说：“你需要了解技术以及工业科技。很多从事IPO的投资银行家都从人文角度着手，向投资者许下各种承诺。这是行不通的。”
MBA places and senior faculty in short supply
MBA名额和资深教师供不应求
It may be barely 20 years since China produced its first MBA student, but these days some 30,000 managers graduate with an MBA each year from 236 Chinese business schools, writes Della Bradshaw.
中国培养出自己的第一个MBA学生才过了20年，如今全国已有236所商学院，每年的MBA毕业生差不多有3万人。
That is huge growth by international standards — China now has nearly three times as many MBA schools as the UK — but given the size of China’s management cadre, the numbers are tiny.
以国际标准来衡量，这一增长是巨大的，中国现在的MBA学校数量是英国的将近3倍。但相对中国管理干部的规模而言，其MBA数量又是非常小的。
One reason for this is the lack of qualified instructors, says Zhou Lin, dean of Antai College at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. “Thirty thousand seems to be a small number, but if you look at the supply side, in China there are not enough quality programmes. The bottom schools are really struggling.”
造成此现象的原因之一是缺乏合格的教师。上海交通大学(Shanghai Jiao Tong University)安泰经济与管理学院(Antai College)院长周林说：“3万似乎是个小数目，但如果你看下供应面，中国没有足够多的高质量项目。底层学校真的很艰难。”
One reason is that it is difficult to hire faculty, says Lu Xiongwen, dean of management at Fudan University in Shanghai. “It is not difficult to hire junior scholars but it is to get senior scholars.”
上海复旦大学(Fudan University)管理学院院长陆雄文说，原因之一是很难聘请到教师。“资历浅的学者不难招到，难的是招到资深学者。”
Even at Tsinghua University in Beijing, one of the world’s most prestigious universities, the management school has been able to fill only nine of its 30 chaired professorships.
即使是北京的清华大学——全球最负盛名的大学之一——其经济管理学院的30个教授席位也只能招到9人。
A second reason for the relatively slow progress is the quota system. The government tells each university how many students it can enrol and the university allocates places to each department. Even if there is huge demand for an MBA, the designated number cannot be exceeded.
中国MBA教育发展相对缓慢的第二个原因是配额制。政府会告诉每所大学能招多少学生，学校再将名额分配给各系。即使MBA面临需求的巨大，招生人数也不能超出指定的数量。
Prof Lu believes the system should change: “[The number of] MBAs should be determined in the market.”
陆雄文教授认为这一制度应该改变：“MBA（的数量）应由市场决定。”
Another significant difference between MBA study in China and that in the US or Europe is that the majority of students in China study part time.
中国与欧美的MBA教育还存在一个显著不同：中国的大多数MBA学生都是边工作边学习的。
At Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management just 98 of the 437 students who enrolled on the MBA programme this academic year are studying full time. At Antai, 80 of the 550 MBA students study full-time, says Prof Zhou. “When MBA students have decided they want to study full time, they will go abroad.”
清华大学经济管理学院的MBA项目本学年招生437人，其中只有98人是全日制学生。据周林教授介绍，安泰经济与管理学院的550名MBA学生里有80人为全日制学生。“MBA学生要是决定了想读全日制项目，他们会出国去读。”