Nigel Thrift, head of Schwarzman Scholars, a transnational scheme to develop movers and shakers, tells John Gill about China’s international role.

If your ambition is to become a world leader, there are a few training grounds you might consider.

One obvious one is studying politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) at the University of Oxford – the degree that launched a thousand prime ministerships; another is a stint at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; or, if you’re more authoritarian in your leadership style, a rather different apprenticeship might be found in a security agency such as the KGB.

But is it realistic for an academic programme to set out with the explicit aim of identifying, educating and, crucially, networking future world leaders, as a business school might do for future company chief executives? This is the ambition of Schwarzman Scholars, a new scholarship programme that is backed by American money, based in China and led by a British academic.