They will spend a postgraduate year in China at a newly constructed college on the campus of Tsinghua University where President Xi Jinping once studied.

Ms McEniery said the scholarship was the perfect postgraduate way of combining her interest in China and international health policy. "We need leaders who understand China and the role China will play in the future," she said in an interview.

Ms McEniery, 22, completed a bachelor of economics at the University of Queensland in 2014 where she researched healthcare expenditure. Since graduating, she has worked at the Queensland Treasury, focusing on public health policy. She has also worked as an intern at finance companies in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and wants to become an independent health policy analyst.

Mr Tan, 25, has already won the 2014 Prime Minister's Australia Asia Award for his undergraduate degree in Asian studies at ANU. He is also the co-founder of Australian Natural, China's first specialist importer of Australian organic wines and fine foods, and recently founded a new non-profit, Orient Abroad, offering on-the-ground support to Australian students in Asia.

Scholarship founder Stephen Schwarzman Victor Blue

Target of 200 scholarships

The 111 Schwarzman scholars were selected from more than 3000 applicants, making the program one of the most selective in the world with an acceptance rate of 3.7 per cent, which Mr Schwarzman said was a better take-up than many top US graduate schools.

The first group has students from 32 countries and 75 universities with 44 per cent from the United States, 21 per cent from China, and 35 per cent from the rest of the world and Mr Schwarzman said he was happy to now start building towards his planned 200 scholarships a year.


He played down competition with the Rhodes scholarship saying the two programs were developing a common leadership course.

The class will both take classes and live at the newly constructed Schwarzman College on the Tsinghua campus from August. Chinese businessman Jack Ma signed up to take interns from the scholarship program and Mr Schwarzman said he hoped to receive more support from Chinese companies once the scholars started arriving.

He said: "The calibre of this first class of Schwarzman scholars is truly exceptional. Each scholar has demonstrated tremendous leadership potential at a young age and differentiated themselves through a myriad of academic and non-academic pursuits."

Mr Schwarzman has backed the scholarship foundation with a personal contribution of US$100 million ($143 million) and is leading a fundraising campaign to raise an extra $US350 million. The scholarship advisory board members include former prime minister Kevin Rudd and Australian born former World Bank president James Wolfensohn.