Excellent insights, Jeff. You are truly in a position to make the comparison. Thank you for sharing. The Chinese nation's vigilance to adhere to standards of excellent, accountability, and responsibleness is very impressive.
As for the Chinese billionaire class (and billionaire-adjacent) whose children go to school in China (as opposed to abroad), are they by and large subject to the same standards? Or is there bribing to get their underachieving kids in the right schools?
It is not just billionaires, but many wealthy Chinese who find elite avenues for their kids to get degrees.
Baba Beijing is trying to level the playing field by making all for-profit schools, K-college to be non-profits, thus cutting down on investor fervor. They also have to respect the Chinese constitution, meaning no counterrevolutionary propaganda, which my wife and I saw plenty of, when we taught in China, 2010-2019.
But no matter, the privileged can always find ways to beat the system.
The underachieving kids of the rich end up in foreign universities, as happened with the HK Chinese for so long. My first wife and her sister went to British universities because the HK universities were just too brutal to get into. Just look at the Chinese students in the US, Canada, UK and Australia. The best stay home, as once outside the Chinese system of excellence its very hard to get back in. At the height of Japanese economic power in the 1980s/1990s there were a lot of stories of Japanese executives abroad having problems with their children re-entering the Japanese school system after being abroad.
The Chinese rich do what the rich around the world do, use special tutors etc. to give their kids a leg up. There is much more opportunity for bribery in the West using such things as school donations than in China, especially under Xi. The meritocracy is brutal. In the West we get elite mediocrity with spoiled brats who are molly coddled from school to university.
An excellent example is Xi Jinping's only daughter who was not clever enough to get into a top Chinese university, so she went to Harvard which values parental social position much more than ability. It regularly rejects masses of qualified Chinese-American candidates on "social/diversity" grounds to keep enough for the spawn of alumni, faculty and super rich/prestigious people.
Thank you, Roger, for your edifying comments. So let me make sure I got this right. Under Xi, the rich are facing more stringent meritocracy standards than usual, yet at the same time, he himself is taking advantage of his social position to bypass said standards by sending his own daughter to college in the US. So Xi is not walking his talk. Is that correct?
Xi's daughter would be a rock star in China. By going overseas, it afforded her and her family anonymity. She went to Harvard under an alias, but had discreet bodyguards hanging around for her protection.
Xi is not using his position to force a Chinese university to give his daughter a place, so within China he is walking the talk. He respects the need for meritocracy within China.
He is still a father, so he can gain his daughter some great experience abroad. It also provides his daughter with an excellent understanding of the US elite worldview and mindset.
This podcast is a good companion piece to Godfree Roberts' essay Labor in China and America -- https://herecomeschina.substack.com/p/labor-in-china-and-america
Thanks, Cat.
Godfree is an esteemed member of the China Writers' Group. Quite a resource!
Jeff
Excellent insights, Jeff. You are truly in a position to make the comparison. Thank you for sharing. The Chinese nation's vigilance to adhere to standards of excellent, accountability, and responsibleness is very impressive.
As for the Chinese billionaire class (and billionaire-adjacent) whose children go to school in China (as opposed to abroad), are they by and large subject to the same standards? Or is there bribing to get their underachieving kids in the right schools?
Cat,
Roger's comments below are excellent.
It is not just billionaires, but many wealthy Chinese who find elite avenues for their kids to get degrees.
Baba Beijing is trying to level the playing field by making all for-profit schools, K-college to be non-profits, thus cutting down on investor fervor. They also have to respect the Chinese constitution, meaning no counterrevolutionary propaganda, which my wife and I saw plenty of, when we taught in China, 2010-2019.
But no matter, the privileged can always find ways to beat the system.
Jeff
The underachieving kids of the rich end up in foreign universities, as happened with the HK Chinese for so long. My first wife and her sister went to British universities because the HK universities were just too brutal to get into. Just look at the Chinese students in the US, Canada, UK and Australia. The best stay home, as once outside the Chinese system of excellence its very hard to get back in. At the height of Japanese economic power in the 1980s/1990s there were a lot of stories of Japanese executives abroad having problems with their children re-entering the Japanese school system after being abroad.
The Chinese rich do what the rich around the world do, use special tutors etc. to give their kids a leg up. There is much more opportunity for bribery in the West using such things as school donations than in China, especially under Xi. The meritocracy is brutal. In the West we get elite mediocrity with spoiled brats who are molly coddled from school to university.
An excellent example is Xi Jinping's only daughter who was not clever enough to get into a top Chinese university, so she went to Harvard which values parental social position much more than ability. It regularly rejects masses of qualified Chinese-American candidates on "social/diversity" grounds to keep enough for the spawn of alumni, faculty and super rich/prestigious people.
Great comments, Roger!
Jeff
Thank you, Roger, for your edifying comments. So let me make sure I got this right. Under Xi, the rich are facing more stringent meritocracy standards than usual, yet at the same time, he himself is taking advantage of his social position to bypass said standards by sending his own daughter to college in the US. So Xi is not walking his talk. Is that correct?
Xi's daughter would be a rock star in China. By going overseas, it afforded her and her family anonymity. She went to Harvard under an alias, but had discreet bodyguards hanging around for her protection.
Xi is not using his position to force a Chinese university to give his daughter a place, so within China he is walking the talk. He respects the need for meritocracy within China.
He is still a father, so he can gain his daughter some great experience abroad. It also provides his daughter with an excellent understanding of the US elite worldview and mindset.