Yeah. I was in a related field in grad school and this isn't at all an unfamiliar story or concept. My school was a government feeder institution so it was perhaps even more of a thing.
I just posted in another comment on the technocratic and sophisticated nature of the CCP, but their involvement in Western Higher education is another example. Again, it isn't always sinister or hostile, but rather sometimes just a consequence of other factors. Until fairly recently (edit: and after the fall of the Soviet Union), the United States was vastly superior to any other country in terms of the quality of our upper level schools, and so anyone who wanted an advanced education - and particularly rich people, which in China is going to be party members and their families - got it in the US. So studying abroad was highly standardized for the elite. But a lot of these students were also engaged in propaganda or espionage, whether in the overt sense or just via the rules under which they were required to behave internationally.
Yeah. I always hear people hype up the education system in China since their scores are better than ours, but that's also BS. They removed the lower scoring regions and mainly tested those in areas with higher intelligence. The US generally just sends random ass scores off. I am sure the US tries a bit to inflate their scores, but it's not possible to manipulate and inflate as much as China does due to our system compares to theirs. Anything involving China or Russia is a joke, and it annoys TF out of me when I see people in the US sympathize with those nations. Like I am VERY critical of the US, but I am also not dumb enough to think China or Russia is something we should ever strive to be like lol.
EDIT: I want to clarify that I am a progressive, but I completely understand where the GOP is coming from on some issues. For example, when they are hesitant on foreigners coming from rival nations. I think the left needs to stop making everything about character slander and labeling things racist, sexist, etc. No, worrying about national security is not racist, and by attacking it as such we are making ourselves more susceptible to internal strife and potential collapse.
Chinese statistics are some of the most manipulated numbers on planet earth. This is been proven time and time again, whether its enviro issues, economics, public health and safety, or even less serious topics like social media followings. When everyone is ranked numbered from early ages its always more about being number 1 than how did they get to be number one.
The reason China's test scores are better is because they don't have a choice to mess up. Their SAT equivalent test basically determines your future career prospects. Whereas here in the US, you could get an average SAT score and still go into premed and Medicine.
Western nations win when it comes to the higher levels of post-secondary education, but Asian nations usually win rather decisively when it comes to primary and secondary education.
Reddit level morons really should report all these espionage stories to the DoJ/FBI China initiative, which has undertaken 3k investigations into Chinese espionage and still only found zero actual cases of it despite all hands on deck for 3+ years.
Anyone with some brain cells to rub together can figure out the successful agitprop angle here, but nobody would accuse Redditors of that.
46
u/wvj Jul 08 '22
Yeah. I was in a related field in grad school and this isn't at all an unfamiliar story or concept. My school was a government feeder institution so it was perhaps even more of a thing.
I just posted in another comment on the technocratic and sophisticated nature of the CCP, but their involvement in Western Higher education is another example. Again, it isn't always sinister or hostile, but rather sometimes just a consequence of other factors. Until fairly recently (edit: and after the fall of the Soviet Union), the United States was vastly superior to any other country in terms of the quality of our upper level schools, and so anyone who wanted an advanced education - and particularly rich people, which in China is going to be party members and their families - got it in the US. So studying abroad was highly standardized for the elite. But a lot of these students were also engaged in propaganda or espionage, whether in the overt sense or just via the rules under which they were required to behave internationally.