That is one observation I made on the last trip. Even though there is a very high literacy rate in China (far ahead of its peers by income per capita), the Chinese people by and large are very, very poorly informed. This applies to not just geopolitics, but to basic knowledge of science and world history. I think two things contribute to this:
1. Indifference to geopolitics partly as a result of highly biased news coverage. There isn't a lot of outright lies on Chinese news, but the coverage is very biased. 2. The education system is focused on test results and not educational outcomes. For example, people may have taken physics but they have no idea how it relates to real life.
That is one observation I made on the last trip. Even though there is a very high literacy rate in China (far ahead of its peers by income per capita), the Chinese people by and large are very, very poorly informed. This applies to not just geopolitics, but to basic knowledge of science and world history. I think two things contribute to this:
ReplyDelete1. Indifference to geopolitics partly as a result of highly biased news coverage. There isn't a lot of outright lies on Chinese news, but the coverage is very biased.
2. The education system is focused on test results and not educational outcomes. For example, people may have taken physics but they have no idea how it relates to real life.
That's pretty gag inducing...what's old is new again!
ReplyDelete