Before that he was a sophomore studying the MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine / Bachelor of Surgery) programme in Changsha Medical University, a privately-run college in Hunan province. The school informed that he was dismissed for failing 8 courses and frequently breaking the school rules, since he incited other students to transfer and put in for a transfer without permission.

Orphir considered the statement as excuse. “The real reason is that they expelled me as a warning to other international students, so that they dare not ask for their rights.” Orphir said.

In fact, a good few international students have ever planted ideas of transferring to other universities as they were discontented with school teaching and management. Much more importantly, the Ministry of Education of PRC never approved Changsha Medical University as qualified university to enroll these international students, according to the guideline “Provisional Regulation on Quality Control Standard of English-Taught Medical Undergraduate Education for International Students in China” issued in 2007. Orphir and his classmates were misled by education agents to study in China.

Based on the investigation by Southern Weekly, except for Changsha Medical University, at least 6 universities have enrolled international students to English-taught MBBS program, but they were not in the list of qualified universities either.

An anonymous insider commented that since English-taught MBBS programmes in these universities are not in conformity with their promotional information and are not recognized by official educational accrediting bodies in China, India and other countries, such programmes could be called “diploma mills”, although the universities themselves are qualified.

Deception after deception

Hailing from Rawalpindi, a northeastern city of Pakistan, Orphir has aimed to be a doctor since his childhood. He finally found the chance, when he read the advertisement of an education agent saying that “Want to take medical course in China? We provide the most economical MBBS programme”. The advertisement was published in the country’s most popular Urdu newspaper The Daily Jang in Oct 2009.

Such commercials are not rare. It becomes trendy for Pakistan and Indian students to pursue MBBS in China. “We even spend less in China than in Pakistan for study.” Orphir said.

According to data released by the Ministry of Education, medicine is the second most popular major chosen by international students coming to China, following language learning programme. The number of international medical students is increasing year by year. The phenomenon even drew Indian media’s attention. India Times covered a report “Doctors, Made in China”  telling the story about it. That report also concerned about the quality of education, worrying that some schools would lower the threshold of admission and impair the quality.

Unfortunately, all Orphir’s experience has corroborated the doubt. He applied to the education agent called NRZ International Consultant in Pakistan, and received an offer from Changsha Medical University unconditionally on the next day. He was not required to prepare any certificate of Chinese or English proficiency, although he was enrolled by an English-taught programme.

Looking back to this, Orphir said he was deeply hurt by the agent’s concealment and deception. For example, the agent didn’t tell him that Changsha Medical University is a non-governmental school. And the advertisement even noted that it took only three hours to drive from Changsha to Hong Kong, which should be at least ten hours actually.

Not only that, Orphir was deluded by the key fact that the school was ineligible to enroll international students for MBBS study.

As early as 2007, the Ministry of Education laid down regulation to rectify the messed situation of MBBS programme management at universities. Despite that the provincial department of education originally should have right to approve the qualification, but the ministry directly restricted scale of enrollment and identified 30 universities to admit international students for English-taught MBBS programme instead. The number has risen to 49 in 2011. Changsha Medical University is not on the list of any year.

Ms. Yang, Section Chief of International Exchanges Division in Changsha Medical University said the school was “qualified” to enroll international students with the approval of the Department of Education in Hunan Province (which in fact has no authority to approve MBBS programmes).

What’s more, she added, the MBBS programme was Chinese-taught. “But considering the international students, it is impossible that all courses are taught in Chinese.”

However, international students in Changsha Medical University told Southern Weekly that “all the medical courses are taught totally in English.”

In accordance with regulation by Ministry of Education, universities not on the list should not recruit international students to MBBS programme, but they could have Chinese-taught programme and take in international medical students. In addition, some vague wordings such as “Bilingual teaching” are forbidden in school promotion.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of equivocal statements, a fair number of education agents in Pakistan solicit students openly to MBBS programme in unqualified schools like Changsha Medical University. International students are consequently deceived as unacquainted with education policies in China.

The agent deceived Orphir as well. Orphir even didn’t know that he was in the first batch of Pakistan students to Changsha Medical University until he entered school. Before coming to China, Orphir once called a Pakistan student at school, introduced by the agent. He told Orphir, “I’m a senior here. The school is very good.” When Orphir met that “senior” in Changsha, he found that the “senior” was his classmate as a fact, who merely came earlier a few days.

Orphir asked him angrily, “Why did you lie to me?” “If not, how could you come?” Orphir’s classmate answered, on the side of agent.

A barrage of absurd stories

A barrage of absurd things happened to Orphir after he got the “offer”.

For example, Orphir should begin his programme in September 2009. However, the formalities like visa process postponed his schedule. Orphir arrived at Changsha on January 1st 2010 when he missed most courses in the semester, but the agent told him it was all right. In the end, Orphir had to take final exams after few classes and failed two courses out of four.

One of his classmates registered even later than Orphir. And lots of international students arrived in November or December.

After registration, Orphir was required to pay 4600 dollars as one-year expense, “But it should be 2000 dollars as the advertisement noted. ”Orphir complained, because he was attracted by the low expense at first. But now he had to pay more than doubled.

The Pakistan agent Raheel Tariq collected 4600 dollars expense directly. Indications point out that International Exchanges Division of Changsha Medical University is keeping a closer relation with Raheel than ordinary education agent. Raheel is called “coordinator” in English-version website of the university. (But his name and title has been deleted from the website after the Chinese version of this report published.)

Some student once read the agreement between the university and Raheel, saying that the university would pay 10% of the tuition as commission to Raheel.

In fact, most schools with illegal enrollment rely much on foreign education agents. Director of General Office in Luzhou Medical College ever wrote in a published paper, “Foreign education agents could assist to international students’ teaching and management.” “It is very necessary and helpful.”

The condition of teaching quality seemed worrying as well. Orphir memorized that a Chinese lady “Dr. Sunny” taught him Physiology in the second semester. Then he found that the courses of Microbiology, Parasitology, Immunology and Clinical Anatomy were also taught by Dr. Sunny in the third semester. The matter has not finished yet. In the fourth semester, Dr. Sunny appeared again in the class of Pathology, and she would teach Pathophysiology in following days. In other word, there was only one teacher, who taught 7 major subjects of Clinical Medicine MBBS and instructed laboratory practice of all these subjects at the same time.

“They just toy with our future!” Orphir said.

Such situation was denied by Ms. Yang, Section Chief of International Exchanges Division in Changsha Medical University, but she refused to provide a name list of teachers in MBBS programme.

Orphir therefore hoped to transfer to another university, out of much discontent against the school. He applied for admission to Central South University, which is approved by the Ministry of Education. But for his transfer application without permission, Changsha Medical University gave Orphir disciplinary probation. After that, Orphir had to write a statement promising he wouldn’t transfer any more.

In the third semester, when Orphir’s father stayed in hospital to cure diabetes, Orphir asked for leave to take care of his father in Pakistan. He returned to Changsha in November 2010 and continued study. Nevertheless when Orphir finished final exams, teachers refused to mark his exam papers for the reason that Orphir was absent for a long time. Orphir failed those courses in the third semester.

After expelling Orphir, the school convened a meeting of all the international students and declared, “Orphir will not be the last one to be expelled.” Ms. Yang, Section Chief of International Exchanges Division in Changsha Medical University told Southern Weekly, “There are some troubles in managing these Pakistan students. It is not a punishment to expel Orphir but means to teach other students.”

Vacancy of supervision

Orphir’s case is not the only one. A good lot of international students who studied the illegal MBBS programme in China have complained to China’s University and College Admission System, an officially recognized organization. “Some of them found that the diploma was not approbated in their countries. Some others realized that their schools were ineligible to have MBBS programme before graduation. They usually asked us for help to transfer, but it is quite difficult in China.” Consultant of CUCAS Ms Liu said.

Southern Weekly called some universities with MBBS programme in the name of enquiring related information. It revealed that several unqualified universities have enrolled international medical students since 2007, like Hebei North University, Jinggangshan University, Yichun University, North China Coal Medical University, Changjiang University, Luzhou Medical College and so on. The number of enrollment varied from tens to hundreds in each school every year. The illegal enrollment not only brings tidy economic profits but also promotes “international brand” of these schools.

Orphir once asked the agent whether the diploma would be recognized in Pakistan, and got a reply saying “Yes because it is recognized by World Health Organization (WHO).”

However, WHO reminds in its official website that “the WHO has no authority to grant any form of recognition or accreditation to schools of medicine or other training institutions. Such a procedure remains the exclusive prerogative of the national government concerned.”

The list of universities to have MBBS programme approved by Ministry of Education would be sent to embassies or consulates every year. Since 2007, Medical Council of India announced that students could only enter eligible universities in accordance with the list provided by Chinese government.

Meanwhile, most countries like Pakistan haven’t enacted similar regulation, which cause the ineligible MBBS programme recruited many Pakistan students. Besides, a few students come from Cameroon, Sudan, Burundi, Afghanistan and other Asian and African states.

“Beyond all doubt, they are vulnerable groups in China.” Head of CUCAS Zheng Tianying said. “Coming from developing countries, they can hardly bear the expenses in China. Even if they found it a trap, seldom could solve the problem.”

Nowadays in China, there is a special organization held by education departments to identify the qualification of foreign universities for Chinese students. But on the other hand, supervision on managing international students in China still has much vacancy. Embassies and consultants haven’t taken the responsibility to verify whether the schools or the programmes are approved by Ministry of Education.

Orphir finally went back to Pakistan because his visa had been canceled after expelled. He felt unwilling to leave. But Orphir comforted himself, “I’m lucky to be expelled actually. Otherwise who knows what diploma I would get if I stayed here for 3 more years.”

“China is great and Chinese people are nice. I wish to come back.” Orphir said, “But I will never ask help for deceitful agent, and will never enter such school.”

Edgar Snow, Norodom Sihanouk, Henry Kissinger, Joseph Needham, Juan Antonio Samaranch are some of the most well-known ones in the list of “old friends”.

“When Chinese deal with diplomatic relations, they incline to proceed from feelings or relationship, and blush to talk about interests. Therefore, the title ‘old friend’ emerged as substitute,” says Zhang Qingmin, professor of School of International Studies at Peking University.

The author researched the People’s Daily database from 1949 to 2010, in hope to find answers to the following questions: Who were officially identified as “old friends of the Chinese people”? Where did the friendship come from? And how did the Chinese government and the Chinese people treat our friends?

“Old friends” all over the world

In the past 62 years, 601 foreigners were crowned with “old friends of the Chinese people” in People’s Daily, the official organ of the Communist Party of China (CPC). They came from 123 countries of five Continents. In other words, “old friends” were all over the world.

It was the year of 1956 when the title “old friend” first went to Canadian James G. Endicott. He dedicated himself to China’s education, and supported Chinese revolution throughout.

However, most of 601 “old friends” received this title after 1977. The frequency hit high for the first time in 1979. Zhang Qingmin explained, “Old friendship is particularly needed in the period of fully resuming diplomatic relations or difficulties coming out.”

Looking into the nationality, Japanese topped the list of “old friends”, up to 111, which is nearly twice as many as Americans in the second. British, French and German ranked third to fifth.

Meanwhile, Japan and U.S. also took the first two places when search “hurt feelings of the Chinese people” in the same database.

In Zhang Qingmin’s point of view, the most “old friends” implies the most important diplomatic relations. Among great powers, Russia is the only country where “old friends” hardly appeared. “It is because that China once established comradeship or brotherhood with former Soviet Union, which is closer than friendship. Later as relations between the two states deteriorated, the title of “friend” was also unnecessary.

Some “old friends” came from certain small countries, such as King-Father Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, and two faithful pals from Africa: former Tanzania President Mwalimu Nyerere and former Zambia President Kenneth David Kaunda.

While in the process of realizing normalization of relations between China and Japan, some Japanese played a vital role. Occupying a large part of Japanese “old friends”, they were added another title “well digger in the normalization of relations”. Entrepreneur Kaheita Okazaki was most widely admired and mentioned 22 times. In addition, Japan prime ministers were listed as “old friends” much as well. 10 Presidents out of 14 from 1972 to 1996 got the title.

In fact, political leaders held the most proportion of total 601 “old friends”. Except for the pioneers in the relations like Henry Kissinger and Richard Milhous Nixon, “old friend” would be given to state leaders who visited China for several times.

At the same time, “old friends” also distributed in the fields of economic, culture and so on. It was the old friends from fields of sports and arts who drove forward the legendary “Ping-Pong diplomacy” and “Ballet diplomacy” in Chinese modern history.

From comrades to business associates

The very first “old friends” usually shared a common feature that all of them had been to Yan’an, Mecca of Chinese revolution. They fought with Chinese against Japan and then became “old friends of the Chinese people”. Some Soviet aviators went to war to defend Wuhan. The captain of this air force therefore was titled “old friend”.

Doctors accounted more than soldiers in the list. Not only the most well-known Canadian Henry Norman Bethune, but other doctors from India, Romania, Bulgaria, Argentina, America, Britain and so on save lives in China’s battlefield where they forged a profound friendship with Chinese.

In the years of war, “old friends” foreign correspondents reported events of mysterious China and informed revolutionary movement led by Mao Zedong to the world. The most celebrated three of them, Edgar Snow, Anna Louise Strong and Agnes Smedley were known as “3S”. The special organization “Smedley-Strong-Snow Society of China” was set up in 1984, in which Deng Yingchao held the position of honorary president and former China Foreign Minister Huang Hua took president. It was renamed “China Society for People’s Friendship Studies” afterwards.

Similar to those foreign correspondents, Dutch director Joris Ivens was crowned with “old friend” since he documented the positive story of CPC fighting Japan. He filmed the documentary “The 400 Million” in 1939; the 50 years long friendship between Chinese and Ivens sprouted out from then on. He had asked some friend to present his hand-held camera to Yan’an Movie Studio. It is now in the possession of National Museum of China.

Some foreign friends of CPC leaders were also called “old friends of the Chinese people”, although they had never visited China in revolutionary time. French engineer in agronomy René Dumont made acquaintance with Cai Hesen and Deng Xiaoping, when they carried the work-study programme in France during their early years. The acquaintance then led to friendship.

With the dawn of peace times, judging an “old friend” relied more on whether in the same vein or not. Chinese found their friends with the marks of anti-imperialist, anti-colonialism and anti-aggression. “Old friends” from socialist camp and Third World countries showed up consequently.

Nevertheless, if one made contribution to China’s development or assiduously propagated its achievements, he would be drawn into the list despite that his motherland was not that welcomed. The Author of “The Chinese Economy” (Published in 1957), American Solomon Adler was such an example.

In 1970s, almost every political leader or common people were placed on the list of “old friends” as long as they contributed much in the wave of establishing and resuming diplomatic relations. Political leaders like former Mexico President Luis Echeverría, who voted affirmatively for restoration of China’s lawful seat in the United Nations, were looked upon as close friends particularly.

From 1987, another group of “old friends” appeared. They were leaders of international organizations. Former first head of the U.N. Population Fund Rafael M. Salas was listed first. According to People’s Daily, Salas consistently and strongly supported China’s one-child policy. “When very few foreigners viciously attacked on China pushing ‘forced abortion and sterilization’, Salas always came forward and denounced in the statement.”

Later, these people joined the list, including former Executive Director of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund James P. Grant, former Secretary-General of United Nations World Tourism Organization Antonio Enriquez Savignac and former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

In the era of reform and opening-up and early market economy of China, old friends emerged in economic and trading field. Those who developed trade with China in spite of strong opposition were much more admired.

Good wine for great friends

The Chinese sage Confucius says, “It is always a pleasure to greet a friend from afar.” The PRC government is never niggardly with the most courteous reception to their “old friends”.

Meeting and dining with senior leaders seemed to be an ordinary entertaining way. Old friends from culture fields without any political post would talk and have dinners with Chinese leaders, as long as deep friendship existed, taking director Joris Ivens and writer Han Suyin (original name Rosalie Elisabeth Kuanghu Chow) as examples.

Actually “old friends” living in China might meet state leaders regularly every year. They were usually invited to Spring Festival Reception in the Great Hall of the People, held by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC).

For those friends advanced in age, it is routine to congratulate their birthday to maintain friendship. Political leaders visited and feasted them for celebration in the Great Hall of the People. For example, former Chairperson of the CPPCC National Committee Deng Yingchao once had a family feast for Japanese “old friend” Saionji Kinkazu to celebrate his 80th birthday.

If “old friends” didn’t live in China, the president of CPAFFC or leaders of the same rank would go abroad for celebration. State leader Wang Zhen had visited Okazaki Kaheita on his birthday in Japan, in name of honorary Chairman of China-Japan Friendship Association. A ceramic plate imprinted with Chinese character “shou (longevity)” from Deng Yingchao was taken as present as well.

When state leaders visited other countries, they would often schedule a time to meet “old friends”. Former General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Hu Yaobang had interviews with journalist James Munro Bertram twice during his visit to New Zealand in 1985. What’s more, Hu welcomed him back to Yan’an.

Chinese government even invited “old friends” to cure diseases in Beijing, not only greetings. In the year of 1938, Indian Doctor B.K. Basu came to Northern China and travelled around to save lives for nearly five years. As nearly half a century passed, Chinese repaid him in a similar way: Basu was invited to get treatment in Beijing.

Chinese profound friendship in “old friends” was infectious. Former Chairman of International Olympic Committee Juan Antonio Samaranch has ever said that no other awards in his life but the fact that Chinese treating him as “old friend” was most valuable.

Meanwhile, Chinese government harbored high expectation on royalty of these “old friends”. “In our opinion, friends should never disappoint us. To hurt China’s essential interests means hurt our feelings most seriously.” Zhang Qingmin says.

Where are they now?

Some “old friends of Chinese people” became Chinese citizen indeed. For instance, Poland correspondent Israel Epstein was naturalized in China in 1957 and joined the CPC in 1964. He also held a position in Standing Committee of CPPCC from 1983 till his death in 2005.

Most “old friends” lived in their motherland, or kept their nationality even live in China.

Many “old friends” have passed away. Obituary notices have been printed in People’s Daily in some periods since 1985, as the most dignified treatment. State leaders sent messages of condolences when some important friends passed away. Besides, Chinese might read the articles commemorating 100 years formal birthday of “old friends”. Of course, the title “old friend of the Chinese people” was never missed.

After death, ashes of some old friends with fond feelings for China were buried here as their last will, some ashes of Edgar Snow on the Weiming Lake in Peking University, half of Louis.Rewi Alley’s into Shandan, Gansu Province, and Canadian James G. Endicott’s to his birthplace Leshan, Sichuan Province, for example.

However, other old friends still move in the political arena at home and abroad. But some have been stuck in troubles recently, of which former Egypt President Mubarak was the most typical one. He was reported 10 times by People’s Daily as “old friend”. Another thing to be mentioned is that, unlike what the rumor indicating on Internet, Libya leader Qaddafi never received the title of “old friend of Chinese people” officially.

Since 2003, the frequency of the phrase “old friend of Chinese people” in People’s Daily decreased dramatically, from 50 times to 20 times each year.

Zhang Qingmin though it reflected the process of adjusting diplomatic tactics. “With the trend of pragmatic and internationalized diplomacy, China’s tactics conformed much more with international practice, the original meaning of “old friend” fade out gradually. “

Coming to January and February 2011, when the title “old friend of Chinese people” came up only twice in People’s Daily, King of Spain Juan Carlos I and President of Organizing Committee of 7th Asia Winter Games Anatoly Kozhekenovich Kulnazarov took it respectively.

THE Chinese-style strict parenting is the consequence of our education system, employment system and social security system.  Becoming “Tiger Moms” is the only choice for Chinese mothers.

“Tiger Mom” Amy Chua is chanting her battle hymn in the U.S., criticizing that American mothers are too tolerant and permissive, but her book exerts great impact on Chinese mothers, making them feeling in a dilemma.

Hu Min, the mother of a five-year-old girl, recently read Amy Chua’s article online. She was impressed by “ten things not allowed” listed by Tiger Mom: no extra-curricular activities of their choice, not allowed to watch TV or play computer games, not allowed to be in a school play…. Hu was puzzled because she had read another book introducing the experience of parenting, which suggests children actively participate in campus and community activities. The book even says that when parents are working in the garden or repairing electrical appliances at home, children should participate in.

The author of that book is called Zhenni Chua, a Chinese American with the same family name as Tiger Mom. They are of comparable ages, both introducing child-care experiences, but their views are very different.

Amy Chua thinks that Western children are too much respected: they cannot even hear the word “fat” from their parents. There is no way to force them to sit on the piano bench for three hours. Such parenting is irresponsible for children because their potential cannot be fully developed. By contrast, Zhenni Chua tells parents to respect the decision of their children, since interest is the inner motivation to learn.

The different ways of education advocated by two Mother Chuas reflect the tug-of-war between Chinese and Western education philosophy. Which one should Chinese mothers like Hu Min choose?

“Chinese students bury me alive”

There is a Chinese saying that a tiger father will not beget a dog son. Therefore, the best way to find out the “superior” education philosophy is probably to compare the results – Chinese and Western children educated in different ways.

Chinese children are undoubtedly leading on test scores. At the end of 2010, the OECD officially announced the new results of “Project for International Student Assessment” (PISA), which is held worldwide every three years. 15-year-old students from 65 countries and regions participated in the last test, including around 5,100 high school students from Shanghai. This is the first time for PISA to have students from mainland China; their scores amazed the world and won the championship.

This is definitely not unprecedented. The super capability for examination of Chinese students has been shocking foreigners for a long time. The gold medals of International Mathematics Olympiad seem to be prepared for Chinese students. An American little girl named Annie Osborn once went to Beijing and became an exchange student in a Middle School there for one year. After returning home, she wrote in an article: “In a trivia competition, Chinese students would bury me alive.”

OECD’s analysis shows that every 15-year-old child from the most powerful country enjoys education investment twice as much as that in other developed countries. However, they ranked only 17th (and 31st in math) in the last PISA. “Our math is really poor!” says Ned, a Harvard Graduate, “although our universities have won world-wide reputation, our primary and secondary education are facing a great crisis.”

U.S. Presidents also believe that such crisis does exist. In 2001, President George W. Bush announced his education blueprint “No Child Left Behind” on the second workday after he took office. He anxiously pointed out that “our high school seniors trail students in Cyprus and South Africa on international math tests. And nearly a third of our college freshmen find they must take a remedial course before they are able to even begin regular college level courses.”

Similarly, President Barack Obama has repeatedly said in public that Chinese and Indians are studying ever more seriously and getting ever more prominent performance, which makes him feel the pressure of how to ensure the success of America in the 21st century. In response, he decided to recruit ten thousand more teachers in areas of science, mathematics, etc.

Sufficient data proves that it’s very difficult for American students to get more scores than Chinese peers. Even among U.S. citizens, white students are trailing Asian-Americans.

In the U.S., official score statistics of SAT show that Asian students have the highest scores among all ethnic groups, and the average score of Chinese students is even higher than Asian-American average. In 2009, Asian students got the average score of 1623 out of 2400, apparently higher than white students, exceeding Hispanic and African students by more than 200 points. What surprised whites most is that Asian students not only did well in math, but also got higher scores than them in writing test.

Excellent SAT scores result in the rapid grow of Asian students in American universities, especially in the Ivy League. According to a report in the New York Times in 2007,  Asian-American students generally accounted for 20% to 30% in a dozen of famous universities, while Asian-Americans made up only 5% in U.S. population. In Princeton and Columbia, which had the least yellow students, 13% of undergraduates were Asian-Americans.

One of the most surprising figures came from University of California. In several of its campuses, Asian-American students comprise more than 40% of undergraduates. In UC Berkeley, the proportion of Asian students reached 41% three years ago, and this figure is constantly growing. Among all Asian students, Chinese is the most eye-catching group. Some students even say that Mandarin is sometimes more useful than English in Berkeley.

The scores of Asian students is so high that some universities set special limits for Asian-American students in order to balance the proportion of ethnic groups in campus. In those schools, Asian students need to have higher test scores than whites, blacks, and Hispanics in order to be admitted, which becomes a controversial topic in America. Some people consider such limits to be discrimination.

There are some quips among American universities referring to Asian-American students’ “taking over” of U.S. higher education. UCLA is said to be “United Caucasians Lost among Asians”, and MIT stands for “Made In Taiwan”. There are also some people who felt fear. According to the Wall Street Journal, in some district of California, where Asian-Americans gather, some whites sold their houses and ran away for fear that their children will feel embarrassed in front of Asian peers because of poor school performances.

Harvard graduate Ned thinks that the good performance of Chinese students is partly related to the relatively difficult living conditions of immigrants, and also due to the parenting from their families. “You can hardly find a lazy Chinese student at Harvard. They are working harder than whites,” says Ned.

Chinese student Zheng Yanqiu, PhD candidate in Education at Indiana University, has also observed the consequences of two different educational philosophies. He has taught undergraduate students in the U.S. for more than two years, and finds that “there are only a small number of students who really concentrate on their studies and think positively in the classroom. Most American undergraduates may still be ignorant of life purpose. For them, to play in college may be more important, and school work seems to be an inescapable task.”

Different from the ignorant American students, Chinese students have already been taught the idea of “no cross, no crown” in rigorous education. As expected, they really won the “crown” in terms of scores.

“Tiger Mom-style has no future”

However, education scholars in China have reached a consensus that the crown of points doesn’t necessarily mean the success in life, let alone the happiness in life.

Professor Xiong Bingqi says that knowledge, ability and literacy are three determining factors of life. The Chinese-style education focuses on knowledge, which can be improved by training — more time,  learn better. Therefore, Chinese students can certainly get excellent scores in exams by hard working.

“But according to human resources theory, the knowledge learnt from childhood to university plays only a very small part — approximately 5% in one’s life. It’s ability and literacy that benefit for life.” Prof. Xiong says.

In the Chinese-style education, ability and literacy are the short-boards, because they cannot be cultivated by simply prolonging the training time and enhancing training intensity. Prof. Xiong thinks that Chinese education especially lacks the cultivation for civic literacy, awareness of self-reliance, personality, mental health and other aspects of literacy. “We generally consider being admitted to famous universities to be success, but this kind of evaluation is flawed and needs to be changed from the perspective of lifelong development.”

In fact, even the idea that Chinese students are on the advantage of knowledge has been questioned. Mathematician Shing-Tung Yau once said that “the best students in the U.S. are really good! In a number of leading schools, students of 11th and 12th grade can do calculus well, but not all high school students in China are learning calculus.”

A Tsinghua University graduate says that he was “absolutely convinced” by Yau’s words. “The reason is simple: whites are not stupid, and their learning and researching are truly motivated by their interests. They won’t be worse than Chinese. A very clear evidence is that so many first-class scientists were born in the U.S. Could it be said that they suddenly pushed off at their middle age?”

Over the past 100 years, less than ten Chinese scientists won the Nobel Prize of science, while Americans won about 300. As many as 180 Jews won Nobel — Jews account for only 1% of world’s population, but they shared a quarter of the Nobel Prize.

In Sun Yat-Sen University Professor Feng Zengjun’s view, the core of American education is freedom, which “levels up excellent ones, but also brings down lazy ones”. Thus, it’s easy to understand why Americans perform poorly on average scores but succeed in cultivating outstanding talents.

Feng also believes that the essential difference between Eastern and Western education philosophy is that “we Chinese are selecting talents for the society, but Westerners regard education as a way to achieve the comprehensive development of all citizens.”

In fact, the concept of “comprehensive development” is the starting point and the biggest advantage of American education. “Tiger Mom” Amy Chua, who believes in Chinese-style education, forbids her children to attend a sleepover, or to choose their own extracurricular activities, but such sleepovers and activities are exactly the key parts of American-style education. The New York Times columnist David Brooks believes that Tiger Mom’s children lost the opportunity to learn the ability of handling complex social relations, which is actually more challenging than spending hours after hours practicing the piano, and also more important for children’s future.

Children growing in Chinese-style education lack the social communication skills, and often lack social concern. According to the observation of Harvard graduate Ned, Chinese students is creative for “they can write very nice articles, and can make important achievements in the laboratory”, but they have a characteristic that they rarely consider from the perspective of “How can I change the world, make the world a different, better place”. “What they generally want is to get better lives for themselves and their families under the current system.”

The way of thinking directly affects their career choices. Most of Ned’s Chinese schoolmates went to the top investment banks and consulting firms after graduation. Few of them chose to startup business of their own, or to engage in charity, NGO and other careers related to social responsibility. “If they are not in Morgan Stanley, they are definitely in Merrill Lynch. They are doing so well that some of them have already become multimillionaires just two years after graduation,” says Ned.

The program “Dialogue” of China Central Television once provided evidence for Ned’s words. When high school students from China and America involved in that program were required to choose among the value of truth, power, wealth, love & beauty, and wisdom, American students’ choices are only of two kinds: truth or wisdom, but half of Chinese students chose power.

There are also some people pointing out that in all ethnic groups of American young people, Chinese has the highest suicide rate. One netizen says that there is only one Lang Lang who was forced to learn the piano and ultimately became famous; other parents who force their children to become Lang Lang may bring a large number of patients with depression.

Even the above-mentioned American girl who was “buried alive” by Chinese classmates also said: “Chinese schools have many strengths, but they do not foster many broadly philosophical thinkers.”

“Tiger Mom-style education may be successful to some individuals, but for the development of the entire nation, such education method has no future,” says Prof. Feng Zengjun.

The choice of no choice

In fact, the Chinese people in recent years haven’t stopped thinking about the weaknesses of traditional Chinese parenting and the advantages of American-style education. When Tiger Mom published her book, many Chinese publicly criticized her education philosophy.

The cultural celebrity Hong Huang called Amy Chua “mother of hell”. “We all condemn the barbaric demolition, but many parents are demolishing their children’s childhood, sending them to a place of nightmares where they do not ever want to go.”

She also traced Tiger Mom’s philosophy to Chinese cultural traditions. In old China, the value of a woman is measured by her children. There is a Chinese saying that “the mother’s honour increases as her son’s position rises”. In other words, the full value of a mother is her son. Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine how wives and concubines, whose fates were hold in the hands of others, infighted by exploiting their children.

Hong Huang also noticed that the Chinese people believe in “hardship” as a necessary way towards success, while passion and pleasure have almost nothing to do with success. In addition, the protection of individual rights remains inadequate in China, so it’s easy to understand why parents could easily take children’s rights away.

But others believe that we should not blame cultural traditions for the problems of education in China. There is an ancient book in China based on the teaching of the Chinese philosopher Confucius called “Di Zi Gui”, which starts with “filial piety and fraternal duty are the most important, and then integrity, universal love and benevolent”, and then it says that “if you still have time and ability, study knowledge.”

“Present Chinese education philosophy is shaped by our education system, employment system and social security system, rather than our tradition.” Prof. Xiong Bingqi says.

The education system mentioned by Xiong is the examination-oriented system. In this system, students with highest scores can get better educational resources. Universities in mainland China have been increasing enrollment more than ten years, resulting in the enrichment of China’s higher education resources, and the college enrollment rate has jumped from less than 10% to over 20%. “One reason to enlarge enrollment is to change the phenomenon of ‘squeezing through a single-plank bridge into universities”, but now, high school students are squeezing through another single-plank bridge into famous universities to get better resources,” says Xiong.

American universities also have famous ones and general ones, but there is no “single-plank bridge” phenomenon in the U.S., because the gaps between different professions are not significant, and the social security system is equal to everyone. “Even those who go to training colleges can be well secured in their future work and life. This is very different from China, where diploma means job, and diploma from famous universities means high-paid job. Besides, the mutual recognition of credits between colleges and universities in the U.S. is common. As long as one has the ability, a community college student can also transfer to Harvard. This is unimaginable in China,” says Xiong.

Due to the limits of various external systems, although the innovation of education concept has been discussed for a long time, it is impossible to become true for a period of time. Thus, Tiger Mom-style education will still have a great market in China.

The principal of High School Affiliated to South China Normal University Wu Yingmin frankly stated that “we all know the American-style education is good, but we cannot adopt it, due to the insufficiency of our education resources and many other obstacles.” According his observation, the vast majority of educators do not dare and do not want to be close to American education philosophy. “If the enrollment rate is not good, the position of  principal will be greatly challenged.  We dare not take the risk.”

Principals who have thousands of students dare not take the risk, let alone Chinese parents who generally only have one child due to family planning policy: what if my child cannot be admitted to a leading middle school? What if he or she not admitted to a famous university? What if he or she not find a good job? The British philosopher Whitehead once said that he can only be sure of one thing in education, that is “there is no universally applicable and easy way”. But in today’s China, Tiger Mom-style education becomes a relatively simple and universally used way, for they have no other choice.

“After all, for the parents, what the system teaches them is the most practical lesson,” says Prof. Xiong Bingqi.

Just as its name implies, this course is the basic training designed for new candidates. But everyone forgot about it.

It seems like an ironic miniature of Ye’s PhD life.

Ye is pursuing his PhD degree of science in a prestigious university in China, supervised by a Changjiang Scholar. Years ago, Ye chose to be his student for his great reputation, but he regretted soon, “I hardly get any academic guidance but all depends on myself.”

The amount of PhD students graduated in China has increased dramatically by three times since 1999. According to Professor Chen Hongjie, deputy of Peking University group of research project in China’s PhD quality, 43759 students were awarded PhD degree in 2008, which was close to that in America.

Meanwhile, more and more people are criticizing the quality of doctoral degree program.

Another research revealed that some supervisor guided 47 students at the same time. 3% of PhD candidates surveyed said they never communicated with their supervisors, according to the book “Research on China’s PhD quality”, written by Professor Zhou Guangli from School of Educational Research of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST). The survey covered 1392 PhD students, supervisors and related people.

Soon after the book published, HUST officially announced that 307 postgraduate students were supposed to quit school since they failed to get master’s degree in 4 years or PhD degree in 8 years.

There was comment saying that this action “broke down the long-standing abuse in education system as a typical demonstration for other institutes and society”, given the current condition of 100% graduation rate for mainland postgraduate students.

However, Ye, who has experienced more than six years of PhD education says it is meaningless to boil down PhD problems to the absence of elimination. “The fact that losers’ fate, supervisors’ obligations and system’s responsibilities are neglected brings great unfairness to both individuals and society.”

“In order to improve PhD quality, not only unqualified students should be cleaned out, but also incompetent and irresponsible supervisors,” says Xiong Bingqi, a professor of Shanghai Jiaotong University.

Without well-structured system, undertaking a PhD in mainland China consequently becomes a gamble.

A Supervisor with 50 PhD Students

The very first gamble was to “bet on” supervisors, when Ye met his Waterloo.

He ascribed his failure to “information asymmetry” — few could imagine that a distinguished Changjiang Scholar is an irresponsible supervisor.

All about his scholarship and research capabilities sounds like a legend. Ye met his supervisor every 4 or 5 months, and seldom discussed academic issues with him. His supervisor didn’t have seminar with research group members or help and guide them either.

Another young teacher was arranged to guide Ye soon after he started his PhD career. The teacher’s research interest differs from Ye’s supervisor’s. Less than a year later, the young teacher began postdoctoral research abroad. “The guidance seems meaningless,” Ye says, “doctorial education management stays sloppy in school, while supervisors possess much power which lacks supervision.” Although the education instruction from university indicates that 4 to 5 students join a cultivation team, but it turned out to be a mere formality.

Suffering such “injustice”, Ye found no way to complain. He even foresaw the result if complained to leaders: changing for another supervisor or quitting the school with master’s degree, all of which couldn’t bring back his youth.

He was not the most unfortunate one — at least, he finally graduated in the sixth year and “left school hastily like a stray dog.” He told one of his peers’ experiences: staying in school for the eighth year, he got no allowance from school, no guidance from teacher and no resource. “You must show me some hope.” The student received such reply from his supervisor when talking to him. Ye says, “I suddenly realized that some people are as bold as brass.”

Another supervisor ever says to his postgraduate students in a meeting, “It is all none of my business but your own affairs that whether you can graduate or not, whether you can do well or not.”

PRC’s first PhD, professor Ma Zhongqi doesn’t feel optimistic about the value of local PhD either.

Ma can still remember the comfortable and lively atmosphere 30 years ago, when he often discussed with his supervisor Hu Ning. “Mr. Hu enjoyed discussing with us very much. We gave presentation twice a week and he made comment. Mistakes made by both he and us were acceptable. He is an enlightened person.” Ma Zhongqi says. “By contrast, nowadays Chinese students keep reading all the day, while foreign students talk but are adept in thinking, thus pulling away from Chinese students.”

At the same time, some supervisors guided more and more students. A supervisor took as many as 50 students, according to Ma Zhongqi. “Why academicians’ students plagiarized? He even didn’t know all the 50 students well. How to graduate? So the students plagiarized.” Ma says. “The supervisor who knew nothing about students’ papers is unqualified at all.”

As it is usual to guide more than 10 students, supervisors deal with expanded scale of students in different ways. A supervisor in Zhangfeng’s college enrolls 5 to 7 PhD candidates and masters more than that every year. He also holds an administrative position, so he couldn’t manage all this by his own and arranged several young teachers to help.

PhD students didn’t meet their supervisor all year long seems usual in China. Some students even never met their supervisors, according to Zhou Guangli’s survey.

Boss and Bonded Laborer?

Wu Anping, PhD candidate of Science from another prestigious university is also unlucky in the gamble. Rather than little intervention, Wu’s supervisor has fingers in every pie. “I spend 80% of time for supervisor’s projects in order to more funds only,” Wu says. “The projects are not of high level.”

Wu hopes to committee himself to interested research, but in reality he has to obey supervisor’s command. He says, some supervisors even indicated students that “you can do your private work if you are not anxious for degree.”

Nevertheless, supervisors hardly provide any helpful advice in the very limited 20% of research time owned by students themselves. “They just tell us some innocuous and general words like ‘read more’ and ‘cherish time’.” Wu Anping says.

“As first class professors may work for third class universities, third class professors would also exist in first class universities.” According to Zeng Daxing, professor in Chinese Studies of Guangzhou University, since the amount of PhD supervisors is interrelated to scale of doctorial education; some low-level professors will serve as PhD supervisors in some first class universities, which usually have large scale of doctorial education.

Many irresponsible supervisors play the role of “boss” who runs small companies. Students are enrolled as “employees”. “Treated as cat’s paw, students get a little allowance and diploma, but they waste their youth.” Wu Anping exclaimed.

Zhang Feng, a PhD candidate in one of the “Project 211” universities feels similarly. Since his supervisor is busy with application to various fund and projects, he communicates occasionally with students. Most projects he has ever discussed with students focus on industrialization, considering remarkable economic benefits.

By contrast, basic research that PhD candidates concern more about, seldom attracts supervisors. “What’s more, if you ask your supervisor to revise papers for publishing, he may say ‘when did you do this?’” Zhang Feng says, “I don’t know what to say.”

The mentoring relation between supervisors and students has dissimilated. Nine PhD candidates in Shanghai Jiaotong University “fired” their supervisor Wang Yongcheng in 2003; since they were required to work long hours with projects in his company for poor pay but received little guidance.

“In some second-tier cities like Wuhan, Xi’an and Nanjing, professors in universities run their own companies and shovel up money like crazy. They just purchase nice cars and houses.” Some student complained.

Some even described such unequal employment relation as “bonded laborer”.

Zhou Guangli, author of “Research on China’s PhD quality” considered that the quality of education depends on supervisor’s scholarly attainments and academic morality to a significant extent, as long as students just follow one supervisor.

According to Zhou’s research, some “employed” student complained, “As I am doing a lot of projects and having frequent travel, what difference does it make from work? I may as well go out to work.”

“Paper Publishing Agent” and “Diploma Vending Machine”

PhD candidates gamble for the first round of selecting supervisors and they have to go through another, to pursue scientific research.

Publishing papers in academic journal is on the list of requirements for PhD degree. Consequently, PhD candidates take risks on thesis and think over carefully that which research direction is more possible to publish papers.

Generally, PhD candidates of science must publish SCI papers. However it is not easy in some applied fields. “Having no way out, some students can only change research directions in order to have papers published. As a result, their graduation thesis turns out neither fish nor flesh.” says Zhang Feng.

The action of tampering with data seems more common as well. “Although required replicating the experiments, few students would do so. Instead, they juggle data to achieve ideal state.” Zhang Feng says.

PhD students bear most ponderous burden of publishing papers. On lack of academic guidance and limit of lab conditions, nobody knows clearly when he or she can score achievement. Zhang Feng has ever kept busy working in lab till midnight for a whole month. He couldn’t fall asleep until two or three in the morning, assailed by anxiety.

For PhD candidates of arts, it is easier but not that unalloyed to publish papers in domestic core periodicals. Xu Jia, a PhD candidate in arts in North China is about to accomplish three papers with requirements, but he has to pay ten thousand Yuan as publication fees.

It is no longer a secret that students pay for publishing paper. On one hand, PhD candidates’ demands of paper publication stay robust. On the other hand, magazines seek for economic source due to its own responsibilities for profits and losses. A special intermediary agent in campus then emerged, pulling wires for students and magazines. Many PhD candidates are engaged in the business to earn living expenses.

As a rule, every single paper costs three to four thousand Yuan to publish in national core journals, 10% of which flows in agents’ purse. Agents would placard the campus with advertisements to canvass business orders. Once known well, they need no worry about business. What’s more, they maintain liaison with multifarious periodicals. “Money might smooth away problems no matter how difficult they are.” A student who used to be agent says.

Xu Jia found it too demanding to publish papers. “It is OK to write one high quality paper, but three? Just rush through.” Xu says.

To many, doctorial education in China has existed as enormous “diploma vending machine”. According to Mr. Liu Daoyu, former president of Wuhan University, there are 365 academic institutions granting PhD degrees in China while just 253 in U.S., where locate most and best research universities in the world.

Nevertheless, it is the 253 academic institutions that play the role of talents harvester, unfailingly attracting talents from all over the world. A significant portion comes from China.

Undignified living

The greatest risk PhD candidates have to take is that they don’t know whether their hardworking would be rewarded.

Xu Jia just gets 289 Yuan (about 44 US dollars) as subsidy every month, which could only be a drop in the ocean. Out of the list of “Project 211″ university, allowance standard in Xu’s university hasn’t changed since 1990s. As ordinary provincial universities take the majority of newly added PhD degree conferring institutions, more and more doctorial students’ income is even lower than low-income families.

Meanwhile, PhD candidates in “Project 211″ universities just get about a thousand Yuan (about 152 US dollars) based on new standard announced in September 2009. It contrasts sharply with the condition of their peers with jobs. “The poorest must be the doctorial students when old classmates meet. As time passes, I would avoid such meetings.” Some PhD candidate posted these words on BBS.

Xu Jia felt ashamed to ask parents for supplies. Thus he augments his income by teaching in training center every weekend, which brings him 2000 Yuan a month, a comfortable income for students.

However, students in science and engineering keep working in labs days and nights and have no time to do extra work. Zhang Feng has ever stayed in lab for two weeks, not to mention make money outside. “Actually, to conduct scientific research, PhD candidates must fill their stomachs first.” Zhang Feng says.

PhD candidate Lin Jianmin lives on 200 Yuan subsidy and 400 Yuan allowance from his supervisor. It is almost impossible to keep income abreast of the rising living cost in his coastal city. He once earned money as translator and ghostwriter, but finally found it hard to hang on while undertaking huge workloads of lab.

Lin hasn’t been in a relationship since doctorial term began. He even voluntarily throw away several chances. He says, “If I were 18, it would be romantic to share meals in roadside stands and present her gifts with low cost. But when I am 28 now, it is a big loss of face to do so, even if she may not really care.”

Lin felt that he is living an undignified life. Students might mull it over whether to watch 3D “Avatar” in the cinema. They check account again and again, waiting for the pitiful allowance at the beginning of every month. Once the allowance arrived one or two days late, students would ask for it on BBS lest it should miss out.

Hu Yang, PhD candidate in a university of South China has started his family, but now he left his 7 year-old son and wife in the north and led tedious life in campus, regularly staying in library, dormitory and canteen.

PhD candidates also have to face up a harsher reality. The number of PhDs in China has leaped to the first place in the world while the value of PhD sinks down. As teaching posts in universities are trending saturated, more and more PhDs switch to government and enterprise, instead of scientific research institutions. Wu Anping also took a gloomy view that “colleges would not hire local PhDs but returnees after some years.”

After all, this gamble, working for a PhD could only paid off to those intelligent, diligent and lucky guys.

Before receiving doctorial education, Ye Ming had great longing for future. Things changed six years later. Ye says he just obtains “worthless degree, elapsed youth and distorted attitude.”

Wu Anping felt the same. He wouldn’t pursue PhD studies if he could do it over again. He is unwilling to get into academic circle any more. “It has deteriorated.” Wu says.

At first, Wu intended to teach in university. However he came to realize later that teachers in such circumstance would only hinder students’ progress. “You can just follow such cultivating model, even if you don’t want to. When you take the different way, you will find yourself isolated from the academic circle.”

As the biggest winners in the examination, they can choose the university and the major. It’s easy to understand that the top 2 universities – Peking University and TsingHua University enroll most of the top scorers. But what about the major? Do they want to study mathematics, or philosophy, or politics?

No. In fact, most of the most talented students selected by the examination enter business schools. See the following table. 

(Translated from the research report by CUAA.net)

So why? Because B-schools are in greater need of talents than other schools? Absolutely no. Because the top scorers happen to coincidentally be interested in business? Impossible.

The real reason for the popularity of B-schools is that students graduated from here can get high-paid jobs easily. It’s beyond reproach that anyone can pursue a high-quality life by entering B-school and becoming millionaire soon after graduation. But it becomes absurd and abnormal when almost every one (especially the most talented ones) regards university education as a way to make money in future.

The choices of top scorers reflect that the higher education in this country has lost the spirit of pursuing the truth and undertaking the social responsibility. It has degenerated into job training.

There is another interesting thing related to this phenomenon. Last year I saw a large poster in the canteen in Peking University. It was calling students for a mock interview competition; the winners could get the internship about international finance in Hong Kong. It says:

Here, represents a kind of pursuit.
They are pursuing excellence, pursuing elite,
pursuing famous brand, pursuing high salary, pursuing elegance,
and also, pursuing distinctive.

As you can see, the wording and phrasing are full of mistakes and disgusting. It’s really funny that the word “distinctive” is emphasized here. Don’t they know that “pursing famous brand and high salary” is in fact the common pursuit of students here?

However, the figures shown in the following diagram suggest the invalidity of this system.

This diagram is taken from “Women enter the elite group: limited progress” printed in Journal of Higher Education（高等教育研究） Vol.29 No.2. It shows the percentages of Peking University freshmen coming from cities and rural areas between 1978 and 2005. “◆” represents boys from cities; the small “■” represents girls from cities; “▲” is for boys from rural areas; the big “■” is for girls from rural areas.

As can be seen, boys from cities was always the most populous group in PKU, while the percentage of girls from cities had significantly increased (from 19.2% in 1978 to 41.0% in 2005). Meanwhile, the somewhat astonishing fact is that the percentage of boys from rural areas declined from 10.3% to 10.1% in the same period. Besides, girls from rural areas always remained the extremely low proportion. In 2005, only 4.2% of freshmen are girls coming from villages.

The background related to this topic is that over half population of China lives in rural areas. That is to say, the chance for students in cities to enter the top university is much higher than for students in rural areas. This phenomenon has not been changed since the resumption of Gao Kao in 1978.

The reasons for this fact are not hard to imagine. The quality of education for rural students is unsatisfactory. They don’t have sufficient learning resources, nor good teachers, for first-class teachers often go to cities for better life. As the urban-rural gap widening these years, it even becomes more and more difficult for students in villages to compete with their urban counterparts.

This fact about China’s higher education also indicates that social mobility is stagnating in China. This is really a dangerous signal for Chinese society.

This problem doesn’t exist in most countries in the world, for the answer is awfully easy: the live broadcast of launching is definitely more important, so the regular news program has to be delayed until the rocket is flying in the air. For TV stations in these countries, to ask this question is just like to ask a patient in critical condition: “Would you like the oxygen treatment, or to have some cookies first?”

But in China, this became a Gordian knot. The key reason is that the relationship between news and politics is still confusing. Although Xinwen Lianbo seems to be a regular news program, it is a political symbol of CCP. Every day at 7 pm, a kind of “virus” will attack all the TV sets in China. The symptom is that almost every channel will become the same, showing one man and one woman reading propaganda articles in a very old-fashioned way. Any tiny changes of this program will attract a huge amount of attention. There used to be hot discussions on the change of anchors and the slight variation of news arrangement. Gradually, this 30-minute news program is under great pressure. Any small action will be interpreted as a big political issue.

It becomes impossible for CCTV to delay Xinwen Lianbo in this situation. In fact, news has never weighed more than politics in China. Not to mention the political importance of the mouthpiece program in the evening of National Day.

However, we cannot forget about the pace of news reform in China. CCTV has been heading for real journalism by revising its News Channel several times. On the other hand, audiences’ expectation for news has been increasing. Therefore, it will trigger social discontent if Xinwen Lianbo simply ignores the launching. Presumably, there was a lengthy discussion inside CCTV and CCP’s Central Propaganda Department before deciding the scenario –

To begin the live broadcast in News Channel early in the day. When it turned to 18:59:55, the News Channel and CCTV-1 combined as regular (the virus works). It was time for Xinwen Lianbo.

At that moment, the countdown was coming to the end and the commander was about to shout out “ignition”, but CCTV didn’t care. The live scene of Chang’e II was put in the bottom right of the screen by using picture-in-picture. The main screen was filled by the 5-second countdown advertisement of a liquor, then the opening of Xinwen Lianbo. As a result, during the most crucial and amazing seconds, all the audience of Xinwen Lianbo could only watch Chang’e II through a small picture without any live sound.

The live scene of launching was switched to full screen after the opening theme. After 2 minutes of live broadcasting without narrative, journalist Bai Yansong read the draft, saying that the News Channel would continue to focus on Chang’e II. Then, the anchors Li Ruiying and Kang Hui appeared in the normal way, but Kang’s opening remark changed from the regular “Good evening everyone, today is October 1st, 2010, August 24th in lunar calendar” to “The scene you just watched is the live broadcast from Xichang Satellite Launch Center. Xinwen Lianbo will track and report it later”. After this, the regular news of Chinese celebrating National Day began.

Honestly speaking, this way of solving the problem is a compromise that can be accepted by the propaganda department, the TV station, and the audience. On the positive side, using picture-in-picture in Xinwen Lianbo‘s opening can even be regarded as a great progress in China’s journalism. Although politics refused to yield, it showed us a gesture of lower its high head a bit.

But there is also a big flaw in this live broadcast: the countdown advertisement. The opening of Xinwen Lianbo couldn’t be cancelled due to political reasons, but what about the commercial advertisement? Perhaps the major tasks of CCTV is to accomplish political missions and to make more and more money, while to report the news is never the most important.

In addition, there is another interesting detail in this event — the launching of Chang’e II itself is with political intention. It is different from the news in the usual sense. Therefore, the game between Chang’e II and Xinwen Lianbo is not simply the game between news and politics. To a certain extent, it’s still a game within politics.

So why not imagine: when a disaster like Wenchuan Earthquake hits China at 6 pm, what will CCTV do? To continue boasting about “the excellent situation” in Xinwen Lianbo, or to replace it with the live broadcast? Or to adopt a “middle way” by spending a quarter talking about the good news, the other quarter broadcasting the disaster? The answer will reflect the level of civilization of this country.

By Zhang Lei

He couldn’t take it anymore.

When Hong Kong writer and poet Liao Weitang found his online photo album had been deleted by douban.com, he quit, leaving behind the 3,000 friends he had made over two years.

“I had a great time here,” he wrote in his leaving statement to users of the Chinese mainland social networking service, “despite my account twice being suspended and having 100 posts deleted.

“But just lately this website has gone insane. It’s like half of the 5,000 most-commonly-used words are banned.”

The final straw for Liao was the deletion of The Beautiful and Strong People, an album featuring Hong Kong youths and artists involved in a protest against the HK$66.7-billion Hong Kong to Shenzhen and Guangzhou high-speed rail link. Photos of kneeling, barefoot youths were apparently deemed too political.

“I shot beautiful young faces, nothing radical or provocative,” Liao said. “But they just couldn’t let it go.”

“I stuck it out for two years with Douban, posting poems and comments, trying to bring a little truth and alternative values to my friends behind the Great Firewall.

“But I’ve got to have a bottom line somewhere. The Web master repeatedly tested my principles. So finally I decided to leave this website that is becoming renowned for self-castration.”

Douban used to be more flexible with him back in the old days, Liao said. For example instead of deleting, website managers might close off content by making it “private” not public. Or entries were not erased immediately, perhaps after a day or two, he recalled.

“That way, hundreds and thousands would see them,” he said.

As one of only a few Kong Hong writers willing to operate in this compromised Internet environment, Liao said he had savored the opportunity to communicate with isolated mainland friends.

“I posted on Douban what the public needs to know, saving more personal stuff for my blog.”

Initiated in 2005, Douban has 33 million registered users: mostly students and intellectuals who enjoy the social networking service’s simple design and user-generated content like books, movies and albums. More recently, Douban’s tightening censorship has upset some veteran members.

It got to the point that Peking University student Fang Kecheng wrote an open letter of complaint to Douban for suspending his account, dubbing the website a “dictator”.

According to Fang, users and Web masters had been forced into playing hide-and-seek with Big River, Big Sea – Untold Stories of 1949, a banned book by Taiwan writer Lung Yingtai.

As the book’s International Standard Book Number (ISBN) was forbidden on the mainland, users kept the title but altered the ISBN in order to share their comments and ratings.

Douban’s Web masters spotted the incorrect ISBN, erased the title and re-inserted the original, correct title. Seeing this, Fang changed the title back again, which led to his account being closed.

“I can’t believe contributing entry content can be a crime,” Fang said. “Any user can submit information they think is right on a website that relies on user-generated content.”

Fang wanted to find out whether the book’s sensitivity had contributed to his punishment and so he got his friend to change the title back again. His friend’s account was also closed.

It wasn’t the censorship per se that enraged Fang and other Web users, it was Douban breaching its own published code of conduct.

“Douban’s ban is unreasonable and random,” Fang wrote. “It’s authoritarian because you can be banned for three days, seven days or forever with no justification and all your diaries, albums, collections and messages are gone.”

Douban’s rules state users must receive three warnings before such a final, permanent closure: After a first warning, the account is suspended three days. The second warning leads to a week’s ban. Only after a third warning is the account supposed to be closed down permanently.

Fang’s open letter led to the lifting of a closure on his account.

Commercial survival

Self-censorship is the rule of survival that prevents popular websites from being shut down, Zoe Wang, a veteran website developer told the Global Times.

“I can understand an author being outraged when his post gets deleted, but it’s even harder to operate a website as I have to suffer the humiliation of supervisory organs and handle all the criticisms coming from users,” she said.

“How can you hope to pay your staff or maintain your users’ statistics if the website is shut down all because of one sensitive post?”

“You can never relax,” said the small website operator.

“You’re always keeping your phone switched on and waiting for that emergency call from the authorities requiring deletion of a post.”

What’s worse, she said, was the complete absence of clear-cut rules for deciding whether or not to delete an online post.

“The criterion of sensitivity depends on many aspects such as the political environment, the website’s background, size and location, as well as the different understandings of Web masters.”

Douban was extraordinarily cautious about its content as it had no background or ties to government, according to a source close to an editor at the site.

“Once you’re shut down, nobody can save you,” the source said.

No editor from Douban would go on the record when the Global Times contacted them.

“Douban recalls clearly the fate of Fanfou, Yeeyan and Blogbus,” Fang said.

They were three of the most well-known mainland websites closed down last year, according to the Southern Metropolis Weekly. The latter two were recovered in January.

Fanfou founder Wang Xing was pondering how much to up censorship during the July 5 Xinjiang riot last year when he got his answer.

The Twitter-style microblogging service for 100,000 registered users was closed down almost immediately for “violating related rules”, according to the China Business News Weekly.

Wang hasn’t given up hope of bringing Fanfou back some day. Seven months on, Wang still refused to comment.

A site that published collaborative user-submitted translations of English and Chinese articles, Yeeyan was shut down in November last year for violating the regulation on “running a news information service”.

According to this national regulation, any organization applying for the establishment of an Internet news information service on the Chinese mainland must have registered capital of no less than 10 million yuan and at least five Chinese mainland editors who have engaged in journalism for longer than three years.

Yeeyan relaunched 39 days later under tight self-censorship, with all “political” news removed.

“It was difficult to figure out what we can say and what we cannot,” Chen Haozhi, founder of Yeeyan, told the Guangzhou-based newspaper Southern Weekend.

The most devastating issue for translators was finding so much of their hard work deleted, said a former volunteer.

“It wasn’t our fault because we couldn’t twist the original meaning of the news stories,” she said.

“I’ve got absolutely no idea what is sensitive and what is not.”

Admittedly, she said, they knew their work was “risky” as “most foreign news about China is negative”.

Yeeyan’s partnership with the Guardian newspaper had made the staff especially proud, the translator said.

“The website attracted many readers as it helped them bypass the two walls,” she said. “Most Chinese face two obstacles: the Great Firewall and the language barrier.”

Neutering was the only option for Yeeyan if they wanted to continue in business, she said.

Yeeyan was also bound by copyright law, she said. The translation company had to delete a group translation of Dan Brown’s blockbuster The Lost Symbol and apologize to the book’s Chinese publisher last year.

No appeal

Aside from suffering censorship or shutdowns for reasons unknown, a common complaint among Internet users and website operators is the lack of an appeal.

“You can only go to related departments and beg them to give you another chance,” Liao said.

As the Web master of an online poetry forum, Liao has a list of sensitive words he received from the local Internet authority.

“They hope we will delete posts containing these words,” he said, “but I don’t see it making much sense.”

The forum was shut down twice last year.

“We have no idea why,” he said. “It came all of a sudden.”

In response, the site’s server was moved to Hong Kong.

“It’s impossible to rescue your website if you violated the related law,” a Web master from China Unicom, Beijing branch, told the Global Times.

“As long as Douban is growing, it won’t care about what users say because the real threat comes from the authorities,” Fang said.

It’s pointless fighting the system, he said.

“We can only fight the slavish social environment and gradually gain a sense of citizenship,” he said.

Vague laws

There are 14 general laws and regulations governing illegal online behavior, all vague and lacking in detailed, practical provisions, according to Li Yonggang, a professor of Internet politics from Nan-jing University, in his newly published book Our Great Firewall: Expression and Governance in the Era of the Internet.

“As a result, it’s difficult to draw a line when operators and Web users censor, apart from the well-known restricted field of political issues,” he wrote.

There are more than 10 government organs entitled to supervise the Internet, Li said. This inevitably gives rise to conflicts, he believed.

Bans are also increasingly unpredictable, he said. Recipients receive no explanation and no comeback. Chinese mainland Web users tend to react with a pessimistic, alienated and impotent attitude.

“Chinese may criticize the evils of society, but at the same time they feel like participants,” Li said.

“In fact the Great Firewall is rooted in our hearts as so little ‘harmful information’ will ever come to light thanks to individuals’ self-discipline and website operators’ self-censorship.”

Online opinion is a double-edged sword, said Wang, also a bulletin board moderator. Irrational online outcries aren’t helping anyone, she argued. She cited the online petition for Sun Zhigang, famously beaten to death in 2003 for not carrying a temporary living permit.

Observers attributed the ending of the policy of custody and repatriation to online public sentiment. In fact, Wang said, the change of policy came about because of the SARS breakout.

“They were all eager to sign a petition when something happened but in fact it only led to the shutting down of these significant forums.

“We can’t stop censorship, but we can articulate the truth with a more rational attitude. When different opinions coexist, people find their own answers.”

Censorship is also necessary to prevent certain kinds of harm being done to others, argued Zhu Wei, a professor at China University of Politics and Laws in Beijing.

“The nude picture scandal wouldn’t have run out of control if there was no Internet,” he said. “Unrestricted, freedom can lead to violence.”

According to the newly-passed Tort Liability Law, any Web user or service provider who infringes upon the civil rights and benefits of another is liable.

This new catch-all is a valuable control over online opinion. According to Article 36, the infringed party can inform the Web service provider to delete, shield or cut the links as well as any other necessary measures.

“The Web service provider who doesn’t take necessary measures after receiving this information will bear joint liability along with the Web user,” the law states.

Introduction

 As China continues to expand its role in the international community, its diplomatese stays mechanical. Many people notice that “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” becomes a phrase the Chinese government chooses for nearly every statement when dealing with international disagreement. For example, after French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s meeting with the Dalai Lama on December 6th, 2008, Deputy Foreign Minister He Yafei said, “The meeting grossly interfered in China’s internal affairs, severely undermined China’s core interests, gravely hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and damaged the political basis of China-France and China-EU relations.”[1]    

 This kind of expression has deeply influenced the thought and expression of ordinary Chinese people. They are using it frequently, no matter genuine or with irony. Even when a pop star wore a dress resembling a Japanese military flag, the Chinese people would feel hurt.[2]    

 But the phrase of “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” was not idiomatic in China 30 years ago. During the first 30 years of P.R.C, its people seemed much “stronger” and “more mighty” than nowadays. They showed their anger and “determination to win the battle against imperialism” instead of complaining the hurt.    

 Based on the statistic through the archives of the CCP’s mouthpiece the People’s Daily between 1949 and 2006, the following research will reveal the change of the set phrases in China’s diplomatese when facing international disputes, and try to provide a possible explanation for this phenomenon.
    

The Statistic of “Hurt the Feelings of the Chinese People”

 By searching through the archives of the People’s Daily with the keywords “中国人民(的)感情” (the feelings of the Chinese people) and “伤害/损害/损伤/有损/有伤” (hurt), more than 100 articles containing different forms of the statement “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” were found. After reading and arranging them one by one, a list of 135 articles and a ranking of countries (or regions, organizations) which had “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” were made.    

1. Japan: 58 times
2. USA: 27 times
3. NATO: 10 times
4. India: 9 times
5. France: 6 times
6. Nobel Committee (Norway): 4 times
7. Germany: 3 times
8. Vatican City: 3 times
9. EU: 2 times
10. Guatemala: 2 times
11. The other 11 countries: Indonesia, Albania, Vietnam, The Netherlands, The Philippines, UK, Nicaragua, South Africa, Denmark, Iceland, Jordan. 

 The list of search results can also be arranged according to the order of time (Figure 1). The figures show a sharp distinction between the Mao era (1949-1978) and the reform era (1978- ).    

Between October 1949 and December 1978, the feelings of the Chinese people were hurt only three times, according to the People’s Daily.     

In September 1959, when the border dispute developed between China and India, Hu Yuzhi, vice-chairman of China Democratic League stated that the anti-Chinese movement in India was “not fair to a friendly country”, and such doing hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.     

The second time “the Chinese people were hurt” was in December 1959, stated by Chen Jiageng, chairman of the All-China Returned Overseas Chinese Federation, when the anti-Chinese movement broke out in Indonesia.     

The third one was in July 1978, stated by Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when the Chinese government decided to stop providing aid to Albania, due to its leaders’ “malicious attacking great leader Chairman Mao and CCP in public since November 1976″.     

But when the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh CPC Central Committee decided an “open door policy” of China to the “outside world” in December 1978, the figure grew quickly. Between 1979 and 2006, the feelings of the Chinese people were hurt around 5 times every year in the articles of the People’s Daily.     

Up to the year 2006, there were at least 21 countries which had “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people”, covering the continents of Asia, Europe, Africa and America. Among these countries, Japan (58 times) and the U.S.A (27 times) were the unquestionable top two. But the appearance of countries such as Guatemala, Albania, Vietnam and Nicaragua on the list tells that a country does not need to be strong or crucial to successfully “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people”.
    

The Statistic of “Indignation”, “Anger” and “Denounce”

 In order to reveal the set phrases used before 1978, the researcher referred to some articles on international disputes written in the early years of the P.R.C and fixed 3 groups of keywords to search through the archives. They were “中国人民” + “愤慨” (the Chinese people + indignation), “中国人民” + “愤怒” (the Chinese people + anger), and “中国人民” + “谴责” (the Chinese people + denounce).     

The result showed an obvious difference before and after 1978 (Figure 2). Between October 1st, 1949 and December 31st, 1978, there were thousands of articles containing the selected keywords, while between January 1st, 1979 and December 31st 2006, the number of articles sharply reduced, though the lengths of time are basically the same (29.25 years and 28 years).    

In many cases, the object to which the Chinese people expressed “indignation” and “denounced” was described as “imperialism and its lackeys”. The word “imperialism” was used to define “enemy states” such as U.S.A, U.K, France, Germany, Japan and so on, while the “lackeys” was the name of small pro-American countries. At the same time, so-called “Soviet revisionism” was another important target for expressing “indignation” and “denouncing”.    

The Transitions of Chinese Foreign Policy: A Possible Explanation

 The change from “angrily denounce” to “be gravely hurt” was so immediate, tremendous, and obviously taking the year 1978 as the separatrix. This phenomenon suggests a possible explanation: the change of set phrases in China’s diplomatese reflects the transitions of Chinese Foreign Policy.   

In the Mao era, the chairman made the foreign policy and personally took part in the international reporting of the mouthpieces.[3] At that time, the Chinese government and its people took most of the capitalism countries as “enemy states”. According to the official data provided by Ministry of Foreign Affairs[4], China had established diplomatic relations with only 49 countries before 1970. More importantly, in the official discourse system, “imperialism and its lackeys” were doomed to be defeated by China. Expressions as follows were seen everywhere in official propaganda organs:   

“In the 1940s, Japanese, German and Italian fascism could be defeated; in the 1960s, American imperialism surely can be defeated.”[5]   

It’s hard to imagine the feelings of the people being hurt by an enemy state. The Chinese people can “denounce” the enemies and express “indignation” and “anger” to them, but being hurt by them is a kind of weakness. How can a “must-win” country and its people show weakness and frailty in front of their enemies?   

Things changed after Mao’s death and the decision of “open door policy”. The number of countries having diplomatic relations with China grew to more than 160. The former “imperialism enemies” became friends instead of countries doomed to be beaten. The sharp reduce of “indignation”, “anger” and “denounce” clearly showed the change. Nowadays, these words are used to criticize public enemies such as terrorists.   

But why does the Chinese government choose “hurt the feelings” as the substitute? A possible explanation lies in the cultural tradition. China’s society is based on personal feeling and human sentiment. Having hurt a friend’s feeling is severe in Chinese culture. To denounce someone hurt the feelings of somebody means a strong moral sanction.   

But international affairs are not within Chinese cultural tradition. As to the western countries, complaining “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” means nothing but “I am the weaker one”. Maybe it’s time for the Chinese government to look for another set phrase as substitute.   

[1] Li Xiaokun. Sarkozy-Dalai meeting draws Beijing’s ire. China Daily, December 8th, 2008.
[2] In 2001, a woman named Zou Xue published a picture of pop star Zhao Wei wearing a dress with a Japanese military flag on the cover of Bazaar Magazine. The public saw it as a sign of disrespecting government policy, as well as the sensibilities of the Chinese. The Chinese public, sensitive over the war with Japan, responded furiously. — From Wikipedia.
[3] According to several memoirs, Mao not only edited the articles but also wrote comments on international disputes.
[4] http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/chn/pds/ziliao/2193/
[5] Luo Ruiqing. The People Defeated Japanese Fascism; They Can Also Defeat American Imperialism. The People’s Daily, September 4th, 1965.

Nearly 80 years ago, the great American writer Pearl S. Buck encouraged her Chinese friend Lin Yutang to write a book explaining China to the West. When Lin finished his masterpiece My Country and My People, Pearl wrote the preface for his book, expressing her appreciation for Lin’s work and disappointment for many other Chinese writers — which can be seen from the paragraph quoted above.

Pearl’s criticism towards those incompetent Chinese writers is still valid today, though profound changes have taken place in China during the past decades. Writing about China is much more difficult now than it was in Lin’s time, though nowadays much more people — including Chinese and foreigners — are writing about this huge country.

Several years ago, I started to write a Chinese blog focusing on Chinese media and social issues. I have been trying to offer my independent opinion about my country. This continuous work got some attention, including Danwei’s recommendation for my blog to netizens wanting to learn about China.

Before this recommendation, several of my blog posts were introduced and translated by Danwei. Thanks to Danwei’s work, my voice has been heard by more netizens, especially Westerners. Gradually, I began to consider writing a blog in English. At the same time, the independent blogger Michael Anti encouraged me to write about China in a language which can be understood by the largest number of people in the world.

With the hope (and some ambition) of telling the ancient oriental nation in my eyes and in my thoughts as well as communicating with the world, I decided to start an English blog concerning on various aspects of China and Chinese people. Compared to native English bloggers writing about China, the advantage of me is that I myself am deeply rooted in this country.

As a Peking University (also known as Beida) graduate majoring in Journalism and Human Rights, I am chiefly interested in the topics of the functioning and changing of China’s political system, the role played by China’s media in the reform, and the development of civil society. However, topics on China’s economics, culture and other social issues will also be introduced and analyzed in this blog.

I graduated from Peking University this July and became a journalist working for Southern Weekly. The tagline of my newspaper is “to understand China”. As mentioned above, to understand this unique country is not an easy task, but I will try my best, for my newspaper, and also for my blog.

As you can see, I borrowed the title of Lin Yutang’s book for my blog. It’s a salute to Dr. Lin, and also a spur to me. In the blog description, I chose the phrases “changing China” and “awakening citizens”. I believe that China is in the transition to a modern democratic country and Chinese people are getting off their knees. As the Chinese saying goes, “while the prospects are bright, the road has twists and turns.” I am going to write about the prospects, and also, the twists and turns.

Undoubtedly, there will be many malapropisms, mistakes and misuses of words in my blog posts. If you happen to notice them, please do not hesitate to tell me. Of course, discussions on my blog posts are also welcomed. Thank you.