Education is important to China's future, and education reform has been a long drawn-out complex process, which people of all stripes agree has basically been inadequate. From the early days of Project Hope corruption to the current education spending that still hasn't reached the 4%-of-GDP target set by the central government, people have much to complain about. Among all the … [Read more...] about "Surprisingly", Compulsory Education is Free!
Archives for April 2009
(Letter from Joel) Understanding popular Chinese notions about “racism” (help me out here!)
I have a growing suspicion that the way many Chinese people understand the word "racism" (or "racist") is quite different from the way I use it. This causes communication problems because I use the term "racism" like most North Americans do, but my Chinese acquaintances react in ways that don't seem to make sense. Obviously there's a disconnect. I want to know why my … [Read more...] about (Letter from Joel) Understanding popular Chinese notions about “racism” (help me out here!)
(Letter from TonyP4) The Chinese are coming!
The quality problems of Chinese products show up almost every month. It is the experience of most developing countries on their way to a developed country. The last one is S. Korean which adopted a similar model as Japan. What have not been reported extensively are the improvement of the Chinese products and why Chinese will compete with the best in the world. The … [Read more...] about (Letter from TonyP4) The Chinese are coming!
(Letter) Did the Chinese government really tried to hide quake fatalities?
Recently GVO's Oiwan Lam accused the Chinese government of hiding figures and names of the 512 quake victims. But few searches on Baidu.com seem to contradict GVO's claims: 1) In the aftermath, casualty figures have been regularily updated and published by various government agencies including hospitals 2) As result, many media outlets in China have been able to create … [Read more...] about (Letter) Did the Chinese government really tried to hide quake fatalities?
China's Bold Visions for Universal Healthcare
The Chinese government announced a couple of days ago guidelines for an ambitious reform of the healthcare system (see also wsj report and danwei report). The government announced, By 2020, the world's most populous country will have a basic health-care system that can provide "safe, effective, convenient and affordable" health services to urban and rural residents.... … [Read more...] about China's Bold Visions for Universal Healthcare