Competition is the Driving Force of China’s Resurgence
The weather is scorching hot in Beijing these days. The mercury has soared to a 30-year high. The Chinese call the heat at this time of year the “college admissions heat wave,” kind of like our own “college admissions cold snap.” (The SAT in South Korea is held in winter.) The Gaokao, the Chinese version of the SAT, is conducted at the beginning of summer every year, and ten million students, the largest number ever, took this year’s Gaokao last Thursday and Friday. Before their scores are released on June 25, they still have to take a physical strength test. It feels as if the already hot summer has become all the hotter because of the Gaokao.
Chinese colleges recruit their freshmen based solely on Gaokao scores, without consulting school records. Chinese parents pay extreme attention to their children’s education, starting from elementary school, to make sure they get into the top schools. A college professor in Beijing said that some families pack and move every few years to the most prestigious school districts so their kids can go to the best schools. Before the Gaokao, families go to hotels to snap up “college admissions specialty,” a special food prepared with rare ingredients that are supposed to enhance brain activity. Some parents stock up on wonder “study drugs” from special pharmacies, while others head to Buddhist temples to pray for 100 days. One temple even sells incense bundles specially made to bring good luck for admissions for 99,999 yuan (US$1= CNY7.66).
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the revival of the Gaokao, which was suspended for 11 years during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Mao Zedong abolished the exam as a bourgeois breeder of elitism. During the Cultural Revolution, only party loyalists and workers and peasants — people with the “proper background” — were admitted to colleges.
But in 1977, Deng Xiaoping, who had resumed power, revived the Gaokao and removed the barriers of class background and party fealty from the college admissions system. These days the revival of the Gaokao is seen as a turning point in the history of modern China, one of the steps on the path to becoming the competitive nation it is today. The Nanfang Daily, one of the three biggest newspapers in Guangdong, wrote, “China’s history has changed thanks to Deng’s courage and foresight.”
In 1977, the first year the Gaokao was revived, 5.7 million students took the test; only two percent were admitted to colleges and universities. Among them were a brickyard worker who was more than 30 years old and housewives with two or three children. These were young people who had prepared for their future despite the hardships of life on farms or in factories during the dismal Cultural Revolution days. The competition was just as fierce the following year. The students, many of whom were older, had studied harder than any other generation. These people have since become the backbone of today’s newly-emergent China.
Among them are Li Keqiang, secretary of the Communist Party of China’s Liaoning Provincial Committee who is believed to be the likely successor to President Hu Jintao, and Bo Xilai, the minister of commerce of the world’s third-largest trading power. Also from this generation are world-renowned film directors Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, both of whom have brought Chinese film-making to the international level. Many famous scholars hail from this generation, including Wang Jisi, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University and a foreign affairs advisor to Hu, and Yi Zhongtian, a professor at Xiamen University who has created a boom in classic Chinese literature with the publication of his book “Pinsanguo.” Chinese websites distribute e-books that teach about the school days and study methods of the famous students of those two special years, 1977 and 1978. The media is encouraging the younger generation to learn about their seniors’ enthusiasm for education and teaching them that competition is good.
China’s current resurgence is the outcome of all this competition. Meanwhile, South Korean politicians are attempting to replace academic competition with a standardized and equalized education system, with the idea that competition is bad. They should look to China to understand the mistakes they are making.