Just a quick thought today:
As I tell people in the States, when it comes to China, seemingly good news is often bad, and seemingly bad news is often good. In many cases, like increased numbers of AIDS cases, higher numbers of people living below the poverty line, and shrinking college admissions, bad news can actually be signs of problems being acknowledged and addressed. On the other hand, reforms to the criminal code, the completion of bridges and rails, and “elections” often serve as reminders of how far China has to go in terms of human rights, safety, and developing a gov’t that is actually selected by the people.
In a story published the other day in People’s Daily, the gov’t announced that it planned for every other village in China to be staffed by at least one college graduate. This seems like a rather necessary step, as one begins to realize that the statement means that at the moment most villages in China do not have a single college grad on staff (not that they are necessarily qualified to lead either, but would likely bring new ideas). Surely, this kind of policy would help to spark innovation and develop the countryside.
However, as the article goes on, it seems to be another well-intentioned, but poorly thought out policy. It’s a rather transparent effort to create 400,000 jobs for college grads to stem the growing number of unemployed students (this article is explicit in the intent). Again, it seems that the raw number is more important than whether or not these individuals are actually improving services in these areas, and with that bulk of new employees it’s hard to imagine that they will be very carefully screened for their abilities instead of their connections. As one applicant said in another article on the topic, “becoming a civil servant means a lifetime of insurance, stability and being relatively well-paid.” Such a program will further strain local budgets that already fail to adequately cover education and health care.
So what may look at first glimpse as good news, may actually be another costly policy that looks better on paper than it does in practice.
On the other hand, today People’s Daily reported that a Professor had plagiarized his student’s work and then claimed that he won an award with it (although PD found no evidence that he had actually won.) The article doesn’t do much to help with the underlying problems as it still refers to the man as an “award winning professor,” and includes a quote from a school official that seems to imply the award was what really mattered.
It seems at first like another example of the rampant cheating that happens in China’s universities, but in this instance the student has vocally opposed his former professor. Even after the prof. apologized and added the student’s name to the project, the student has continued to reject these attempts to calm the story.
This is not the first instance of a student rebuking a teacher for claiming their work, even though the students could face rather stiff punishments from their schools. To me it is a great example of the awakening in China of individual rights, and the value of creativity.
The first is the famous law of unintended consequences – a law from which no nation is immune.
The second is rather interesting to me as it is the idea of individual rights. Can’t access the main story at the moment but will have to check up on it later. But that surely cannot be a bad thing (at least in my own opinion).
But you’re right in that it is rather telling that the first thought when reading bad news in China is that things are finally being seen rather than hidden and therefore (hopefully) being dealt with.