This week's news featured two stories on major Chinese intellectual figures. On Sunday, November 1, Qian Xuesen, the founder of China's missile defense program and a key player in its space and nuclear programs, died at the age of 98. Only the next day, Zhou Ji, China's unpopular Minister of Education, was fired from his position. Both were earthshaking events in China's intellectual community, and leave behind questions about how best to approach education in the coming years.
"The Rocket King"
Qian Xuesen was born in the city of Hangzhou on December of 1910, on the eve of the overthrow of the last Chinese dynastic line, the Qing, in 1911. He grew up during the politically tumultuous time of the Republic of China and attended Shanghai Jiaotong University, eventually earning a scholarship to study in the United States in 1935. He attended MIT for one year, and then earned a doctorate degree from Caltech.
Mr. Qian quickly became an essential part of American rocket propulsion research during the 1940s. As part of the Allied effort to duplicate and improve on the German V1/V2 rockets, he helped develop the first solid-fuel missiles. He also was a member of the Manhattan Project, famous for developing the nuclear bomb.
Unfortunately, Qian's successful research clashed with the paranoid and conservative culture of the 1950s. He was suspected of being a spy for his native China, which had recently undergone a successful communist revolution. As a result, his research was suspended, many of his possessions were confiscated and he was detained in his home. Finally, in 1955, Qian left the United States and returned home to China.
There, Qian worked to develop the first generation of Chinese long-range missiles. His work helped produce China's first nuclear bomb in 1964, with help from the Soviet Union – China's closest ally at the time. Qian then headed the project to launch China's first satellite in 1970.
Qian's work proved foundational to the Chinese space program, which first put a man into space in 2003, and then launched a moon orbiter in 2007. This year, China has begun construction in Hainan of a major launching site for future space endeavors, and promised to land a man on the moon within a decade. Qian died on October 31 at age 98, having lived through the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Chinese Republic, and the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
"The Education King"
On November 1, the day after Qian Xuesen's death, the Chinese government sacked the Minister of Education, Zhou Ji. The firing of Zhou is due first to widespread disapproval of his inability to cure many of the problems of China's education system: varying standards in higher education, lack of funding to primary education (especially in rural areas), cheating and rampant bribery of education officials, and the massive unemployment of college graduates.
Admittedly, at least some of these problems predated Zhou's arrival into the position six years ago – but he has since become the public scapegoat for nearly everything wrong with the contemporary Chinese education system.
The firing may also be connected to China's current anti-corruption drive. Zhou is being investigated for his past links to Wuhan University, which was recently the location of a corruption scandal of its two top administrators, who had accepted bribes for the construction of a large university housing project. Zhou did not work at Wuhan University, but he was involved in the education system in Wuhan for two years before his ascension to the Ministry of Education.
The Chinese government has been preparing to overhaul its education system for several years. According to
an excellent article by Education Week, the key strengths of the modern Chinese education system lie in its strong focus on theory and in the employment of teachers with subject specialization who are better trained and teach fewer hours than their American counterparts. However, many schools lack resources and often fail to stimulate students to develop a personal interest in their subject matter. In today's post-Communist China, education remains largely a means of social advancement, rather than a springboard for personal development.
The Deputy Minister of Education, Yuan Guiren, will replace Zhou. Yuan has a full plate ahead of him, and it remains to be seen whether or not he will be able to handle it.
Michael Wines for The New York Times
Zhen Yuan for AsiaNews.it
Cong Cao for United Press International
Tim Collard's blog for The Telegraph
Associated Press
Sean Cavanagh for Education Week
Michael Wines for The New York Times
Kerry Brown for The Sydney Morning Herald
Jason Dean and Stephen Miller for The Wall Street Journal
