How did China change in Culture, from Imperial era to today.

Originally Posted by Lezt

Very long post, and I am only going to comment on specifics.

I don't think you can compare universities in the US to China directly, they primarily function differently. The Chinese space program is based on a lot of space cities, commissions and institutes. While NASA, mainly works with universities.

I also don't think that it is fair just to say that China does not share it's advances in technology with the rest of the world. Every advanced nations does it to a certain extent to keep a technological buffer, while on the other hand, you have Western experts speculate on Chinese military development by the the papers being published in China (like quantum teleportation) URL="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2016687,00.html"]http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2016687,00.html[/URL]-> so I don't think that China is not sharing.

Also, why do you think that the Chinese leadership is without external influence? Each leader have been abroad, China have sent a multitude of commissions through out the years to learn things from news reporting, to agriculture, to advanced science, even to learn business models. I honestly believe the current Chinese leadership to be well informed of the outside world to say at the least.

By university I mean research universities, this is from personal experience and talking with friends. Also if you go ahead google top 400 school ranking in the world, China is not anywhere near the top.

When I say China don't share with the world I mean the very cutting advance technology, things that are not open source. The western nations tend to share with each other more than they share with China, if any. And I won't call them "experts" because experts don't really put this stuff on times.com

By no external influence I mean as a good thing, you should go ahead read the rest of what I am trying to say. I mean free of business lobbyist and special interests. It has nothing to do with Chinese leadership out of loop with the world.

Originally Posted by stardave

By university I mean research universities, this is from personal experience and talking with friends. Also if you go ahead google top 400 school ranking in the world, China is not anywhere near the top.

When I say China don't share with the world I mean the very cutting advance technology, things that are not open source. The western nations tend to share with each other more than they share with China, if any. And I won't call them "experts" because experts don't really put this stuff on times.com

By no external influence I mean as a good thing, you should go ahead read the rest of what I am trying to say. I mean free of business lobbyist and special interests. It has nothing to do with Chinese leadership out of loop with the world.

I don't think the school ranking means much. Lets put it into perspective, how many Soviet school made the list and how many men have the soviet union put into space vs a high ranking nation like... Germany or the UK? A better matrix will be patent count or journal paper published.

The USA had 50% of the patents of 2011 at around 120K patents, Japan accounts for around 48K, China 4K, UK 5K, Germany 13K... Russia... less than 1K. Journals... I can't find the info right now.

I mean, look at the top 50 engineering/science schools ranking, the UK have Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, Manchester; when China have BJ and tsinghua. China have around the same number of patents to the UK. Japan have Tokyo and Kyoto - and they have accounted for ~20% of the world's patents While the USA had 23 such top schools but only account for 50% of the world's patent.

All I am saying is, take it at a grain of salt, rankings means very little.

My experience with my peers from Tsinghua, Fudan, MIT, Caltech, Michgan, Imperial, Kyoto, Waterloo, TUM, BTH, Berkley, Cambride, Oxford, Texas A&M, Cornell - I find to be on relatively the same footing. TUM and MIT... did pull ahead.

What cutting edge technology did the West willingly share? This is such a perceptive statement. The west clearly did not share F22 stealth technology, nor latest medical advances in medication. There is simply no way to gauge and quantify that; like supposedly my colleagues in Japan told me that they were keeping a 30 year technology buffer against the rest of the world; it is all perceptive and rather meaningless.

Maybe I read you wrong, on the external influence. But I disagree with the lack of lobbying by vested interest groups. All I can tell you is that there are some local Chinese laws which came into effect which promote the use of certain building technologies - which ultimately will benefit certain interest groups. I don't think I need to infer how those laws came to be.

Originally Posted by Lezt

I don't think the school ranking means much. Lets put it into perspective, how many Soviet school made the list and how many men have the soviet union put into space vs a high ranking nation like... Germany or the UK? A better matrix will be patent count or journal paper published.

The old Soviet schools did not rank well internationally because they were not included in the competition. No one doubts the quality of Soviet scholars. However, Chinese schools are included in the competition and are not ranked as high as people in China would have hoped. This is a fact. I remember one of my colleagues used to show me the website of Beijing University years ago, which proudly flashed the # of papers published in Science/Nature. And it was 3 or 4/year. In the US, that's the amount of high-impact publications out of a single lab, not the entire university. And I'm not even talking about a top-notch university, simply a decent one. I have been doing biology-related research since 2000 and have come across less than 10 papers from Chinese universities, not even one from Tsinghua/Beijing. Almost all of them from the South, Wuhan University/Tongji Univ. etc. A whopping 10! I do literature search daily and scan through at least 50-100 publication daily. We also have post-docs coming from China all the time. Most of them list many publications on their CV. And almost exclusively, these publications are in Chinese journals. To this day, I have not seen one publication in internationally recognized journals. In comparison, I regularly see studies published by groups from Taiwanese and Hong Kong universities. How many universities are there in Taiwan and Hong Kong combined? Comparing that to the amount of universities in China, I would say research done in Taiwan and Hong Kong is much better than China.

Originally Posted by Lezt

The USA had 50% of the patents of 2011 at around 120K patents, Japan accounts for around 48K, China 4K, UK 5K, Germany 13K... Russia... less than 1K. Journals... I can't find the info right now.

I mean, look at the top 50 engineering/science schools ranking, the UK have Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, Manchester; when China have BJ and tsinghua. China have around the same number of patents to the UK. Japan have Tokyo and Kyoto - and they have accounted for ~20% of the world's patents While the USA had 23 such top schools but only account for 50% of the world's patent.

Since patent application depends on the policy in that country. There is no uniform rules for patent application internationally. So the fact that China has many patents does not mean much since no one knows the quality of the patents compared to elsewhere in the world.

Originally Posted by Lezt

All I am saying is, take it at a grain of salt, rankings means very little.

My experience with my peers from Tsinghua, Fudan, MIT, Caltech, Michgan, Imperial, Kyoto, Waterloo, TUM, BTH, Berkley, Cambride, Oxford, Texas A&M, Cornell - I find to be on relatively the same footing. TUM and MIT... did pull ahead.

You say ranking matters little. Yet, most of the Western universities you mentioned are top-notch research universities. Some of them might not rank highly in the undergraduate program because of their size, like A&M and Michigan. However, nearly all of them have excellent research programs and rank highly in the graduate programs. So ranking does mean something... In my opinion, Tsinghua and Beijing do not even stand a chance against any of the Western universities you mentioned. If you think about it, almost all the good students from these universities go abroad. How can any university perform well when the best of its students go elsewhere?

Originally Posted by Lezt

I don't think the school ranking means much. Lets put it into perspective, how many Soviet school made the list and how many men have the soviet union put into space vs a high ranking nation like... Germany or the UK? A better matrix will be patent count or journal paper published.

The USA had 50% of the patents of 2011 at around 120K patents, Japan accounts for around 48K, China 4K, UK 5K, Germany 13K... Russia... less than 1K. Journals... I can't find the info right now.

I mean, look at the top 50 engineering/science schools ranking, the UK have Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, Manchester; when China have BJ and tsinghua. China have around the same number of patents to the UK. Japan have Tokyo and Kyoto - and they have accounted for ~20% of the world's patents While the USA had 23 such top schools but only account for 50% of the world's patent.

All I am saying is, take it at a grain of salt, rankings means very little.

My experience with my peers from Tsinghua, Fudan, MIT, Caltech, Michgan, Imperial, Kyoto, Waterloo, TUM, BTH, Berkley, Cambride, Oxford, Texas A&M, Cornell - I find to be on relatively the same footing. TUM and MIT... did pull ahead.

What cutting edge technology did the West willingly share? This is such a perceptive statement. The west clearly did not share F22 stealth technology, nor latest medical advances in medication. There is simply no way to gauge and quantify that; like supposedly my colleagues in Japan told me that they were keeping a 30 year technology buffer against the rest of the world; it is all perceptive and rather meaningless.

Maybe I read you wrong, on the external influence. But I disagree with the lack of lobbying by vested interest groups. All I can tell you is that there are some local Chinese laws which came into effect which promote the use of certain building technologies - which ultimately will benefit certain interest groups. I don't think I need to infer how those laws came to be.

Look, it seems like we have fallen into a classic internet argument trap, where we will just argue for the sake of arguing. Yes, you can find any exception to what I am saying, the school standards, and government lobbyist etc.. but what I am saying is, the overall trend is there, overall Western university do have a lot better research staff and infrastructure, and this is expected because they had this from beginning and China is playing catch up, and due to the structure of democracy it is very susceptible to interest group influence. And go ahead look what ICBM UK use? and where it is made from? Do you think there is any other nation willing to share that kind of technology?

You can go ahead and find exception to everything I have just posted, but... remember, overall trends, not just one or two examples. I am not going to reply to you anymore, this is not going anywhere. If you have anything new to add to this discussion I would love to hear it, for example if you can think what will be China's cultural future influence like.

Originally Posted by stardave

Look, it seems like we have fallen into a classic internet argument trap, where we will just argue for the sake of arguing. Yes, you can find any exception to what I am saying, the school standards, and government lobbyist etc.. but what I am saying is, the overall trend is there, overall Western university do have a lot better research staff and infrastructure, and this is expected because they had this from beginning and China is playing catch up, and due to the structure of democracy it is very susceptible to interest group influence. And go ahead look what ICBM UK use? and where it is made from? Do you think there is any other nation willing to share that kind of technology?

You can go ahead and find exception to everything I have just posted, but... remember, overall trends, not just one or two examples. I am not going to reply to you anymore, this is not going anywhere. If you have anything new to add to this discussion I would love to hear it, for example if you can think what will be China's cultural future influence like.

I am of the perspective that there is no better/worse research institute and that overall trends are purely speculative and in this case, primarily your belief.

You know, most of western science's advances were made during a time which they do not have funding or facilities; but also they do not have PETA or human rights or the EPA. I do not believe that what Unit 731 or the doctors at Auschwitz or the US deliberate exposure of Australian troops to the Abomb; The Tuskegee Syphilis Study; or the tests at US veteran hospitals (an intersting read: A History Of US Secret Human Experimentation). But I do not deny the greatest advance in science is by achieved through these sacrifices.

When an acquaintance of mine was testing radioactive sourced artificial stirling engine hearts in Cows somewhere in Michigan during the 60s; there was no PETA. Another who did rocket research didn't really consider the environment when they were launching civilian test missiles with hydrogen peroxide / hydroxyquinoline (walter engine) somewhere in the massachusetts area in the 50s. Try doing any of these things nowadays in the US or EU.

My point really is, there is a lot of things you can do in China or another third world country nowadays that you cannot do in any first world country; and this ability to do things or to try things is something which theoretical discussions; a sluggish permit process, computer simulations and all that nice things the west can offer, cannot displace. This is one of the reasons why Gerald Bull took his research to Iraq to continue it, good government funding and the ability to do anything - is very tempting to the best and the brightest. I will not be surprised that the best and the brightest currently reside in China; given that China is willing to give 100 million USD to Mike O’Dwyer for him to develop Metal Storm in China.

And really, technology is freely bartered; if you think ballistic missile technology is not, then I suppose you don't believe the Iran, Syria and N. Korea did not transfer missile technology? Or latest armaments - like Russia selling T80 tanks to S. Korea in the 1990s? Or Iran building Chinese cruise missiles?

I am still of the perspective that research institutes and capabilities are all relatively in the same ball park;

Originally Posted by vesicles

You say ranking matters little. Yet, most of the Western universities you mentioned are top-notch research universities. Some of them might not rank highly in the undergraduate program because of their size, like A&M and Michigan. However, nearly all of them have excellent research programs and rank highly in the graduate programs. So ranking does mean something... In my opinion, Tsinghua and Beijing do not even stand a chance against any of the Western universities you mentioned. If you think about it, almost all the good students from these universities go abroad. How can any university perform well when the best of its students go elsewhere?

To put it into perspective, a student who graduated from Qinghua will almost certainly do extraordinarily well in any top rank US university. To enter universities like Qinghua, a person has to be highly competitive and determined.

Now research programs are another matter. I've always found this dual role of university to be very strange. Why force professors who are excellent researchers to teach undergrad classes, when they might not be particularly suited to do that? Why sideline excellent lecturers who does not have the experience to be at the top of their field yet? It seems to me that research should be research, and teaching should be teaching.

Chinese education, from very early on, focuses too much on results and not enough on the process. Chinese parents ask what grade you got in your test, not what you learned in the class. Teachers and schools get "incentives" if they can raise the test grades of their class. You can only get higher education if you can pass an exam. This mentality of results over process is drilled into Chinese students, and that is probably the biggest problem facing academic research in China right now.

Originally Posted by solarz

Now research programs are another matter. I've always found this dual role of university to be very strange. Why force professors who are excellent researchers to teach undergrad classes, when they might not be particularly suited to do that? Why sideline excellent lecturers who does not have the experience to be at the top of their field yet? It seems to me that research should be research, and teaching should be teaching.

I like your way of thinking. Unfortunately, money talks even in academia. Professors with research programs have to pay "tax" to the school, in the form of "indirect cost". When a professor gets a grant, he/she will have to leave 20%-40% of that grant to the school. A professor at a decent school should get ~$750,000 external funding annually. Of course, this is biology/medicine programs. Physical science or engineering program can't get that much. Anyway, he/she have to pay the school, on average 30% of this funding. So if a department has 30 faculty members, that means the school will get about $6.75 million annually just from this department. So literally, professors are making money for the school. On the other hand, the value of lecturers cannot be measured by any parameter since they don't publish papers and don't obtain any funding. So their value is less obvious. Particularly, since they don't actually bring in any extra money, they are typically viewed as less valuable. So lecturers are typically marginalized.

So to answer your question "why can't they let the professors do research and let the lecturers teach?" Well, professors serve two functions to the school: 1) publish papers and get funding so that school will get loads of money; 2) their reputation as experts in their respective field will attract high-quality students, high SAT scores, better ranking and ultimately more money (in the form of donations and endowments). So if they only have to stay in their labs and do research, there would be little chance that any student will be able to interact with them and learn from the best. Then why would any student come to this school? You don't come to a college because it has excellent lecturers who teach excellent classes. Many high school teachers can do that too in AP classes and probably can do a better job. You come to a school because it has world-leading experts and feel that you might be able to learn something from the best and will ultimately benefit you. So these experts will have to teach, no matter how much they don't want to.

This actually brings up another point. Why don't researchers want to teach? It has everything to do with the academic system. Teaching is a major source of stress. WHY? Well, excellent teaching won't get you any real credit. Yes, you can win all kinds of teaching awards, but it means absolutely NOTHING in time of tenure review/promotion. It is still the hard-core stuff, like publication and funding, that measures your level of success in academia. However, bad teaching will hurt you badly. If you get many teaching complaints, you better prepare to defend yourself in tenure review. Unlike any other job where no promotion means simply you stay where you are, no tenure in academia means no job at all. If you can't obtain tenure 5-6 years into your professorship, you will have to pack up and leave. Plain and simply. So this is not simply an ambition issue (you want to be promoted, etc...), but whether you can still have a job and a roof over your head and food on your table!! So lots of pressure. So from the moment we begin, we have one and only one goal: tenure! Anything that distracts us from that goal will be viewed as, obviously, negative. So you can see why teaching can be a source of stress for a professor. If we LOVE teaching and want to dedicate more time to it, that means we are diverting valuable time and energy away from research, which will, no doubt, hurt us. If we don't do a good job teaching, we will get complaints and that will hurt us as well. So no matter what we do, teaching will hurt us. Bad situation... And stress

Originally Posted by solarz

To put it into perspective, a student who graduated from Qinghua will almost certainly do extraordinarily well in any top rank US university. To enter universities like Qinghua, a person has to be highly competitive and determined.

No doubt about that! Chinese universities produce excellent students.

Originally Posted by solarz

Chinese education, from very early on, focuses too much on results and not enough on the process. Chinese parents ask what grade you got in your test, not what you learned in the class. Teachers and schools get "incentives" if they can raise the test grades of their class. You can only get higher education if you can pass an exam. This mentality of results over process is drilled into Chinese students, and that is probably the biggest problem facing academic research in China right now.

Agreed. Many Chinese postdocs I've met over the years tend to get nervous when they can't get the kind of positive results that their professors want. I am always puzzled by this. A result is a result. No one expects your professor to be 100% right all the time. Why get nervous about getting different result? Its not your fault. If anyone is at fault when a prediction is different from experimental data, it's the prediction! In my opinion, the moment you show your boss is wrong is the moment he/she will see you as a fellow colleague, instead of a subordinate/technician. Yet, many Chinese students/postdocs seem to be more comfortable with the role of a subordinate. I think it has a lot to do with how they have been trained as students. They have been measured by how well they can answer test questions correctly. To them, there is always a correct answer and this answer has always been aligned with the teacher. So they have to agree with the teacher.

Originally Posted by vesicles

So to answer your question "why can't they let the professors do research and let the lecturers teach?" Well, professors serve two functions to the school: 1) publish papers and get funding so that school will get loads of money; 2) their reputation as experts in their respective field will attract high-quality students, high SAT scores, better ranking and ultimately more money (in the form of donations and endowments). So if they only have to stay in their labs and do research, there would be little chance that any student will be able to interact with them and learn from the best. Then why would any student come to this school? You don't come to a college because it has excellent lecturers who teach excellent classes. Many high school teachers can do that too in AP classes and probably can do a better job. You come to a school because it has world-leading experts and feel that you might be able to learn something from the best and will ultimately benefit you. So these experts will have to teach, no matter how much they don't want to.

See, in my undergrad years, I couldn't care less about the reputation of certain professors in their academic fields. I can see how it's different from graduate studies, but undergrad studies are all about lectures, textbook, and the occasional lab (which is led by TAs anyway). What an eminent professor does in their research is most likely incomprehensible for me anyway.

I would think that the tuition students pay would be motivation for the university to give more incentives to good lecturers...

Originally Posted by solarz

See, in my undergrad years, I couldn't care less about the reputation of certain professors in their academic fields. I can see how it's different from graduate studies, but undergrad studies are all about lectures, textbook, and the occasional lab (which is led by TAs anyway). What an eminent professor does in their research is most likely incomprehensible for me anyway.

I would think that the tuition students pay would be motivation for the university to give more incentives to good lecturers...

Yes, not in the immediate sense. A good lecturer can only become useful when students decide to come to the school. What motivates a student to go to a certain school? It's the reputation of the school. When was the last time you heard of a world-class lecturer? Probably never. Nobody has heard of a famous lecturer at Harvard that makes Harvard an attractive school. Everyone, however, looked at Princeton differently when Einstein decided to join its faculty. University of Chicago has been well known for its economics department and business school because of all the Nobel prizes that its economics faculty has won. Rice University is famous for its nanotechnology (go Owls!!). University of Texas is famous for its petroleum engineering. All the reputation comes from research programs and famous professors. once a brand is built, people will flock to it. More student = more tuition = more buildings and research facilities = more young/established brilliant scientists = more papers/funding = even better name brand = better students (since more people want to come) = even more tuition, etc. You see the positive feedback loop...

giving good lectures is important, but not as important as you would think. It's well known that Ivy League schools have serious grade inflation. An estimated 90% of Harvard students get A's. Yet, many still want to get in Harvard. Why? With an Ivy League degree, everything becomes easier. How did the Ivy League school build up their name and fame? The answer is the positive feedback loops I provided above. So having a good name is absolutely critical. And research is THE only way to get it because that's how an expert is made.

you can't become an expert just by reading a few books and teach a few classes. Additionally, being well-known requires people actually knowing you. Even if a lecturer is the best in the world, there would be no way he/she can become well known outside of the school since he/she doesn't publish. So you have to publish to let people know you. That means doing research. So research is the only way to produce famous people, in academia of course.