The Economist - USA (2021-02-06)

34 China The EconomistFebruary 6th 2021

2 tary to announce the start of a hoped-for

career as an entertainer. She was greeted

with scorn. “Controlling our material life is

not enough. Capitalists also want to con-

trol our cultural life,” read the most-liked

comment on her account on Weibo, a

microblog platform. A flood of short videos

derided her claim to be self-made.

But the videos go beyond mockeries of

this or that wealthy person. One piece

about how capitalism works explains that

dairy farmers, in order to keep prices high,

would rather dump excess milk than give it

to poor people. In another, a young pre-

senter, hat on backwards, praises Mao for

arguing in 1972 that turning China capital-

ist would allow global firms to take control

and make the country a semi-colony. “This

great man’s vision has carried through the

ages,” he says, with a thumbs-up.

Many of the videos lack revolutionary

punch. Renditions of the “Internationale”,

a socialist anthem, garner many clicks but

seem more like kitschy nostalgia or funny

memes than calls to action. The young peo-

ple drawn to them are nothing like the Red

Guards of Mao’s day, who used horrific vio-

lence against those branded as “capitalist

roaders”. Yet their resentment of the busi-

ness elite appears genuine. A rough indica-

tor is the torrent of comments overlaid on

videos carried by Bilibili, another popular

app. Videos showing Mr Ma once inspired

both respect and humour, with some view-

ers praising his business acumen and oth-

ers sarcastically asking for money. Recent-

ly the tone has darkened, with comments

such as “down with Jack Ma” and “workers

of the world, unite!”

Nothing to lose but your memes

The anger is easy to explain. Inequality has

soared in China over the decades. The pro-

liferation of social media has made people

more aware of the obscene wealth of some

of their compatriots. After Ms Yao, the

daughter of Huawei’s founder, released her

documentary, one short video analysed her

backdrop to draw viewers’ attention to the

value of her luxurious home.

Coupled with a sense of unfairness is

bitterness about unreasonable work de-

mands. Employees of tech firms complain

about what they call the “996” culture: an

expectation that they should be in the of-

fice from 9am to 9pm, six days a week. Mi-

grant workers from rural areas have it

worse, whether grinding it out in factory

jobs or rushing around as food-delivery

workers (see Chaguan). But overworked

young professionals have started referring

to themselves as dagongren, a term that

used to describe those who do menial jobs.

Yan Fei, a sociologist at Tsinghua Universi-

ty, describes an emerging class identity

among people who are struggling to get

ahead. It embraces both white-collar and

blue-collar workers.

Theattacksoncapitalismare,ina nar-

rowsense,consistentwithofficialrhetoric

thatstilldescribesChina’seconomyas“so-

cialist”eventhoughprivatebusinessgen-

erates80%ofurbanemploymentand60%

ofgdp. Butwhylettechtitansbedescribed

asmoney-grubbingcapitalistswhenthey

areoftenalsohailedasleadersofChina’s

drivetobecomemoreinnovative?

In part this reflects the Communist

Party’sideologicalambiguity. Itseesbig

privatefirmsasnationalchampions,butit

also regards the preservation of Mao’s

sanctityasessentialtoitsgriponpower

(de-Stalinisationwasthestartofa slideto-

wardstheSovietUnion’sruin,sayparty

historians).Thatgivesabitofleewayto

peoplewhowavethebannerofMaoism,

evenifwhattheysayisnotentirelyinline

withtheparty’scurrentthinking.Having

lettheanti-capitalistfiresburnbrightlyfor

a time,censorswilldousetheflames. 7

I

n exam-obsessedChina, educators have

long struggled with the problem of over-

worked schoolchildren. Attempts to do

away with some test-oriented teaching of-

ten face resistance from parents, who wor-

ry that their offspring could lose out in the

race to get into a good university. Some en-

lightened officials are taking a new tack. In

the south-western province of Yunnan

they have not only revamped the physical-

education test in the zhongkao, an exam-

ination for entrance to senior secondary

school. They have also given it the same

weighting in the exam as all-important

subjects like maths and Chinese. Eight

provinces have joined Yunnan in including

art and music tests in the zhongkao.

These reforms are in response to de-

mands by the central government for a

more well-rounded approach to education.

In 2017 primary and secondary schools

were ordered to hire only specialists to

teach peand art. In October they were di-

rected to organise daily gym classes; to in-

clude peand art in the zhongkao; and to

make pupils’ graduation conditional on

their fitness (it did not say how to assess

this). The government says it wants to fos-

ter a “lifelong habit of exercise” and,

through art, “noble sentiments”.

The government worries about how

many youngsters are in poor shape. In 2017

officials in the southern city of Guangzhou

found that only 2.6% of local children were

in “excellent” health. Half of pupils sur-

veyed there had myopia. Today one in five

Chinese children is overweight, up from

just one in 20 in 1995. Such statistics fan an-

other fear: that today’s youngsters, and

boys in particular, are over-indulged

wimps. The state news agency, Xinhua,

grimly summed it up with a headline:

“Why good times produce weak children”.

In 2018 many parents were upset that a

children’s show—co-produced by the edu-

cation ministry, ironically—had featured

male pop stars who, with their perfect coifs

and eyeliner, were not deemed role models

manly enough for their sons. In January the

ministry pledged to “pay more attention to

cultivating pupils’ masculinity” and en-

dorsed a politician’s proposal to hire more

male peteachers to prevent the “feminisa-

tion” of teen boys. Zhu Weiqiang of East

China Normal University, who advises the

government on pereforms, says that teach-

ing a non-aggressive form of kung fu was

once commonly proposed. Now officials

want children to learn wrestling.

But parents do not want their children

to be distracted from their books. They are

used to pupils getting full marks in pewith

next-to-no effort, partly because examin-

ers have tended to grade generously to

avoid “unfairly” penalising hard-working

students, says Mr Zhu. Schools often can-

cel peand art classes in favour of extra revi-

sion-sessions for other subjects.

This will change with the new reforms.

But parents are already griping that pewill

be just one more source of stress. They fret

about how art will be appraised. Some

point out that schools in big cities will be

able to fork out for boxing gear and trips to

calligraphy museums, giving their pupils

yet another edge in the zhongkao. Mr Zhu

laments the use of exam pressure to get

people’s attention. Still, he hopes it is but a

hop, skip and a jump to greater fitness. 7

BEIJING

Officials make pupils take sport and art

seriously—with exams

Syllabus reform

Young at art

The painful race to academic success