The Economist January 22nd 2022 China 39Egalitarianismrevisited
C
hinese nationalistsand fans of liberal democracy do not of
ten agree. Still, early this century, both groups sounded con
vinced of the subversive power of affluent Chinese buying Amer
ican coffee. In 2007 a state television anchor growled that a Star
bucks branch in the Forbidden City “trampled Chinese culture”
(the branch closed the same year). In 2004 a New York Timescol
umnist declared the Communist Party revolution “finished” once
Starbucks entered China, because: “No middle class is content
with more choices of coffees than of candidates on a ballot.”
Both groups were mistaken. Nationalists should have been
more confident about China’s cultural power. With 5,400 outlets
in China today, Starbucks thrives by adapting to local tastes, offer
ing such items as the Lychee Ruby Chocolate Tea Latte. For their
part, Western liberals have to date been proved wrong when they
drew neat links between expanding consumer choice, individual
spending power and, they assumed, a clamour for political free
doms and democracy. Four decades after the Communist Party
embraced market reforms and opened to foreign investors, Chi
na’s middle class has never been larger. Its members can choose
where to live, work and how to spend their days in ways that
would have been unthinkable 40 years ago. Yet under President Xi
Jinping, the Communist Party exerts more control over more as
pects of society and the economy than it has in decades.
One explanation for this puzzle lies in the party’s ability to spot
sources of mass discontent and present itself as the solution to
them. Often, this involves depicting the party as the defender of a
broad majority against a hostile, deviant or corrupt minority.
Western liberals imagined that an empowered middle class would
demand respect for their rights and dignity as individuals. In
stead, Mr Xi, a canny populist, has a knack of spotting when a bit of
repression may be welcomed by a public that feels overwhelmed
by rapid changes in society or unbearable competition, and will
cheer a powerful state cracking down in the collective interest.
Education policies unveiled in 2021 offer a revealing example.
These respond to a real problem: unequal access to a small num
ber of excellent schools and universities. Mr Xi prescribed a dose
of egalitarianism, at a strength that shocked the education sector.
The policies ban homework for the youngest pupils, abolish someearlyyears exams and promote practical and vocational learning,
heeding Mr Xi’s view that education should not focus too much on
academic scores. In the name of equality as well as stress relief,
China banned forprofit tutoring services for students in the nine
years of compulsory education. Mr Xi had scolded private tutors
for overburdening parents, who worry that others’ children are
learning more. Officials linked that pressure to China’s plunging
birth rate, which reached record lows in 2021. Tutoring firms are
now allowed to register as nonprofit enterprises, which means
lowering prices by 80% or more. Even then they may not teach
primary or middleschool pupils at weekends or during holidays.
Many have simply stopped teaching the core curriculum.
There will be losers. New Oriental, a big education firm, an
nounced that it has laid off 60,000 of its 110,000 staff. If the whole
industry follows suit, 6m tutors, most of them young graduates,
will need new jobs. Then there are parents who hired tutors to
help children struggling in schools where classes of 50 pupils are
the norm. The government has told schools to provide lowcost
evening classes instead, but their staff are already overstretched.
“It's not practical to give special attention to one kid,” says a veter
an schoolteacher, who understands why many parents worry
about the new policies, though he calls them “wellintentioned”.
Middleclass parents do protest if they feel that they have been
thrust, unfairly, into a disadvantaged minority. In 2019 parents at a
school in the eastern city of Nanjing expressed outrage when staff
eased off on exam preparation and homework as part of an experi
ment, while rival schools remained sternly academic.
Chaguan spoke to parents at a Beijing sports complex on a re
cent weekend, and found them focused on remaining in a protect
ed majority. An affluent bunch, they had used tutors in the past.
They acknowledge that individual choices are being curbed. That
might logically make them oppose the policy. But they welcome a
break from exhausting, interfamily competition. As long as the
government stops everyone hiring tutors, says one father, none of
his friends see the need to employ them. Prod a bit, and this lofty
talk is qualified. A father watching his 13yearold son take an
Americanfootball class confides that, before his child takes
schoolleaving exams, he will probably hire a (now illegal) tutor
“to tackle his weak points”. A mother says that she supports poli
cies that stop children studying key planks of the curriculum with
tutors long before taking them at school. But not all pressure can
be eliminated, she adds: tough public exams will plunge children
into “fierce competition” one day.It will take more than a ban on tutors to make China equal
In Haidian, a university district, people in the tutoring business
echo the egalitarian mood. The cofounder of a tutoring firm re
calls how parental demand drove the industry’s wild expansion.
“Sometimes we felt a bit afraid about how fast it was growing,” she
says. Her firm hopes to make nonprofit classes pay, subsidised by
forprofit courses in drama and public speaking. Still, it may not
survive. An educationtechnology expert now sells steaks online,
citing government calls to help rural areas. “You need to go with
the tide,” he explains. Chaguan visits a new café opened by a 24
yearold English tutor. The image of a trendy urban professional,
he teaches parttime at a school but craves variety too much to
work at a school fulltime. Profit is not his motivation, he declares:
“We should not judge a company by how much moneyitmakes,
but by its contribution to society and the nation.” In middleclass
China, his tone of conformist individualism fits right in.nChaguan
The Communist Party tries to keep the stressed middle class onside