Keyu Jin

And even though it's imperfect, it's highly imperfect, standardized testing, all this competition, all of the hours and the tutorials to studying for standardized exams.

Well, that is a very realistic scenario in China because there's that many people.

You know, when I was growing up in school, we had 60 people per class and there were 10 classes in one grade.

Now, imagine that many people applying for colleges in the American way.

How many essays would have been written and need to be scrutinized?

But also, that gives room for total corruption, if you know what I mean, just connection-based.

And actually, to standardize exams as imperfect as it is to select talent is still by and large fair.

Right.

And that's how that whole generation of entrepreneurs, bureaucrats, government officials were selected.

You look at the Chinese premiers, the presidents of the past, they all went to great schools.

A lot of them were engineers.

And same thing for civil servants.

It has changed somewhat.

The meritocracy, I think, is eroding in China.

I'm worried about that.

Because it is fine that you get into a good university based on your own merit, but finding a job now becomes much less meritocratic.

People with connections get jobs more easily than others.

Of course, this is not just a unique Chinese phenomenon.

It's actually everywhere.

But