Quote from zenith1107:
First of all I am from China. No Chinese national has ever won a Nobel Prize in anything. The Chinese high schoolers dominate in the world math/physics/chemistry Olympiads yet none of them has ever won a Nobel Prize, ever.
Do you know that there is no nobel prize in math?
The "Chinese" Nobel laureates you mentioned are ALL Americans (and one French). Most of them are second or third generation Chinese Americans. You should do more research before calling them "Chinese".
Do you think only those raised in mainland are chinese? Do you not count Taiwaneses or HongKongers as Chinese? Do you know most of them were 1-st generation chinese americans who didn't get the undergraduate degree in US.
When China was isolated in the past, how would a nobel prize committee recognize the achievement of a chinese scholar that stayed in China?
You need to come to western societies for them to recognize your achievement.
It was not the chinese education system that sucks. It was the political system.
You see everyone can win a Nobel Prize. The Chinese can, and the Americans can as well. It's where you are born and where you receive your education that makes the difference. As long as the political system in China does not change, there's absolutely no chance that it will make any significant scientific contribution to the world. It will be the world's factory all right, but it will never produce the next GOOG, MSFT, or INTC.
The high schoolers in China are not trained to think creatively. They are taught to follow orders and find answers in textbooks. Our higher education system is a joke (if you have ever been to a Chinese university, you'd know why).
The US may be falling behind in its K-12 education system but ies higher education system is THE best in the world, par none. And remember, it's the colleges and universities that are producing tomorrow's leaders in science, engineering and business, and as long as the US can retain its lead in higher education, it will continue to lead in these areas.
If chinese college is a joke, how come a lot of them can come to US and earn their Ph.D. here? Does it mean that following orders will earn you a Ph.D. in US?