characteristics of chinese students from a canadian perspective

China’s Might and Trudeau Did Right

Recently, (May 25, 2018), the president of China and his government were upset with our Prime Minister and his cabinet for disallowing the sale of the giant construction firm Aecon Group, one of Canada’s largest construction companies, to the Chinese government.  The blocked sale was based on the grounds that it would breach Canadian national security on many different levels that have not even been disclosed to the Canadian public.  I do admire Trudeau for blocking the sale.

As Canadians we must be cautious as China stands accused of stealing intellectual property, counterfeiting famous commercial brands, pilfering trade secrets and offering companies a slice of the Chinese market if they share their technology.  The Chinese do have a bit of reputation in these matters and we have some interests to protect.  There is a pattern.

China is of course a major world power and will eventually become even more powerful. It is a juggernaut on the move and given the laws of motion, an object in motion tends to stay in motion, unless opposed by an equal an opposite force.

Perhaps one day more of us, in the next generation of English speakers, will be learning Mandarin as the universal language of business as the Chinese influence continues to evolve in ever larger circles.  The students I have taught in both Jinhua, China and now here in Canada will likely be some part of the vanguard of future Chinese dominance as they and tens of thousands like them take up positions of influence in government and industry and steer their country, with added western insights, to China’s Manifest Destiny.  But I have accelerated the process and made a few quantum leaps; so let me back track.

First, let me examine the stereotype of the Chinese student in this equation of world power.  As with any stereotype it is based on a small truth and then extrapolated to an entire population.  For those of us living in a university city like Waterloo or Toronto where one can see literally thousands of intelligent, industrious Chinese students who are high achievers, and often studying maths, sciences, engineering and business, while avoiding liberal arts.  They frequently out perform Canadian born students and shame us at our own game, education.  Considering Canada is the most highly educated country in the world with over half of its population holding a university or college degree or diploma. We as outside observers conclude that these and therefore all Chinese students are excellent, diligent, hard working, productive academic machines of logic and precision.

We would of course be totally wrong in this conclusion as this small student sample measured against the total 1.3 billion Chinese population is not even statistically significant and may not even yield a worth while correlation.  In terms of statistics the bell curve describing intelligence is cross cultural which more than implies, it screams out, when applied to the entire Chinese population, that they would have a wide spectrum of special needs students in numbers greater than the total Canadian population. 

Yes, Victoria, there are Chinese with learning disabilities by the millions.  The issue is we will never see them here at any Canadian universities, nor will they ever be recognized or helped to any degree in their home country.  The point is, if we saw only the other end of the Chinese population we would hold a different stereotype of their abilities. In fact we should look at them as a balanced population of which we have an off balanced perception.

Not all Chinese are rocket scientists.  Even with all their great strides forward and backward there are still about a billion Chinese living gruelling lives at a peasant existence who are good worthy people.  Parents who sacrifice to make sure their own child gets a better education.  They hope and dream no different than we do in Canada.  But in their country their education system does not cater to all their needs, teach in progressive ways, or deal equally with the rich and the poor.

 In the school where I served as principal, in China, I had never before seen so many high end German cars in one parking lot as on those days when parents came to visit their children on campus. These parents had paid large sums, including bribes, within the Chinese administration, to get their children into one of the best schools in the province.  I don’t think there were any scholarships for the peasant class, at least not at our school.  These students were the elite and many of them did graduate and went on to American and Canadian universities.  Since the 70’s the total number of Chinese students studying overseas is now in the millions.  It is also a lucrative business for western educational institutions.

As bright and as hard working as these students are, graduating with both a Chinese and Canadian high school diploma, their Chinese educational roots based on rote learning and  repetition, bred a type of student almost totally lacking in creativity, problem solving and discussion skills more common in the Canadian system of education.

I have found that Chinese students lack the basic problem solving skills along with the basic ability to think outside of the box when they are not aware of the perimeter of the box.  This is a profound limitation to invention, leadership and the development of new ideas.  Theirs is a mentality that generally shies away from innovation while it excels at cloning the ideas of others.  I believe that until Chinese students become free thinkers they will never be the world’s inventors, innovators or the movers and shakers of a new world order. 

When Trudeau blocked the sale of a strategic company to slow the seepage of technology to China he did the right thing, but it is only his finger in the dyke.  China will eventually prevail by sheer volume and force by cloning, stealing and copying any technology they can get their hands on and by any means possible.  As long as they stick to their one party rule with an educational system void of creativity and inventiveness, they will only borrow their world prominence, they will never earn it, but that may make very little difference in the end game.