Are China’s universities really the best in the world?

13 rustoo 10 7/3/2025, 10:29:48 AM economist.com ↗

Comments (10)

egberts1 · 10h ago
As of late, white papers out of Computer Science departments in China left me found wanting.

No idea if it is a translator fail or something.

I regularly read white papers.

esbranson · 8h ago
Good? The academy is about as close to Chinese socialism as it gets, one would think China would excel in such a environment. DEI statements or whatever the Party and its media organs are pushing in the US etc are no different than practices in China that are so thoroughly criticized. Inasmuch as China's academy is beneficial to humanity, good.
more_corn · 12h ago
Chinas universities exist under a repressive regime that disallows certain concepts, conclusions and speech. Such institutions can never be the best in the world because they have some areas of thought that are forbidden.
hearsathought · 11h ago
Universities were initally founded as "repressive" regimes as the first universities started as theological schools.

> Chinas universities exist under a repressive regime that disallows certain concepts, conclusions and speech.

Using your logic I guess we don't have any great universities in the US or any great universities in europe. All universities exist in societies and every society has "repression" of some kind of another.

Go read about ideological purgings of universities in the US and european countries throughout history. Heck there are things you can think or say in a university in europe that will get you arrested today.

You might as well claim germany, russia, britain, france and the US never produced great scientists because they were all repressive regimes. When in actuality, some of the greatest scientists, thinkers, etc came out of the most repressive regimes.

AnimalMuppet · 11h ago
I lost count of the logical fallacies in this post.

> Universities were initally founded as "repressive" regimes as the first universities started as theological schools.

Genetic fallacy.

> Using your logic I guess we don't have any great universities in the US or any great universities in europe. All universities exist in societies and every society has "repression" of some kind of another.

Non sequitur. More repressive regimes will create more things that you cannot say. It's not black and white; there is a continuum between "more free" and "more repressive", and where you are on it really matters.

The rest of the post is just more flawed logic that I don't have the energy to trace through.

hearsathought · 10h ago
Please study some philosophy and logic because cavalierly using "logical fallacies" incorrectly. It's not genetic fallacy. It's not non sequitur. I'm surprised you didn't shout "whataboutism". I've found that political activists tend to use "logical fallacy" to shout down uncomfortable truths. It's almost a reflex with you people.

> It's not black and white; there is a continuum between "more free" and "more repressive", and where you are on it really matters.

Oh dear. "Black and white" argument. Did the original commenter mention degrees? Is china burning people at the stake yet? Maybe then they'll produce a galileo or copernicus.

> The rest of the post is just more flawed logic that I don't have the energy to trace through.

Why not just write, "my political beliefs makes me angry that someone points out obvious truth and I felt the need to mindlessly attack with "logical fallacy" arguments.

The greatest scientists, thinkers, philosophers, etc of our time came from repressive regimes. Almost all of them more repressive than the current chinese regime. Also, the article ( the portion that was available ) was about scientific research. Pretty sure the chinese government isn't "repressing" scientific research. But neither you nor the original commenter read it because you read "china" in the article and immediately went into political agenda mode. Right?

I'm not saying "china good, west bad" or vice versa. I'm just pointing out that "repression" doesn't necessarily mean universities are good or bad. Especially when it comes to science.

high_na_euv · 10h ago
Even math/technical ones?
TylerLives · 11h ago
bn-l · 10h ago
Very good point. It’s amazing how blind we are as people to our own biases.

“Nah uh, that’s TOTALLY different” (hope I saved someone some time replying).

UltraSane · 11h ago
Are you allowed to discuss how many people were killed by the CCP during the Tienanmen Square massacre?