The Banking Executive Magazine - March 2021

Chinese Education System The West and specifically the United States of America is troubled by the threat of a technologically dominant China – and keen to ensure it never materializes. And yet, given China’s current status, many argue that little can be done to impede it. In the United States, and after one of the most intense elections in the country’s history, there is one issue on which both parties seem to agree on: the need to “stop” China. On a larger geopolitical scale, the US government supported by the EU Commission believe that China has secured its economic and technolog- ical gains unfairly due to its govern- ment’s persistent influence over the economy. Geostrategists often push this view, imagining that a govern- ment can achieve technological su- periority by investing in the fashionable sectors of the day. However other analysts believe that this explanation is deceptive, at best. The most “successful” grand eco- nomic-development plans usually go with the grain (i.e. accept something rather than oppose it or fight against it), focusing largely on targets that, given the economy’s fundamentals, would be achieved anyway. Credit- ing state intervention when those tar- gets are met is thus inappropriate. Recent history cases studies support the above mentioned idea; Japan is a the BANKING EXECUTIVE 54 ISSUE 147 MARCH 2021 EDUCATION CHINA’S IMPENETRABLE SHIELD