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My earlier writingshttp://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-782622.html

[转载]The US is not Number One!

http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=1565&do=blog&id=755896

On the Sino-US Competition

http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-761711.html

On the Sino-US Competition (II)

talked about how economically China is catching up or surpassing the US.  Today, in a prominent op-ed piece this morning in the BostonGlobe,   http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/05/21/america-second-yes-and-china-lead-only-growing/7G6szOUkTobxmuhgDtLD7M/story.html

Graham Allison, the former Dean of Harvard Kennedy School of Government and current Director of the  Belfour Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, pointed out  that in a recent survey of engineering schools of the world according to  US News and World Report, Tsinghua University of Beijing China (the so-called MIT of China) out ranks the MIT of the US. This is not surprising to  people in the know that Tsinghua’s undergraduates are among the best if not THE best in the world. This consensus is also totally consistent with my own experience of teaching at Tsinghua for the past 16 years. Allison also reported in the same article many other statistics where China has surpassed the US. Sure, US still leads in personal income per capita and graduate research and innovation.  But these two pieces of data are hardly evidences of superiority. In fact, I would argue that the first statistics is a negative indication in that Americans are too spoiled in “living it high”. The second items are largely sustained by foreign graduate students and immigration - the  remaining attraction of America as that “shining city of the hill”  in Ronald Reagan’s metaphor about America.

What is alarming about this article to me personally is not the facts/statistics  of competition between China and US, but the fact that it is reported as NEWS. Yes, majority of Americans still live and think the US as number one and live/consume accordingly. We are way behind in ranking in S&T education and health care among the developed countries of the world. We the current generation is spending wealth accumulated in the past  and borrowing on the production of future generations. This is totally irresponsible and I feel bad for our children and grandchildren.