I think he's referring to the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, in which Mao conducted genocide-level mass purges of ideological deviants such as whichever teachers the Red Guard decided they didn't like.
There are two reasons the OP's partner has a good point. First the Chinese Communists are institutionally against the traditionally more educated class that used to run the government, because their ideology label them as inferior and reactionary. Second is the Cultural Revolution which destroyed any opportunity for the worker and farmer/peasant class to get any decent education. Even for Xi himself there was little formal education:widely believed to be either primary school or middle school. His public speeches are sometimes laughably pompous and verbose. Compare him with Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji, who were respectively the party general sectary and prime minister in the 90s and early 2000s: Jiang spoke English effortlessly and Zhu had a habit of quoting English media. These two spent their formative years in the brief republic built upon Dr Sun Yat-sen's democratic ideas. Yes the next gen are going to be better. But it's very hard to imagine why those really good ones would give a fuck about the party bureaucracy and not emigrate like so many Russians do.
I read The Tiananmen Papers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tiananmen_Papers) over 15 years ago and it seems like the fundamental political dynamics still haven't changed. Every time you think a liberal reformer (which in Chinese context is still quite conservative) will rise up the balance of power quickly shifts back to the old guard. Though perhaps the consolidation of power under Xi might lead to radical change years down the road.
OP here. Exactly his point. He went on to say that in terms of the net benefit to China in the long run (decades), they may as well have thrown most of the goods manufactured into the ocean, rather than subsidized their creation and export.
His first enrollment in Tsinghua was in 75 during the Cultural Revolution, when workers turning in blank exam papers were celebrated and admitted. His second enrollment was as a pretty senior party cadre, when he basically would have no time doing any real academic work. Many officials use such “on-the-job” phds to polish their resume. But really any average person would know they’re pretty worthless academically.
Yes, but Xi entered Tsinghua as a Worker-Peasant-Soldier student and his admission arrangement seemed to be designed for him. Even Premier Li Keqiang has a much stronger academic background than President Xi.
