East Asian Tryptich

China is braindraining the US to fuel its growing universities.

In only a generation, China has sharply increased the proportion of its college-age population in higher education, to roughly 20 percent now from 1.4 percent in 1978. In engineering alone, China is producing 442,000 new undergraduates a year, along with 48,000 graduates with masters' degrees and 8,000 Ph.D's.

As the article makes clear, it's unlikely that the humanities and social sciences will really flourish without much greater freedoms in the areas of speech and publishing, but some really top-notch physical and information scientists are helping to raise the profile of China's schools. Even in technical fields, though, pressure to produce can be counterproductive (as it often is here, as well)

"At Princeton one mathematician spent nine years without publishing a paper, and then solved a problem that had been around for 360 years," Mr. Yang [who leads a small experimental university in Ningbo] said, a reference to Andrew J. Wiles and his solution to Fermat's last theorem in the early 1990's."No one minded that, because they appreciate the dedication to hard work there. We don't have that spirit yet in China."

Similarly, Ge Jianxiong, a distinguished historical geographer at Fudan, said Chinese culture often demands speedy results, which could undermine research."In China projects are always short-term, say three years," he said."Then they want you to produce a book, a voluminous book. In real research you've got to give people the freedom to produce good results, and not just the results they want."

Mr. Ge added that education suffered here because"it has always been regarded as a tool of politics."

On the other hand, our interest in China is clearly up, even if it isn't quite a superpower.

South Korea might have to make do without Windows if their anti-trust regulators insist that features like IM and Media Player be unbundled.

Japan is considering modifications to its constitution, unamended since 1947. Most of the international attention is focused on the Constitutional legitimation of Japan's large and advanced military forces. Though I haven't found the draft language for the revised Peace Article, yet, the Draft Preamble (translation by Mutant Frog Travelogue) tries to be very reassuring. My Frog in a Well colleague Tak discussed draft changes to the"symbolic emperor" section over the summer as well, and is not at all reassured.