The Coddling of American Children Is a Boon to Beijing

In China, my son had to study hard. Here in the U.S., he just needs to bring a ‘healthy snack’ to school.

As a Chinese doctoral student raising a young son in the U.S., I am mystified by how American elementary schools coddle students. In China, schools are run like boot camps. What do the therapeutic comforts America showers on its youth portend for a growing competition with China?

On Friday night my son came home announcing in bewilderment that he didn’t have any homework. In China students tend to receive twice as much homework on the weekend, given the two days to complete it. How will America compete with a China determined to train the best mathematicians, scientists and engineers?

Unfolding now are two Maoist cultural revolutions, one in the East and the other in the West. The former is a jingoistic nationalism enforced by party loyalties and ubiquitous secret police. The latter is an anti-Americanism enforced by progressive mobs seeking to defund the police. Both are about limiting expression, controlling thought and regulating behavior.

In fall 2021 Chinese pupils returned to school with a new requirement to study “Xi Jinping Thought.” Schools must “plant the seeds of loving the party, the country, and socialism in young hearts,” a government announcement declares. Across the ocean, American pupils are taught that white America is inherently racist, regardless of individual intention or action.

Chinese citizens enjoy mocking the Western “snowflakes.” Less amusing is what this trend means for the U.S. as China no longer hides its enmity for America.

A comment from site:

Tom, I wouldn’t blame the ‘public school system’ as much as I would blame the US Dept. of Education which has come up with18 million idiotic rules and regulations.

The students have to endure long bus rides just to make sure there’s a proportionate amount of each race and gender in each school.

Some students are given TWO free meals daily, of which they discard most because they don’t like that food.

Teachers are not allowed to discipline students because they might discriminate.

Teachers can’t get rid of students that disrupt the classes because it’s “unfair” to certain types of people.

Principals can’t suspend or EXPEL those particular disruptive students. The students know it and take advantage of the situation.

But if they want to play football or basketball they listen to the coaches and obey every word. They can sit on the bench or get kicked off the team.

"...but our military spending is 3 times higher than China’s, therefore we are INVINCIBLE!!! (despite the fact that China is building navy ships at 5 times our rate)"

And that the cry of the MSM about how US defense spending is so much more than China and Russia is so much sophistry, since it is ignores procurement costs in addition to other differences.

If you account for differences in reporting structure, purchasing power, and labor costs, you find that China’s 2017 defense budget provided 87 percent of the purchasing power of American’s 2017 defense budget. This runs counter to the conventional wisdom that the United States spends more on its military than the next 12 countries combined or that China lags annual U.S. military spending by close to $400 billion. Those misleading comparisons are based on simply converting Beijing’s reported defense budget from yuan to dollars by applying a market exchange rate. That produces a distorted picture. - https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/chinas-defense-spending-larger-it-looks

Even Politio cites research by LTSG, a defense consultancy, that

Research into Chinese defense investments since 2000 reveals that, compared with the United States, China has prioritized purchasing weapons and equipment over spending on personnel salaries or on operations and maintenance. As a result, the U.S. military is on track to be outgunned — potentially in quantity and quality of armaments — by the end of President Joe Biden’s first term. The lack of data on Chinese defense spending reflects the notorious unreliability of official releases from Beijing. Annual People’s Republic of China Finance Ministry announcements of the defense budget diverge from Defense Ministry disclosures, and have historically omitted cost categories that other countries include, such as weapons imports.

To address this challenge, LTSG research group conducted a multiyear, open-source effort to estimate Chinese defense spending since 2000 by service across different categories such as personnel, operations and maintenance, and procurement...For procurement, U.S. dollar estimates were converted to renminbi. The results showed consistent annual inflation-adjusted growth of roughly 10 percent for the past 20 years..If, as projected, by 2024 the PLA’s annual procurement value exceeds that of the U.S. military, then by about 2030 the United States will no longer boast the world’s most advanced fighting force in total inventory value.

- https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-china-watcher/2021/05/27/china-could-soon-outgun-the-us-493014

And besides procurement costs,

The official defense budget does not account for all of China’s military-related activities. For example, many defense-related outlays fall directly under the Central Military Commission (CMC), China’s highest military authority, chaired by Xi Jinping. For instance, the People’s Armed Police (PAP), a paramilitary force charged with maintaining internal security and supporting the military in times of war, is under the command of the CMC but not included in the budget. The Chinese Coast Guard, which plays a key role in asserting China’s maritime claims and was placed under the control of the PAP in 2018, is likewise excluded from the official budget.

According to SIPRI, China’s military spending far exceeds that of its neighbors and was greater than the combined expenditure of India, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan in 2019. Cross-national comparisons are insightful, but accounting for variations in prices is difficult. For example, the current annual pay for an entry-level active-duty U.S. soldier (about $39,600) would likely cover the cost of several PLA soldiers due to price differences. When adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP), China’s 2019 defense expenditure rises by well over $100 billion. - https://www.csis.org/analysis/understanding-chinas-2021-defense-budget

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