As reported by China Daily earlier, China recently unveiled a new educational blueprint, vowing to build a strong education system by 2035 to support its modernization drive and national rejuvenation. Part of this project involves “talent competitiveness, scientific and technological underpinning, livelihood security, social synergy, and international influence”.

In practice, the report states this will be done by accelerating the development of advanced research universities, encouraging high-level foreign universities in science and engineering to offer programs in China, and vigorously promoting professional postgraduate-degree programs. Other measures of note include enhancing the country’s capacity to train and attract global talent, expanding youth exchanges between China and other countries, and implementing international summer school programs.

Education has been a central aspect of Chinese and East Asian culture throughout history. Knowledge and wisdom are treasured, and are central to achieving success through one’s own merits and rigorous studies. This has created societies in China, South Korea and similar countries that are fiercely competitive when it comes to education. As a British person, especially a working-class one, I had seen nothing like it before.

Although I achieved educationally myself, I grew up in an environment where people around me did not; in a social climate where disobedience, disorder, cynicism, and indifference ruled the day. Looking back, I realize that someone like me attending Oxford University was nothing short of a miracle because I certainly had no social expectations or guidance to do so. Thus, the culture of educational attainment in East Asia contrasts so sharply from what I am used to, and in China’s national context, I identify with their understanding of how the pursuit of education is the key to escaping poverty, and has been an engine for the transformation of their country.

However, in respect of this plan, it is not just all about culture and ambition. Education is the key to economic development. This is because advancement in science and technology, and therefore innovation, is contingent on education. How, for example, just to name a few things, could China develop a competitive space program, maintain the largest high-speed rail

network in the world, be a leader in artificial intelligence, and push forward in the chip industry without educational attainment? Technology is integral to growth and competitiveness, and a society will stagnate if it cannot move forward. Can you transport goods by truck if you have not invented the wheel?

Indeed, it should be pointed out that many Chinese have had the privilege of studying in Western countries and have brought knowledge back home. But given the fraught geopolitical climate, a key part of China’s needs is to establish those opportunities firmly at home as well. In many respects it is doing so; key universities such as Peking University, Tsinghua University and the Harbin Institute of Technology are becoming world-leading institutions, and China already publishes more academic papers than any other country.

But this is not enough. China’s educational opportunities need to be expanded and broadened across the board and as in other areas, there is now a geopolitical race on to become self-sufficient. The right cultural attitude, combined with openness from the West, has helped China achieve one of the biggest trajectories of development ever.

But similar to the situation with low-end manufacturing, China’s economic future cannot depend on reliance to Western markets and goodwill, and must advance from being the “dependent” to the “leader” — that is as a high-technology, advanced nation with its own comprehensive educational infrastructure.

The author is a British political and international-relations analyst.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.