While sifting through the Internet in an attempt to gather information for a report, I stumbled upon an article in the China Daily (link): a Chinese person’s evaluation of China’s innovation and his/her suggestions on how to improve the situation.

Here’s a juicy snippet: “Chinese culture generally curbs creativity and innovation. In our society, official authority is never to be challenged. Starting from kindergarten, children are trained to follow the rules. Our education system is based on rote learning. Even in our postgraduate studies, the teacher is always right. Admittedly we have changed. Yes, quite a lot in many areas. But let's face it, we are still a conformist society.”

That was posted in several official communist news websites.  In the push for innovation, the Chinese government admits that its entire education system is faulty—and beyond that, their entire society is conformist.  It seems that China is willing to accept faults when it is ready to deal with them.

The author of the article goes on to say that “a highly individualistic society like the United States” isn’t necessarily the answer.  The suggested answer to China’s creativity woes lies in tolerance.  The author harks back to China’s history to make the point: “According to Professor Robert Temple, visiting professor of the history and philosophy of science at Tsinghua University, over the past 3,000 years, Chinese inventions were on the average 1,223 years ahead of the West. This can prove once and for all that creativity and innovation have nothing to do with individualism, and that China is capable of inventing things well in advance of others. China does not have to pursue the adversarial and expansionist strategy typical of an individualistic society.”

The idea is that there is more than one route to creativity.  America’s vaunted individualism is only coincidently related to innovation.  This is because the real source of innovation, proven by China’s past, is tolerance.  (Can I mention the fact that “highly individualist” might just be a pseudonym for “democracy”?  And that this barely disguised attack on democracy relies on nothing bearing any resemblance to logic?  But the point of this article does not lie in assaulting this author’s line of reasoning.)

The author asserts that China, in the past, was a “highly inclusive and tolerant” society.  It is not such any longer.  And tolerance, not individualism, is the key to innovation.  This is because tolerance will allow people to break out of a conformist social mindset, and thus innovate.  The essay concludes with a plea: “Start with our children. Teach them that getting into university is not the only objective of studying, and that rote learning is not the only way to study. Give them the ability to think critically, and let them challenge the authorities. Tolerate those who think and act somewhat differently from most of us, and leave them alone to do their own things. Let our children know that making money is not the be-all and end-all.”