They ultimately want their citizens to be less proficient at English as this will make them easier to isolate them from outside sources of information (i.e. "evil foreign influences").

China is becoming more of a dystopian hell by the minute. And the authorities have the technologies to enforce totalitarianism that George Orwell couldn't even think of.

Uncle-V wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 1:47 pm They ultimately want their citizens to be less proficient at English as this will make them easier to isolate them from outside sources of information (i.e. "evil foreign influences").

China is becoming more of a dystopian hell by the minute. And the authorities have the technologies to enforce totalitarianism that George Orwell couldn't even think of.

Dystopian is correct. China has really exploited the chaos of the pandemic to great effect. What they've been able to do (unchecked) during these last two years has been nothing short of terrifying.

BAsically, I say good. Lets hope this gets the ball rolling and China starts to get cut off from the rest of the world.

All westerners should be told to leave China immediately. Trade should be halted. And countries will have to choose. Freedom and human rights or China. Pick a side and then live with that side exclusively.

The CCP made a conscious decision to let Covid get out of the country and ensured its spread around the world (whether or not it came from a lab or nature - they knew for two and a half weeks there was person to person spread all while claiming otherwise and demanding open international travel). Its biological warfare.

The CCP is the enemy of all freedom loving people anywhere in the world. There is no reason we should continue to help educate their youth. Let them enter into another great society of their own making.

not to mention the ethics of trading with an authoritarian state that doesn't play by accepted global standards and rules and has a poor human rights agenda.
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What country is that, Cambodia?

phuketrichard wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 3:46 pm if your in most business that deals internationally , hard to ignore the spending power of a billion++ people

you can scream, lambast, try and sanction them, but they can not be ignored

We ignored trade with the USSR for 40+ years and life went on just fine. No reason for any interaction with China on any level. Let them have Mao's great society all over again - we don't need them.

We have to mention Saudi Arabia.

Stay OT please. We are not talking about murderers in this thread.

China’s Tutoring Ban Leaves a Trail of Debt, Anger, and Broken Dreams
China has launched a tough clampdown on the $300 billion private tutoring industry. The collateral damage: millions of ordinary teachers and families.
Ni Dandan
Nov 01, 2021 10-min read

Xu Lingling thought her future was settled. She was working as an English tutor for the Chinese education giant New Oriental in the eastern city of Wenzhou, teaching junior high schoolers on evenings and weekends.

It was a draining job, but the 25-year-old loved it. It was well-paid, engaging, and seemed as stable as they come. New Oriental — a U.S.-listed firm with a celebrity founder and a billion-dollar valuation — was a leading player in a booming industry. Xu expected to stay there for years.

Then, in July, everything fell apart.

The Chinese government launched a severe clampdown on private tutoring, blaming the industry for fueling an unhealthy educational rat race. Academic classes on weekends and holidays were banned. Education firms were prevented from opening new centers or raising capital. From January 2022, all for-profit academic tutoring would be outlawed.

The new rules quickly sent the New Oriental franchise where Xu worked into a death spiral. Xu’s teaching hours were slashed from 11 sessions per week to just three. Nearly half the school’s 60 English teachers left the company. Others had their salaries cut to just 2,300 yuan ($360) per month.

Finally, on Sept. 29, the moment Xu had been dreading arrived. Her manager called her into her office and tersely informed her she’d been fired. She now finds herself unemployed amid a tough job market, her career plans in tatters.

“These days, I feel sad every time I see the New Oriental logo,” Xu tells Sixth Tone. “The company failed to show me the least respect, let alone care.”

Xu is among the millions of people whose lives have been upended by China’s move to reshape the nation’s education system, a campaign known as the “double reduction” policy.

The policy has introduced sweeping reforms to achieve two main goals: cutting the amount of homework and after-school tuition students receive. The government argues this is necessary to save the nation’s children from burnout, reduce inequality, and prevent parents feeling obliged to spend eye-watering sums on private classes. Official surveys suggest the policy has broad public support.

But the campaign is also causing massive disruption. On the eve of the clampdown, China’s tutoring sector was worth a staggering 2 trillion yuan and employed around 10 million people. Now, the industry is undergoing a messy and painful collapse — with ordinary families and workers the collateral damage.

As company after company has shut down, teachers have been abruptly dismissed and parents have lost billions of yuan in prepaid tuition fees. Meanwhile, a network of unlicensed teaching centers has emerged to plug the gap — triggering a fresh wave of crackdowns.

Growing fallout

Facing a steep drop in earnings, education companies began making deep cuts to their head counts soon after the new tutoring restrictions were announced. Domestic media estimated that hundreds of thousands of people in the industry lost their jobs in early August.

Like Xu, many of those laid off were young graduates, a group that already faces a grim employment situation in China. Jobs platform Zhilian Zhaopin reported a spike in applications from degree-holders aged 25 or under in recent months.

In October alone, several big-name companies — including U.S.-listed firms Zhangmen and OneSmart — closed down operations almost overnight, to the shock of employees and clients.

The shutdowns have sparked fury among parents. Many had paid the companies the equivalent of thousands of dollars to prebook classes for their children — in some cases just days before the firms folded.

Thousands of people showed up outside OneSmart facilities across China in early October, demanding their money back. Thousands more have joined chat groups on social platforms WeChat and QQ, where affected parents are trying to coordinate action to lobby for compensation.
Full article: https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1008838/ ... ken-dreams