To Conquer World, China Needs to Get Smarter
A poorly educated workforce is a major impediment to its hopes of challenging the U.S. in technology.
Less than a third of Chinese have some high school education.
Photographer: China Photos/Getty Images
Many investors and economists continue to believe China’s rise to global economic greatness is inevitable. Modern history, however, tells us that graduating from emerging- to a developed-economy status is hardly automatic. An overly intrusive state, dependence on debt, feeble gains in productivity and poor resource allocation are all reasons to fear China might struggle with the transition like so many nations before it.
One potential hurdle may be both the most critical and the most unrecognized: China’s weak human capital. The Chinese workforce may be ill-equipped to compete in the 21st-century global economy due to a lack of education and skills.