Why do Chinese political leaders have engineering degrees? | Hacker News Reader

Why do Chinese political leaders have engineering degrees?

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97 pointseternalban81 comments

IMHO, STEM careers not sure about now, but before the mid-90's were considered more prestigious in China than medicine and law.

Back then, lawyers never really had a spotlight in Chinese commerce or politics given Chinese Community Party's one-party rule and state-owned enterprise dominated economy; also in civilian realm, Chinese business partnerships are governed by "Guanxi," your reputation and standing within your personal network than the culture of litigation in Western world.

Also, hate to be blunt, medicine is not as much upheld in esteem (relatively) in China due to the perceived less value of human life and socialized medicine at the time: a country of 1.3 billion people roughly the same size of US with a fraction of the GDP, marred by the Great Leap Forward, cultural revolution and until recently one child policy. Chinese hospitals clinic's queues is more like going to the DMV where you bring and keep your own medical chart and queuing up, compare with the Western medicine's obsession for "personal well-being," "resuscitate at all cost".

Individuals are not as considered as the State or the Collective. Now compare the puny individual with fragile bodies and limited agency to the grand gestures of the grand dams that conquer the Yangtze River or big bridges that crisscrosses metropolises.

Children are taught at the early age that the reason for the Chinese "Century of Humiliation" is Qing Dynasty's reluctance to reform and adopt Western technologies; Chinese engineers that built railroads and scientists that built nuclear bombs were hailed as heroes as much as say, civil rights leaders in US social studies curriculum.

There were many reason's for the Century of Humiliation. The Qing dynasty did attempt to reform on a big scale [0], but it was very much restricted in what it could do by western meddling.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Strengthening_Movement

The Qing dynasty was an inward-looking feudal monarchy, which is a terrible way to rule 300 million people. It would have fallen apart one way or another, Opium Wars or not.

The Wikipedia page refers to the top-down reorganization, which is the worst way to do reorganization.

> It would have fallen apart one way or another

Maybe it would have, maybe it wouldn't have, but in the history we live in the dead are counted in the tens of millions.

I think the major point missed by countries subdued by the west is that one tends to explain failures in terms of individual wrong decisions with catastrophic results.

This misses a much more profound point. Just as many stupid decisions was made in Europe but because Europe was not united an individual stupid decision from somebody at the top never brought the whole continent to a standstill. European disunity was a blessing. Stupid decision could never survive long because every European country was in fierce competition with its neighbors.

Unity has high pay offs while good decisions are made, but as shown in the case with China, one wrong decision at the top and it risks dooming the whole country.

China still suffers the same problem. The future of over 1 billion people depends on one communist party keep making the right decisions. At any time they risk getting the wrong guy at the top and bring all advances they have made thus far to a halt.

Nonono The biggest hinder to reform is always from inside...

> The Qing dynasty did attempt to reform on a big scale [0], but it was very much restricted in what it could do by western meddling.

(I've read multiple histories of the period, but the following is from my memory of them and also I am no expert:)

Remember that by the mid-nineteenth century Chinese government and society had, very broadly, followed the same culture and form since around 250 BC and the Chinese saw themselves as by far the leading nation in the world, to which all others were mere tributaries. Arguably that had been generally true and especially within the region; remember there was very little communication or interaction with Europe due to technological limitations. If you want to see a great example of it, read Emporer Qianlong's famous response to the UK's King George III's offer of trade relations; Qianlong talks down to George as a subordinate begging a favor, says the UK has nothing to offer China, and refers to them as 'barbarians'.[1]

However, the Industrial Revolution came to the West first and left China unable to compete without massive changes. Think of China as an incumbent organization facing massive disruption in its 'industry'. Think how hard it is for a business to change culture and direction; now imagine an entire massive country with an extremely deeply entrenched culture and bureaucracy that was arguably their national identity and effectively their religion: Thousands of years of being run by scholars of Confucius - and consider that abiding by writings from 5th century BC is an exceptionally conservative culture in itself, not used to accomodating change. Maybe imagining how quickly the Catholic Church would abandon Biblical teachings for science is a good equivalent. And like any incumbent, they were loathe to admit they had a problem or need, even when the facts were right in front of their eyes.

In a series of accomodations, they tried to catch up with Europe while compromising their culture as little as possible. I don't remember the details exactly, but it progressed something like this: First they just tried buying military weapons, but lacked the ecosystem necessary to understand them, apply them, use them, etc. Then they tried allowing local manufacture of them, then educating some Chinese in the science and tech (but without the academic culture of inquiry, etc.), etc. This step-by-step process took place over decades, as they resisted adopting the ecosystem of culture, intellectual ideas, science, etc. (I won't even try to define it more precisely than that) that is needed to adopt the Industrial Revolution. The Qing dynasty eventually was overthrown in 1911; there were 38 years of weak governments and civil war until the Communists won in 1949.

> The Qing dynasty did attempt to reform on a big scale [0], but it was very much restricted in what it could do by western meddling

From what I understand, while the West treated China very poorly, imposing economic and political oppression on them (look up the Unequal Treaties, for example), the Chinese themselves had great trouble adopting, as described above.

I'll add that, in my amatuer analysis, the current Chinese government continues the same program of trying to gain the West's advantages by accomodating the minimal possible amount of change. IMHO, they behave a lot like the old imperial dynasties: They try to claim the same sphere of influence (including the South China Sea, East China Sea), try to compel neighbors into the same attitude of submission to their power, dynstic decline due to corruption (and other issues) is one of the fundementals of Chinese imperial history, etc. And they still are trying obtain the benefits of western wealth and tech, but now without accomodating the rule of law and democracy.

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[1] You can easily find it online. If you read it though, keep in mind that much can be lost in linguistic and especially cultural translation. We have no grasp of the culture of a 19th century Chinese Emporer!

That is a great comment, and I will try to give my thoughts on it.

You're analysis of the present Chinese government as continuing the imperialistic policies of the Qing make a lot of sense, but I also tend to see these policies as kind of inevitable. All major powers will behave along similar lines, and mainly for similar reasons (e.g. see the Monroe Doctrine of the US and how long it took to normalize relations with Cuba). Russia is panicking because its own sphere of influence is being breached by NATO. China is worried about the West (or the South Koreans) gaining control over North Korea, right at their doorstep. So if you think about it, its not evil, its inevitable. Most non-western countries have been exploited in some horrible way in the recent past and that can really help explain why hard it is for them, even now, to trust the West.

As far as Industrial revolution and China: I agree that the Qing was undemocratic(obviously), slow to change etc. Governing a country as big as China has never been an easy task though. Think about it: its 1900, and you have 450 million people [0] in your kingdom, the largest by far, almost twice that of India, and a number never see before in history. Even the roman empire had only(!) 60 million people at its peak, most of whom were slaves.

So its not an easy problem. And many of the "simplest" solutions fall right on their heads. I know people in this forum like to talk about disruption, but that's great for companies; for governments it is a VERY different problem, and needs to be handled differently. Just look at the crisis created by revolutions: Chinese Revolution left the country devastated, Russian Revolution tore apart the country before getting a respite after WW1. Every single time a revolution takes place, a wholesale change of everything happens and nobody is quite sure what is going on.

However, there are ways to change while not throwing out everything: The Meiji reformation in Japan is a great model of how to change an backward oriental country into a modern one, with western-style institutions and economy. And the Chinese Communists, despite all the horrible things they have done, have managed to bring stability and economic growth to a country that was ruled by warlords for much of the early 20th century.

I guess my point is simply that its not easy. Many people fail to see that there are reasons why the Qing were what they were, and that there were many factions even in the corrupt government that did want China to progress. So the ideal way to really reform a country is through diplomacy, and working with existing institutions, and modernizing them, rather than start from scratch.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio...

Thanks for a thoughtful response.

> All major powers will behave along similar lines, and mainly for similar reasons (e.g. see the Monroe Doctrine of the US and how long it took to normalize relations with Cuba).

I disagree. For example, look at the other powers in Asia: None have militarized or coercive conflicts with anyone[1] - except China, who has such a conflict with most of them. For example, looking at the Western Pacific, why is it that S. Korea, Japan, The Philippines, Vietnam, and the U.S. all can get along with each other and resolve their problems with no military involvement at all (10 relationships); yet all of them face military, coercive threats from China? If China wants security, all they need to do is stop threatening everyone and taking territory. Certainly nobody has any intention of attacking China.

Look at the powers in Europe. Other than Russia, is there the slightest threat of military action between them?

The Monroe Doctrine is from 1823, hardly representative of modern U.S. policy. No U.S. neighbor is under threat of attack, other than by meddlesome U.S. investors and DEA agents. Do Canada and Mexico even waste a moment thinking about arming themselves against U.S. invasion?

> Russia is panicking because its own sphere of influence is being breached by NATO.

Russia might not be the best model of behavior. Yes, all nations are concerned about what happens on their borders, but in 2016 the great majority follow the rules-based international order rather than the older, barbaric mechanisms of killing people and stealing their land by force.

> the Chinese Communists, despite all the horrible things they have done, have managed to bring stability and economic growth to a country that was ruled by warlords for much of the early 20th century.

Hmmm ... they may have caused more deaths than any regime in world history, tens of millions during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution (and ignoring the civil war). If you burn down your house and then build a new one, can you claim credit for building something from nothing?

> the ideal way to really reform a country is through diplomacy, and working with existing institutions, and modernizing them, rather than start from scratch

I agree with this, but I don't think the current Chinese leadership does.

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[1] With the exception civil war based conflicts in Korea and India/Pakistan.

> I disagree. For example, look at the other powers in Asia: None have militarized or coercive conflicts with anyone[1] - except China, who has such a conflict with most of them.

This is really not true. Bear in mind the Middle-East is considered part of Asia. The Western Pacific consists mostly of countries that were dominated by the US (Japan, SK, Phillipines). Vietnam is an exception.

Europe was torn apart by war not so long ago, let us not forget that. Most European countries went through stages of both economic and territorial expansion on a scale not seen ever before. The US did a similar thing on the North American continent. Remember Manifest Destiny? Mexican-American war and the annexation of California etc. etc.

Everything must be taken in context. China is in the same stage of development as the US and other European countries were before. All countries tend to go through similar stages of development.

Let me say that I don't condone the actions taken by China, what I'm arguing for is that the reasons for them are fundamental different than "Chinese Government is evil". That kind of thinking hinders the process of effective diplomacy between countries.

> Russia might not be the best model of behavior. Yes, all nations are concerned about what happens on their borders, but in 2016 the great majority follow the rules-based international order rather than the older, barbaric mechanisms of killing people and stealing their land by force.

Who is doing that? China is not invading other countries. They are building artificial islands on uninhabited part of the sea. Posturing is part and parcel of international diplomacy. Don't be fooled by what they say but what they are actually willing to do.

The Qing dynasty, even at the best of times, was far more decentralized than the Communists ever were. Coming in at the disintegration of the Ming, the Manchus absorbed huge swatches of Ming defectors, rebels, and newly conquered territory. By and large, they adopted the pre-existing scholar-official system, and by and large the pre-existing scholar-officials, to run these provinces. The provincial governors were not quite Persian satraps, nor the warlords of the Nationalist era, but they had relatively wide latitude. Moreover, there were parallel bureaucracies, with the Chinese civil administrations, and the Eight Banners standing army cum garrison staffed by Manchus, Mongols and other non-Han. Corruption was rife, and to some extent expected - the level of training and education to pass the gate-keeping imperial exams to enter the scholar class took years and could beggar families or entire communities. Taken to the extreme, you see the case of Heshen, a Manchu official who had embezzled the equivalent of a decade and a half of tax revenue for the entire empire.

Regardless of western meddling, the Qing dynasty was subjected to the deadliest and most destructive war of the 19th century, which nearly toppled the government. And it was largely the third parallel bureaucracy that arose around the two or three most successful leaders against the Taiping that led the westernization push. In the organizations of Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang you have the direct precursors of the local warlords who made such a mess of the country for the first fifty years of the 20th century. Already, they operated largely outside the government, building their local fiefdoms.

Makes me think of the Romans. Supposedly when they conquered territories, they killed the head of state and his closest supporters, but left much of the power structure intact. Then they put their own people up top, to funnel taxes etc to Rome.

Interesting! I was always interested in why the Chinese Republican government collapsed so quickly into the warlord era. It seems like the power structures of that era were already in place by the time the emperor was thrown out, and once Yuan Shikai was gone, they just made it official.

> Children are taught at the early age that the reason for the Chinese "Century of Humiliation"

I have never before heard this term. Need to study up.

It is indeed well known, and also is used in histories written in the West.

Another good question is why is almost every American politician (and all of the democrats) a lawyer?

You definitely see more diversity in Europe where you have Angela Merkel with a physics PhD.

Bernie Sanders doesn't have a law degree. Apart from Dr "I probably take too much of my good stuff" Carson, I can't think of a GOP candidate who didn't have a law degree, or an undergraduate humanities/liberal arts/social sciences degree.

Herman Cain and Rand Paul are both non-lawyers. Cain actually has an undergrad degree in mathematics and a masters of computer science, surprisingly.

The vast majority of GOP candidates (with few exceptions) either have law degrees or non STEM undergrad degrees. There, happy?

The vast majority of candidates have either law degrees or non Stem undergrad degrees

Mitt Romney and Donald Trump both have business degrees. I'm not saying I do or do not support them but they are not social science/humanities/liberal arts. Unless you count business as liberal arts.

There's more diversity in the German parliament (Bundestag), still 46% of members studied either law or economics, only 28 (4.5%) of members studied STEM subjects.

sources: http://daten.offenesparlament.de/datenhandbuch_1990-2010/03/... (total for 2010 is 620, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/17._Deutscher_Bundestag)

>Angela Merkel with a physics PhD.

Little correction: she holds a PhD in physical chemistry, not in physics.

The majority of Congress is not lawyers. That said, my theory is that because the U.S. is a low-cohesion, heterogeneous society, we're uniquely structured around the conflict-resolution process of litigation. The U.S. resolves through lawsuits disputes in areas such as labor, environment, civil rights, product safety, land use rights, social justice, and employment rights, which are handled through the political process in other countries. Unsurprisingly, people who have an interest in these issues, which are the bread-and-butter of Democratic politics in particular, are likely to go get law degrees.

A really good example of this phenomenon is playing out right now with the Apple/FBI case. Over in Europe, they're going to pass laws that govern what companies must do to assist with law enforcement investigations. Here, it'll play out in the courts first, and Congress might not even take action if they're happy with the legal outcomes.

>The U.S. resolves through lawsuits disputes in areas such as labor, environment, civil rights, product safety, land use rights, social justice, and employment rights, which are handled through the political process in other countries.

I found this line rather insightful.

It's well written, but worth remembering that he's probably just explaining the difference between the traditions of civil and common law.

> The majority of Congress is not lawyers.

When did that dynamic change? I recall that up until the 113th the majority were still lawyers.

> Unsurprisingly, people who have an interest in these issues, which are the bread-and-butter of Democratic politics in particular, are likely to go get law degrees.

I'd argue the reverse. Many people have interests in these issues, but if they wish to pursue careers in politics, their only option is to go through the $100,000 law degree pipeline. Why would someone who wants to work on environmental issues be any more likely to study law rather than wildlife biology, except that the latter won't make you the social connections and money you need to have any crack at a political career?

Another good question is why is almost every American politician (and all of the democrats) a lawyer?

Your primary job as a politician is to make and revise laws. Lawyer strikes me as a pretty good background for doing that.

And here I thought the primary job of a politician was to get re-elected.

That's like saying the primary job of a surgeon is to prop up the medical narcotics industry by stabbing people with knives without actually killing them. Maybe in a way it's kind of true, but if enough people accept it, they stop caring about whether surgery does more harm than good.

Here in Norway after the war we have had prime ministers who have been a teacher, farmer, road worker, electrician, medical doctor and ordained priest to name a few less common professions by American or Chinese standards. Interestingly before the 1900s when Norway had just two parties similar to the republicans and democrats all but one prime minister was a lawyer. As more parties got created and new groups of people represented in politics diversity also increased.

The problem for Norway may well be that while there is a whole lot of diversity up top, the bureaucratic structure has ossified.

It has gotten to be a decade now, but when last a right wing government was replaced with a (on paper) left wing one, the former finance minister was asked if he had faith in his replacement. His response was that while he could not comment on her abilities as a finance minister, he had full faith in her staff. This because it was the very same staff he had been working with.

A few years into the new government, another minister resigned. And afterwards she made a statement that there was a unstated agreement between the finance ministry, the oil and energy ministry, and the office of the prime minister about how the nation was to be run (the implied agreement was that oil and gas extraction was to be given priority above all else). And as a minister you needed to be very stubborn and thick skinned to break with that.

Note that this agreement was not between the ministers, but between the bureaucrats that worked there no matter who was nominally in charge.

That was also true of the USSR.

Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to the US for many years, writes in his autobiography how he became a diplomat. One day, Stalin was annoyed at his diplomats over something, and remarked that the USSR needed diplomats who were New Soviet Men, like aircraft designers.

Shortly thereafter, Anatoly Dobrynin, aircraft designer, was taken by the KGB from his drafting table at the Yakovlev Design Bureau and shipped to the Higher Diplomatic Academy in Moscow. He rose from there to ambassador to the US.

I don't know about China.

But western societies have developed a system of professional politics where politicians are groomed for politics early on.

That is why they often become professional politicians early on and have degrees in a narrow set of fields and from a narrow set of schools.

It's reached the realms of farce now that seemingly everyone in UK politics has a PPE (politics, philosophy & economics) degree from Oxford.

The real power in the country is whoever writes that syllabus.

Think that depends a lot on the particular society. My home country Norway certainly "suffers" from the professional politicians, but they still have quite varied backgrounds: teachers, agriculture degrees, economists, political science, machine operator etc.

I'd say it depends a lot on to what degree a society is elitist or not. E.g. France and Britain seem very elitist oriented societies where the elite is groomed in elite schools. While a country like Norway is strongly anti-elite and has no concept of elite schools.

Every society has their particular traits. E.g. in Germany it seems like having a PhD in some science is almost a prerequisite for getting anywhere in politics to the point where some politicians have felt forced to fake a PhD to get anywhere.

> Think that depends a lot on the particular society. My home country Norway certainly "suffers" from the professional politicians, but they still have quite varied backgrounds: teachers, agriculture degrees, economists, political science, machine operator etc.

But after a year or more in office, they all seem to walk and talk the same way anyways.

And i can't shake the feeling that the diversity is slipping.

One of the old boys of AP, and perhaps one of the last with a industrial background to hold a government position, said that when he began he could work a full day at the factory and then go to meetings in the afternoon. But that nowadays you basically had to quit your other job to keep up, even on the local level.

I've read enough Usenet for enough years to suspect that STEM may well be a liability when it comes to "soft" subjects, the sort that politics operates on. Just the realities of government finance and government debt seem to be beyond many in our field(s), because it's a bizarro subject.

That China is run by nominally "engineers" could well be a significant problem for them.

These aren't the smart engineering politicians with a 10 year view China has foisted its fable onto the world. These are the corrupt paranoid politicians who know they are one mass protest away from having all their families disposed. These are fat and lazy billionnaires who have siphoned off local schools, hospitals, people, environments, and is about to abscond with riches. These are the people that see their debt-fueled economy collapsing, and know there's no more workers to be paid in pennies to be exploited.

""In total, 106 members of China's National People's Congress and 97 members of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress, are on Hurun's China Rich List. Their combined wealth hits $463.8 billion"

http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-politicians-are-rich-...

Kyle Bass: China’s $34 trillion banking sector set to collapse 30-40%

https://www.trunews.com/kyle-bass-chinas-34-trillion-banking...

I would caution against conflating engineering skills alone with thoughtful governance.

You sure love to bash on China. It seems like are your submissions/comments are anti-China.

i don't like evil government. do you?

"China 'covertly providing oil to North Korea' Seoul claims Beijing falsifying its export statistics to keep Pyongyang's industry, military operational"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/11...

Missiles Deployed on Disputed South China Sea Artificial Island, Officials Say

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/world/asia/china-missiles-...

> These are the people that see their debt-fueled economy collapsing, and know there's no more workers to be paid in pennies to be exploited.

I know they're evil but from what you've written it seems that China is developing in spite of what the China PR government is doing. It could be better with a better system of government but we have what we have and I fear a disruption in something as big as the government of China would be very bad for the world economy in the short term. As the saying goes, it will likely become much worse before it gets better.

But what is your measure of evil?

US invaded Iraq twice for oil, and had deployed missiles to all sorts of non sovereign land, that had upset is neighbours.

Literally a 1-1 comparison for both your examples.

If that is your measure for "evil government" please point out a "good" government.

But... what if there's none?

To be fair, sharedtea bashes Russia too. He has been warned by dang before. Guess that didn't change much.

Agreed, single purpose politically-charged accounts add a lot of noise, and really put a damper on this community's discussion. HN guidelines say to generally avoid submitting off-topic items such as political commentary, so shouldn't that same guideline apply to comments?

Besides, one could write a 'bash' script to do the same thing. 1) Find links to negative sentiment news. 2) Find key data and exaggerate in negative direction. 3) Splatter links and data on any HN discussion containing "China"

Are you addressing them? or their argument?

Sounds like something you could say about a black American who's complaining about racism in America.

Why not bash the message rather than the person?

> These aren't the smart engineering politicians with a 10 year view China

Engineers should not be expected to make good political leaders; it's a much different skill set and job. The two recent American presidents who were engineers were Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter (am I overlooking any?).

Getting an engineering degree in China was the equivalent of graduating from an Ivy. At least in the prestige department.

You can get an engineering degree from most Ivy's :-)

Is that true? My impression is that most parents wanted kids to be doctors and lawyers, until very recently at least.

I'm talking about Chinese people in China during my parents' generation.

Are you thinking of Asian stereotypes in America?

I'd say in America it's mostly just STEM or business/economics, depending on your family background. Business for children of business owners, STEM for everyone else. There's also a clear political divide along this line in oversea Chinese demographics.

Lawyers, although well-paid on the higher-end, carry somewhat of a bad rep of being predatory and unreliable income-wise across the spectrum.

Are you talking about Chinese parents inside or outside China?I guess most parents want their kids to be whatever is the most prestigious. In China the means (or at least meant) engineering, outside china that means doctor or lawyer.

most Asian leaders have engineering degrees.

The flip side of the question is: Why do Western leaders generally lack STEM degrees?

Why should the US be ruled by lawyers?

Any relevant degree seems appropriate for a politician. Political science, law, economics.

Seems much more natural with one of those degrees than a STEM degree.

A more common "entry level" position to gain a foothold in politics in urban areas is usually as a prosecutor. The career path is often to then run for DA ( whatever they call it ) of a largish city.

I'd trace this back to TR, the decline of machine politics and the rise of meritocratic city governance. Indeed, Barrack Obama offends many Conservatives because his background is as a community organizer, which harkens to their ear back to machine politics.

Obviously, this varies.

That's a peculiarity of the US system where the prosecution is heavily politicized and judges are elected. Other Western countries don't generally have that.

They have all failed to become layers, and that is the sole job remaining where you do not need to know something.

> Why do Western leaders generally lack STEM degrees?

Because STEM degrees don't give one any insight into governing people.

> Why should the US be ruled by lawyers?

Politicians make laws. Lawyers know the law. Seems like a good fit.

The US National Science Foundation includes social sciences (anthropology, economics, psychology and sociology) in the list of STEM disciplines.

Really? Crazy. Here 'social sciences' are usually considered an art degree.

Politicians design policies. Engineers are good at working with complex systems. Seems like even better fit. We will just need some typewriters in suits to translate said based in science and reality policies into legalese.

I don't see why the west should be ruled by any particular type of profession, just engineers or just lawyers seem equally bad to me.

Honestly I think a lot of political disaster that is in the US could be traced back the the abundance of lawyers.

Seen from the outside, America to me is a country which has made every aspect of society into some form of legal struggle or court case. That just doesn't seem like a healthy way to organize society.

The polarized aspects of a court room, is reflected in American politics and public life itself. Politics is gridlocked because it is all about winning at any price. It is the logic of a lawyer.

I think this has become so ingrained in American phsycology that most Americans can't even see it anymore.

In China, engineering is the most prestigious major as opposed to lawyers or doctors in the US. In highschool, if you aren't very smart, you are told to go into liberal arts. If you did well in school, you almost always went into STEM, even if that is not where your passion lies. So it's not hard to see why there would be a disproportionate amount of Chinese leaders with engineering degrees.

On a side note for those who are interested. Here's a list of political figures who are from Tsinghua University (China's top engineering university): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsinghua_clique

There are very good reasons given but I would like to add a simpler model - from the infamous book Germs, Guns and Steel.

In poorer countries, the biggest problem is related to physical disadvantages.

European and American Cities face physical disadvantages but nothing compared to Beijing, Delhi or Cairo. The biggest cities in the anglo-euro sphere are nothing compared to the mega cities in Asia.

Scaling the living standard of a typical western to the entire continent of asia requires overcoming real limitations imposed by physics and the natural world.

This is why engineering and STEM is so strongly focused in many asian societies.

I am pretty sure Germs, Guns and Steel, never implied anything remotely like that.

If you look at size as a main driver here, that does not match up with reality. South Korea, Japan, Singapore etc, neither of these countries are bigger than your typical mid sized to large european nation.

I think people are reading a bit too much into this. In the stage of development many asians nations are today, western nations also had a similar reverence for engineers.

What strikes me most when people from developing countries talk about unique cultural traits of their country, is that it merely represent a development stage. I can point to similar traits among earlier generations in my own country.

Could you please provide references? Genuine question. I'm interested to know if American or British society was as obsessed with engineering and medicine at some point as we see today in India and China.

There was that period known as industrial revolution. A lot of the great inventors were either born nobility or knighted. So Britain valued their best engineering minds.

Or, conversely, most of their 'best engineering minds' came from classes already valued.

Probably because only they had both the education and the free time to pursue these things.

Nah - we were never at all interested in engineering or medicine. This just happened purely by accident...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution

I am not commenting this as some sort of social scientist who has all the statistics and research on this.

I can only really speak about the experiences of my own country Norway. When I listen to people of my grandparents and parents generation it is evident that engineers and scientists were held in high esteem in their days. This is what boys often dreamed of being. Fathers of my parents generation would push talented kids to become engineers, architects etc.

In my parents generation these perceptions took a major change. E.g. my mother was a journalists which was not regarded very highly at all but which became very sought after in my generation.

If you look at media both in Norway and other western countries you see a clear utopian perspective where technology solves all sorts of problems for society. Think of the view on rocket engineers and atomic engineers in the 50s and 60s. Scientists and engineers come across as the heroes in the 50s and 60s.

As one gets into the 70s, there is a drastic shift and science and engineering seems to suddenly turn into the source of societies problems rather than the source of its solutions. You see the beginnings of an anti-technology political movement. All the pollution and urban problems that developed in the 60s and onwards is blamed on technology and science. With the hippies you get this sort of back to nature ideas.

Think about the Jetsons, and American cars which looked like they had rocket boosters. All the illustrated science magazines that popped up. Surely there was a technology optimism in earlier days you can trace in adds, TV shows and what not that simply does not exist today.

To me China looks like the 1960s west. You can even see the faint beginnings of the counter culture, where people are increasingly alarmed about all the pollution and environmental destruction.

Japan has 30 million more people then the UK - while having much lower agricultural land.

It it one of the most dense countries in the world. Same with Singapore and South Korea.

Why does Germany still have that trait while Britain still doesn't ?

You are talking as if society stops needing engineers after a point ?

the UK has 65 million people and Japan 120, so there is quite a big difference. Many places in Europe are also densely populated, more so than Japan even like Belgium and Netherlands.

I didn't mean to imply that engineers are not needed. But rather that I don't think the reverence for engineering is linked directly to population density and scale of a country.

Germany is a good counter example since you bring it up. The strong position of engineering in Germany vs Britain as nothing to do with population size issues but rather to historical context. Each country has very different traditions and histories.

For Germany e.g. it could be mentioned that the medieval guilds lasted far into relative modern times. They preserved the status of crafts. Other factors is that in Britain finance and trade came to dominate due to the huge colonial empire, something Germany didn't have and instead had to rely on domestic production to build their nation.

One could go on for any time about all the myriads of different experiences and traditions.

It surprises me how often people just quickly explains any sort of issue with population size. Frequently differences between Europe and the US is also explained away as a function of population size, as if the vastly different historical developments isn't of significant importance.

also the more non-religious Chinese culture would typically lean towards other personal qualities for selecting positions of power. Scientific prowness would naturally be one of the criteria. So none of that "That man is great Christian!" as some sort of qualifier.

Well, I live in an European country with plenty of lawyers and other law-related professionals as members of parliament, yet the religiousness of the candidates hasn't been a topic for decades, at least.

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