China's Elite vs America's Elite

In this episode, Samo Burja and Erik Torenberg discuss China as America’s mirror, how the prestige of American universities is waning while Chinese students are increasingly choosing to study within China, the role of gender in political divergence and what Chinese “woke” looks like, and how China’s leadership is shifting to academia from businessmen. If you need an ecommerce platform, check out our sponsor Shopify: https://shopify.com/momentofzen for a $1/month trial period.

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We're hiring across the board at Turpentine and for Erik's personal team on other projects he's incubating. He's hiring a Chief of Staff, EA, Head of Special Projects, Investment Associate, and more. For a list of JDs, check out: www.eriktorenberg.com

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LINKS:

Samo’s Bismarck Brief: https://brief.bismarckanalysis.com/

The Growing Power of China’s Elite Universities: https://brief.bismarckanalysis.com/p/the-growing-power-of-chinas-elite

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TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00:00) - Episode Preview

(00:00:57) - Universities as an example of US-China parallel evolution

(00:02:53) - Academia during The Cultural Revolution

(00:04:17) - The elite Chinese universities

(00:06:17) - Signalling theory of education

(00:06:33) - What the increase in educated leaders means for China’s ruling class

(00:07:33) - China as America’s mirror

(00:08:36) - China’s “woke”

(00:11:15) - How Xi wants China to not fail in the same way the Soviets did

(00:12:55) - Crackdown on university students

(00:15:00) - Rise of student activism in the US

(00:17:02) - The translation of regional/ethnic inequalities into ideological ones

(00:20:54) - The political ideological paradox generates an opportunity to organize young people

(00:22:39) - Role of gender in divergent politics and the East Asian “woke”

(00:26:28) - Chinese feminism

(00:32:51) - Sponsor: Shopify

(00:34:58) - The formation of elites in US and China

(00:36:21) - Materialist focused education in China vs legal focused education in US

(00:39:16) - Printing university degrees is like printing money by devaluing degrees

(00:40:00) - Fight over Harvard Extension School

(00:41:53) - Will American universities have as much power in the next 10 years as they do now?

(00:45:00) - What positive and negative changes will China see in the near future?

(00:47:00) - Silicon Valley in China

(00:48:30) - The shift in leadership from businessmen to academia in China