Because some of you in China can't always have access to the NYT, I post some excerpts here from time to time, on topics related to education. Today, 3 reasons why Prof Sass believes that China can't become a leader in innovation, ahead of the West, without a bottom-up culture of dissent, skepticism and critical questioning.

But as a scientist who has taught in China, I don’t believe that China will lead in innovation anytime soon — or at least not until it moves its institutional culture away from suppression of dissent and toward freedom of expression and encouragement of critical thought. Almost all the paradigm-shifting innovations over the past few hundred years — from Michael Faraday’s generating electricity by moving a copper wire through a magnetic field in London in 1831 to the invention of the transistor at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey in the 1940s — have emerged in countries with relatively high levels of political and intellectual liberty. Why is this?

1- Cultural: Free societies encourage people to be skeptical and ask critical questions.
2- Institutional: Much of American innovation started with the bright ideas of a few individuals (…) innovation is typically the product of a bottom-up approach. Chinese colleagues told me that scientific research was initiated in a top-down manner.
3- Political. Free societies attract foreign talent.