美国《商业周刊》 刊发专栏作家Shaun Rein的文章题为China: Not Yet a Superpower
（中国：还不是一个超级大国）。文章导读：在中国成为超级大国之前，对外先要改善在国际上的形象；对内要改革学校教育。文章内容摘要如下（英语全文附后）：
多少年后，当历史学家回顾2010年四五月间发生的事件时，哪些事件才是具有最强的长期影响力的新闻呢？是美国证券交易委员会向高盛公司发难吗？是冰岛火山灰导致全球航空公司停运吗？抑或是相当于特拉华州面积的泄油区域正在向墨西哥湾沿岸扩散吗？历史学家很可能会掠过这些引人注目的新闻，而将目光集中在这些新闻上：中国向委内瑞拉提供200亿美元的贷款，确认了与美国的盟国哥伦比亚第二大贸易伙伴的地位，获得了世界银行4.42%的投票权，一跃成为世界银行仅次于美国和日本的第三大股东。美国和日本在世界银行中的股份分别为15.85%和 6.84%。
不管你生活在世界哪个地方，不管涉及哪个行业，你都必须考虑到中国的崛起。中国继续在海外投资和采购，以获得阿富汗、澳大利亚等国的自然资源并施加影响力。诚然，中国仍有许多穷人，其医疗卫生和社会保障体系仍然落后于其他不少国家。许多分析人士基于中国的贫穷和缺少在不同区域可随时实施打击的军事力量而愚蠢地指出，中国其实是一个脆弱国家，其政治和经济体系存在崩溃的可能性。
这些分析人士忽略了重要一点。当去年中国取代美国成为日本和巴西的最大贸易伙伴(当时它已经是非洲和中东的最大贸易伙伴)时，其帮助其他国家摆脱金融危机的能力使得它具有比受经济困扰的美国更大的影响力，尽管是一种不同的形式。
中国的崛起使得界定超级大国的定义变得十分必要。成为一个超级大国已经不再是关乎是否有能力投掷足以毁灭整个地球的原子弹了，经济实力以及通过网络和金融战引发动荡的能力应该是界定一个超级大国的新定义。
重要的是中国将演变成一个什么样的超级大国。人们从皮尤研究中心公布的数据中可以清楚看出，86%的中国人支持政府。同样显而易见的是，中国在某些方面的表现尚不如其他国家好。最近像《纽约时报》专栏作家保罗克鲁格曼和纽约州民主党参议员查尔斯舒默等人在货币政策问题上对中国的无端攻击，以及人们对中国逮捕力拓前驻华高管胡士泰一事的批评表明，中国亟须提高自己的软实力。尽管创立孔子学院和令人眼花缭乱的中国杂技表演给人以希望，但中国仍需要做更多的事情来推动自己的国际品牌。
中国不能为加强自身的长期实力而仅仅将注意力集中在获得大宗商品上。为了使自己成为一个充满活力的、永久性的超级大国，而不是一个因为没有陷入给其他重要经济体造成重创的金融危机而变得强大的超级大国，中国还需要做的不仅仅是创建品牌，还需要克服教育体系中的一些缺陷。
尽管人们普遍认为，中国一直在培养一流工程师，但事实是，中国的教育制度仍不足以培养可为全球企业效劳的学子。中国大多数尖子生前往美国，在哈佛大学、斯坦福大学等院校继续接受高等教育，因为他们很难在国内获得他们所需要的培训。
可证明中国教育制度落后的一个证据是，尽管大学毕业生已经从10年前每年100万人增加到了现在的600万人，但外国在华企业的最大担忧之一是招聘不到可胜任工作的、具有才智和技能的中国员工。这是我的公司每年对数百家在华跨国公司调查得出的结果。这一担忧已经超过了在华跨国公司对腐败和日益加剧的保护主义的担忧。在一个拥有13亿人的国家，物色有才华的人不应该如此之难。
中国教育体系的太多方面是建立在死记硬背、大班教学和过早分班的基础之上的。例如，学生填报大学志愿时就确立了自己的专业，如学会计等，而且往往不能再更改专业。有多少1 8岁的人能够真正明白他们对哪些学科感兴趣，在哪些方面更擅长呢？在那个年龄段填报大学志愿时，我曾希望成为一个人类学家，希望去非洲与当地部落人生活几年。
中国需要实行一种涉及更多学科的教育制度，允许学生在进入大学之后选择自己的专业并尝试不同的课程。大学应该与英特尔公司、苹果公司这样一些具有前卫思想的企业合作，以帮助编纂一些对学生今后求职有用的教学材料。
学生自己已经认识到了这一问题。在我们采访的上海24岁至28岁的白领中有20%的人表示，他们愿意将自己可支配收入的10%用于额外培训。10%的人表示，他们愿意将其五分之一的收入花在培训上。
中国已经为建立自己全球大国的地位迈开大步，但要真正成为一个超级大国并保持这种地位，中国需要在向外部世界展示自己形象方面作出努力。或许更为重要的是，它需要改革自己的教育制度，以提高国内员工的能力，在中国从一个制造业基地向研发中心和以服务业为基础的经济体转变时，建立一支真正具有创新精神的劳动力队伍。
China: Not Yet a Superpower
Before China can become a truly global power, columnist Shaun Rein says, the country needs to change its image abroad and reform its schools at home
By Shaun Rein
Years from now, when historians look back at April and May of 2010, what will stand out as the news with the biggest long-term implications? That the SEC strapped Goldman Sachs (GS) to the hot seat? Or volcanic ash disrupted flights and shipping routes around the world? Or an oil slick the size of Delaware was heading toward the Gulf Coast? Historians may very well pass over these headline-grabbing stories and instead focus on the news that China gave a $20 billion loan to Venezuela, cemented its status as the second-largest trading partner with U.S. ally Colombia, and received an increased voting share of 4.42 percent at the World Bank to become the third-largest voter after the U.S. and Japan with 15.85 percent and 6.84 percent of votes, respectively.
No matter where in the world you live or what sector you are involved in, you have to take into account China's rise. China continues to invest and buy things abroad in its drive to secure access to natural resources in places like Afghanistan and Australia and to exert power. True, China has far too many poor people, and its health care and social security systems still lag behind dozens of countries. Many analysts point to its poverty and a lack of military presence in different hemispheres ready to strike at will to argue foolishly that China is in fact a weak nation concerned with the potential collapse of its political and economic systems.
These analysts miss the main point. When China replaced the U.S. as Japan's and Brazil's largest trading partner last year (it was already the largest trading partner of Africa and the Middle East), its ability to help countries recover from the financial crisis gave it more power than the economically struggling U.S., albeit power of a different type. China's rise necessitates the need to redefine what a superpower is. Being a superpower is no longer about the ability to drop enough bombs to obliterate the entire earth. Economic power and the ability to launch chaos via cyber and financial warfare should define superpower status.
China Brand
What is important is what kind of a superpower China will develop into. While it is clear from the Pew Center's data that 86% of Chinese people support the government, it is equally clear that China does not do as good a job with the rest of the world. The recent misguided attacks on it by people like New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) about currency policy, Beijing's disagreement with Google (GOOG), and the criticisms over the arrest of Rio Tinto's (RTP) former China head Stern Hu show that China needs to get better at soft power. While the Confucius Institute (an organization under the Office of Chinese Language Council International that promotes Chinese language and culture by jointly funding programs with host institutions) and dizzying Chinese acrobatic tours show promise, more needs to be done to promote the China brand internationally.
China cannot just focus on securing access to commodities to build long-term strength. For it to emerge as a vibrant, long-term superpower and not just one made strong because it did not succumb to the financial crisis that crippled other major economies, it needs to go beyond brand building and address deficiencies in its education system.
Despite the commonly held belief that China continues to graduate top-notch engineers, the fact is that the education system is not adequately preparing its students for a global business world. Most of the top students go to the U.S. to continue their graduate studies at universities like Harvard and Stanford because it is difficult to get the training they need at home.
The proof of China's weak education system is that despite the number of college graduates increasing from 1 million per year 10 years ago to 6 million, one of the top concerns foreign businesses have in China is recruiting workers with the talent and skills to do their jobs, according to surveys that my firm, the China Market Research Group, conducts annually with hundreds of multinationals operating in China. This concern ranks higher than corruption or concerns of rising protectionism. In a country of 1.3 billion people, it should not be so hard to find talent to hire.
Education Reform
Too much of China's education system is based on rote memorization, large class sizes (sometimes students number in the thousands for a single class), and early direction of students into major tracks. For instance, students declare what specific major, like accounting, they will pursue when they apply to university and are often not allowed to change. How many 18-year-olds really know what academic disciplines interest them or which they excel at? At that age, I wrote on my college applications I wanted to become an anthropologist and live with tribes in the Congo for years at a time.
Instead, a more interdisciplinary, liberal-arts-style education system needs to be implemented with students being allowed to choose their majors after they enter a university and try different courses of study. Universities should also work with forward-thinking companies like Intel (INTC) and Apple (AAPL) to help devise course material that is useful for the students to help find jobs afterward.
Students themselves recognize the problem. Twenty percent of Shanghai white-collar professionals ages 24 to 28 that we interviewed said they were willing to spend 10 percent or more of their disposable income on extra training; 10 percent said one-fifth of their income. China has taken big steps economically to develop its position as a global power, but to truly become and remain a superpower it will need to work on how it presents itself to the outside world and, perhaps more important, needs to rework its education system to foster the abilities of domestic workers to create a truly competitive workforce as China shifts from a manufacturing base to a center of research and development and a service-based economy.
Shaun Rein is the founder and managing director of the China Market Research Group, a strategic market intelligence firm. He writes for Bloomberg BusinessWeek on strategy and marketing in China. Follow him on Twitter at @shaunrein.