Some people would find it hard to believe that in today's world a government would stop people from learning English, or skills required in a modern society where knowledge plays a key role. Where? Afghanistan or North Korea?








In the first week of August, 2021, authorities in Shanghai, China have canceled primary school English exams amid growing calls for English to be de-emphasized in China's state schools. Textbooks published overseas that haven't been reviewed and approved by the the city education bureau's textbook review committee are banned from being used in schools. 


Forget about English tutoring books such as Linguaphone language courses,  Essential English, or Rosetta Stone, as they are all of a sudden illegal. Duolingo, an English test tutoring APP was forced offline in China. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is intent on moving away from English learning amid a trade war with the U.S. and growing conflict with Western democracies. It seems that the someone in the CCP is terrified that young people in China would be able to learn things not approved by the government.

Over the last 3 decades, it has become an envied dream of millions of Chinese families to send their children to attend colleges in the U.S., U.K., Canada or Europe. Many parents of means would make it a proud achievement to be able to announce to their friends and relatives that their own children were accepted or attending a certain international college overseas. It is widely known that China's first daughter attended an elite Ivy League college in the U.S. So did her husband.

Starting in 2020, due to an alleged need to contain the spread of the coronavirus, Chinese government suddenly cancelled multi-entry visas of many executives of international companies. The number of new passports issued to Chinese citizens dwindled to 335,000, which is 2% or a small fraction of the number of passports issued in the previous year. Chinese government has imposed entry and exit controls on its population, citing the recent surge in the Delta variant of COVID-19.

Critics say the CCP is using the pandemic as a pretext to reduce people's freedom of movement, Chinese citizens or foreigners. Published figures from the Chinese Ministry of Education showed that Chinese parents spent nearly 164 billion yuan ($25.3 billion) on helping their kids keep up with English classes in 2017. China's government announced a ban on out-of-school tutoring in order to 'reduce the burden of students and parents'. Since about 68% of the tutoring industry in Shanghai was devoted to English teaching, according to a report published in March 2021, the government ban will likely have a huge impact on the tutoring industry for 2021.

The Shanghai education bureau also announced the launch of an official textbook, the Xi Jinping Thought Reader, in schools from the forthcoming fall semester.These measures are reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), which started with student movements in schools in China. Mao Zedong used the Red Guards, the youthful political activists, to smash the existing government entities to usurp supreme, unchecked power.