Having gone to school in China I think that the Chinese people not being creative is incorrect. The public US education system is just worse all around. However there are pockets of extremely high quality that exist but aren't indicative of the US as a whole.
What is an advantage however is the US culture which promotes a certain type of courage. In degenerate cases it combines with bad education to become a naive form of arrogance and self indulgance. In the most actualized forms it combines with strong work ethic and refusal to look away from reality to create very big change. (ironically this freedom culture combines best with immigrant mentality)
The Chinese are very creative, except this creativity is often expressed in trivial ways because the culture creates a sense of "fineness" with things. The US culturally has what the Chinese refer to as "the heroe's dream" where everyone imagines themselves the hero. I suspect Chinas large population as well as it's more authoritarian government plays a role. Historically pre-communist era even the "important" things were left to the imperial elite.
My frame of reference is actually the Canadian education system, not the american one. I like to believe we are slightly better than the american's in terms of providing an better baseline education (this might be due to us being "socialist"). I do agree that both Canadian and American education has a lot to learn from China, however I think what you mentioned about courage is a really good point, and I guess maybe thats what I'm getting at. Thanks for the constructive point of view!
My doubt is that Chinese businesses will be able to produce competitive products that break new ground with markets outside China.
In a political culture that largely will prevent outsiders from participating in business or non-tech academia inside the country (who will want to live/teach inside China, micromanaged by Big Brother's social score — other than the Chinese?), I think China's heavyhanded political leadership of the future will form an insurmountable obstacle against the country's ability to compete in any/all of tomorrow's critical revolutionary exponential multiplier business spaces — the ones that silicon valley startups excel at, that require dynamic multicultural madhouse environs, and that engender future Googles or Apples. Without the freedom and chaos needed for this space to thrive, China will forever relegate its rising business geniuses to pursue mere optimizations of The Next Big Thing, that will be invented where new ideas are free to run amok.
In the not so distant future, China's cut-rate factories distributors and e-tailers will be automated, like everyone else's, and her political stranglehold on the genesis of new ideas will lead to her uncompetitive downfall. That is, if a billion unemployed don't do it first.
And yet the hero's dream has indeed produced staggeringly powerful hero's. These outliers tend to be light years ahead of their non-hero peers. The paypal Mafia (Musk, Thiel, etc), Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg, Brin, Page, Jobs...
The US is a couple of education reforms away from being a hero generating lottery to a hero generating machine. Also the fact that China is pretty much closed to foreign outside heros ever getting a chance.
I wold find surprising if Chinese people weren't creative; but what I would be curious to know is if that creativity wouldn't be stifled when it goes against the academic establishment, ie: how easy is it for a scientist to propose and pursue a novel theory that goes against the current scientific consensus - and thus, against his or her superiors' theories? Would that be a problem?
What is an advantage however is the US culture which promotes a certain type of courage. In degenerate cases it combines with bad education to become a naive form of arrogance and self indulgance. In the most actualized forms it combines with strong work ethic and refusal to look away from reality to create very big change. (ironically this freedom culture combines best with immigrant mentality)
The Chinese are very creative, except this creativity is often expressed in trivial ways because the culture creates a sense of "fineness" with things. The US culturally has what the Chinese refer to as "the heroe's dream" where everyone imagines themselves the hero. I suspect Chinas large population as well as it's more authoritarian government plays a role. Historically pre-communist era even the "important" things were left to the imperial elite.