influence to try to choke off China’s access to critical semiconductor technology. Tech Crackdown : The Biden administration is waging a new global campaign against China, using U.S.As the rivalry between the two powers intensifies, South Korea is increasingly feeling the heat. Seoul Gets Squeezed : The United States is South Korea’s main security ally.

More on the Relations Between Asia and the U.S. New restrictions this summer on for-profit, after-school tutoring chains affected companies that have taught English for years. A government adviser recommended this year that the country’s annual college entrance examination stop testing English. Last year, China’s education authority barred primary and junior high schools from using overseas textbooks. Many call the phenomenon “reversing gears,” or China’s Great Leap Backward, an allusion to the disastrous industrialization campaign of the late 1950s, which resulted in the worst man-made famine in human history. Still, many Chinese people with an interest in English can’t help but see Shanghai’s decision as pushback against the language and against Western influence in general - and another step away from openness to the world.

That’s why it came as a shock to many when the education authorities in Shanghai, the most cosmopolitan city in the country, last month forbade local elementary schools to hold final exams on the English language.īroadly, the Chinese authorities are easing the workloads of schoolchildren, amid an effort to ease the burdens on families and parents.

Summer pockets english