China has right to expand naval force

Comment on the article "Navy poses no threat to others" (China Daily website March 9, 2009)

With a population of 1.3 billion people and a considerably high GDP, the Chinese navy is dramatically under-armed.

Britain has around 60 million people but retains a stronger naval fleet. India has already started its own fleet building program ahead of us.

So China does not owe it to anybody or any country to explain, and China does not need to be apologetic. Chinese are peaceful people who have always looked after their own business.

I support the government to build a bigger and stronger naval fleet, guided by a sophisticated satellite system.

Chinese are humane and peaceful, and they love their children and their country just like everybody else. Unfortunately their different ideas have always been totally and intentionally misrepresented by the Western media. It's time for misguided people to wake up.

li liubu

on China Daily website

Post graduate spike delaying problem

The results of National Entrance Examination for postgraduates have recently come out. Earlier the Ministry of Education claimed an additional 50,000 full-time postgraduates would be enrolled in 2009 in a bid to reduce pressure on the tight job market. But I believe the remedy ensures a bitter aftermath.

Expanding the number of postgraduates nationwide appears more of a stalling tactic. Yet three years from now the competition in the job market will inevitably grow in intensity given another huge influx of aspiring graduates.

The expansion is most likely to lead to the degradation of postgraduate diplomas. It goes without saying that an unprecedented tide of students' admissions into colleges is an overriding factor for some of today's predicaments, like the troubles university graduates find in hunting for a job.

In the mid-1990s, the Ministry of Education decreed that colleges should enroll far more students to bolster domestic consumption.

But the large number of graduates saw thousands of applicants applying for the one position.

Once abundant resources and equipment in schools are now scarce, and the number of qualified teachers is lagging behind the number of students, thereby devaluing college diplomas.

The same scenario will repeat itself for postgraduates.

Wang Ting

Via email

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(China Daily 03/12/2009 page10)