I wouldn't say that about a comparison between math problems in textbooks in China and math problems in textbooks in the United States. (I have math textbooks in English, and math textbooks in Chinese, a language that I read well as a second language.) The focus on deep conceptual understanding and open-ended problem-solving in math is actually much better in east Asia than in the United States.
(I can well believe, however, that any current with a current one-party dictatorial government, something Taiwan had the first time I lived there and something China still has today, will lag in teaching history. Critical thinking about history is bad for dictators. Taiwan thoroughly revised the history textbooks after it had its peaceful transition to democracy.)
> I can well believe, however, that any current with a current one-party dictatorial government, something Taiwan had the first time I lived there and something China still has today, will lag in teaching history.
Multiparty liberal democracies allow much more scope for debating and interpreting history, but they still commonly encourage a teleological interpretation that glorifies the nation and its current political system.
I also get the feeling that understanding history in a meaningful way is hard, and that educational systems generally aren't making much headway against this problem, maybe somewhat independently of how much debate or criticism they permit. One difficulty is the conscious and semiconscious propagandization of many historical issues by many parties, together with the desire to see historical figures or groups we identify with in a positive light and those we don't identify with in a negative light. Another thing is the truth of the "past is a foreign country" observation:
I remember a lot of US centric hate in my public US education. "Trail of tears" is not exactly nationalistic propaganda. Handing out diseased blankets to conduct large scale germ warfare. Only nation to use nuclear weapons, conducting disease experiments on prisoners. Corruption, racism, etc etc.
I could go on, but I don't think most people got US #1 outside of being an economic powerhouse.
I had a lot of friends during college who went to school in China. And I had a lot of Chinese CS/Math professors who would often say things like "We teach this to 12 year olds in China".
My Chinese friends would laugh when i asked them if that was true. They said that sure they covered it, but they just memorized algorithms, and no one really understood the concepts.
I don't think that looking at math textbooks is going to tell you all that much about the way math is actually taught. You're not going to see any of the official and unofficial performance incentives that can alter the way material is taught.
http://condor.depaul.edu/sepp/mat660/Askey.pdf
(I can well believe, however, that any current with a current one-party dictatorial government, something Taiwan had the first time I lived there and something China still has today, will lag in teaching history. Critical thinking about history is bad for dictators. Taiwan thoroughly revised the history textbooks after it had its peaceful transition to democracy.)