1. The overall math skills for Chinese students have declined. This could be due to two reasons:
1A. More Chinese students are coming to the US, so the average is lower.
1B. After passing the college entrance exam and once getting into a university, a Chinese student in China no longer studies hard (not limited to just math). I am surprised that students working on their master's theses openly complain to me that they cannot simply copy something from the Internet.
2. Even though high school students' math skills are generally higher than that in US, it does not translate that this skill will be applied to decision making processes (other than quick mental math in the flee market). For example, swine flu was totally a non-issue, but Chinese government decided it was the most dangerous disease and very few people question it. When I pointed this out to people in China, other than university professors, no one believed my math even though I showed them the statistics. In other words, they do not know how to apply the math they learned in high school.
