On July 23, Wang Hong and Deng Yu received the 2026 Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians held in Philadelphia. Both were undergraduate alumni of Peking University, class of 2007. The International Mathematical Union’s commendation of Wang Hong was not limited to her role in solving the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture; it also encompassed a series of achievements in harmonic analysis and geometric measure theory, including problems such as local smoothing, Fourier restriction, Falconer distance sets, and planar Furstenberg sets.
After the award was announced, Wang Hong’s student years were rapidly rewritten into several mutually opposed educational parables. One narrative emphasizes the foundational training in Peking University’s mathematics department, arguing that two alumni from the same class winning awards simultaneously proves the success of China’s talent-training system; another narrative casts Wang Hong as a “gifted genius buried by Peking University,” snubbed by the math department, rejected for postgraduate recommendation, with nobody willing to write her letters, and ultimately forced to go abroad.
The key plot points in the latter version have already been publicly clarified. According to people familiar with Peking University’s School of Mathematical Sciences, Wang Hong was an outstanding graduate of the class of 2011, qualified for recommendation for postgraduate study, and received letters of recommendation for overseas study from several mathematics faculty members; she did not apply for the recommendation because she had already chosen to study in France. Wang Hong herself, in an interview with China Science Daily, also said that there are many untrue stories circulating online.
But the clarification of rumors does not mean that all criticism of Chinese education is thereby invalidated. The free scholar Hu Yilin believes that what really needs to be opposed is the eagerness to let a single success story stand as testimony for an entire system—whether the conclusion is total affirmation or total negation.
Selection itself can also be a form of cultivation
Wang Hong entered Peking University at 16. She first studied in the School of Earth and Space Sciences, and after a transfer examination and coursework in the major, moved into the mathematics department. She later recalled that the learning atmosphere in Peking University’s mathematics department was very intense, with classmates spontaneously organizing discussion groups; she was willing to follow her classmates’ lead on what to read and what to present because those classmates “had very good mathematical taste.”
Hu Yilin believes that this experience already shows that “selection” and “cultivation” are not two sharply separated processes.
He pointed out, “There is indeed no absolute distinction between selection and cultivation. Being able to let outstanding students enter a good environment and mutually spur one another with high-level classmates is itself a form of cultivation.” Peking University’s allowing Wang Hong to transfer into the School of Mathematical Sciences from another department also shows that its entry points are not completely closed off by middle-school competition credentials or one’s original major at admission.
University education does not take place only at the teacher’s podium. Courses, discussion groups, peer standards, transfer channels, and aesthetic judgments formed within the community all participate in shaping a person’s academic ability. Wang Hong was not then the most dazzling student, but she had the opportunity to enter an environment made up of many excellent classmates, to see how others read theorems, how they asked questions, and how they judged whether a line of thought was worth continuing.
This does not mean that Peking University’s personalized support was already sufficient. Hu Yilin admits that undergraduate study may not be able to provide highly customized mentor relationships for every student; but he also opposes using the standards of doctoral education to turn around and demand them of undergraduate departments. Large lectures, foundational training, and peer learning are themselves important forms of undergraduate education. College students are already adults, and schools have no need to intervene in each person’s psychological state the way primary and secondary school homeroom teachers do.
More importantly, the pressure Wang Hong experienced at Peking University did not mainly come from a deliberately humiliating ranking system. According to her own recollection, it was while taking part in discussions and truly exchanging ideas with classmates that she discovered there were so many masters around her, and thus felt that she was ordinary, even “not like a mathematician.” Such pressure is not necessarily imposed by the system; it can also be an unavoidable self-calibration that comes when a person enters a higher-level community.
The significance of math competitions is not merely solving a problem faster
Wang Hong’s experience has also been used by some people to negate math competitions: she did not achieve dazzling results in middle-school competitions, yet ultimately became a top mathematician, seemingly proving that Olympiad math can only select precocious students good at formulaic tricks.
However, Wang Hong’s own account does not support such a simplistic conclusion. According to the China Science Daily interview, during high school she attended an extracurricular math competition class for one hour every week, and that one hour made her “very happy.” She did not aim at exams; when she encountered problems that interested her, she would think about them for several days, and sometimes after finishing one she would even forget to check the answer. Although she only won an ordinary provincial award in a high-school math league once, she clearly gained from the competition environment a lasting interest in exploring mathematics.
Many people criticize math competitions for deliberately restricting themselves to elementary methods, calling them a kind of thought imprisonment. Hu Yilin thinks this is because they first understand mathematics as a tool for solving practical problems: since a problem is easier to solve with advanced mathematics, why take the detour?
But the interest of mathematics often comes precisely from human-made constraints. He takes straightedge-and-compass construction as an example: a carpenter with a marked ruler can easily draw certain figures; mathematicians, by contrast, specifically require the use of an unmarked straightedge and compass, to study what can and cannot be accomplished under such rules. The restriction did not hinder mathematics; rather, it created problems.
“Elementary-mathematics restrictions are temporary, but this kind of ‘gameplay’ is eternal,” Hu Yilin said.
The so-called “stockpile of tricks” does not necessarily deserve natural contempt either. Chess players must learn opening lines, martial arts and soccer have basic training, and video-game players also repeatedly farm monsters and become familiar with routines. Once any competitive activity pursues a high level, it may include dull, repetitive, even industrialized training. Routine and fun are not absolutely contradictory: a person can be doing repetitive practice while still finding the game enjoyable.
The real difference does not lie in whether training is repetitive, but in whether participants are willing to enter the game.
As early as 2012, when discussing Olympiad math, Hu Yilin had already argued that the problem is not a small number of interested, promising students receiving concentrated training, but rather “全民奥数,” the way all families unwilling to lose their chance at higher education are forced into competition. Simply banning Olympiad math without changing the single-plank bridge structure of ordinary education would only shift all the pressure back onto the unified exam.
He still adheres to that judgment now: “To avoid turning into a single-plank bridge, let the people who truly find it fun focus on training, and do not force those who only feel pain and have no interest to train.”
The problem with Olympiad math is monopolization and privilege
In Hu Yilin’s view, using competitions as an auxiliary channel for higher education is not in itself evil. If sports, art, and other special abilities can obtain different educational opportunities, then mathematical talent has no reason to be excluded.
The first problem lies in monopolization. When competitions, from an auxiliary mechanism for identifying a few special talents, gradually become the main channel that ordinary families generally believe “you’ll suffer if you don’t participate,” they are no longer a game for those who are interested to choose, but another nationwide arms race.
Another risk is privilege. If policy abolishes publicly available Olympiad-math courses in schools, training institutions, and the market, without eliminating the competition-based selection itself, training will not truly disappear; it will move into more hidden and expensive private channels. Wealthy families will still be able to hire famous teachers and private tutors, while ordinary students lose low-cost access to competition mathematics.
Superficially, no one publicly studies Olympiad math anymore; in reality, those with the richest resources obtain even more exclusive training.
Therefore, what Hu Yilin opposes is not “routines,” the intensity of training, or the motivation of higher education itself, but one side road gradually swallowing up all the others, and the hidden privilege created after open training is banned. A good system should allow math competitions to exist, and should also let technology, art, sports, and other different abilities have real educational outlets, so that a child who does not like math competitions need not feel that their life opportunities suddenly narrow simply because they退出.
Why graduate school has become a “reservoir” for employment
If Hu Yilin’s evaluation of Chinese undergraduate mathematics education is relatively positive, his judgment on graduate education is much harsher.
He believes that the relative position of undergraduate education at top universities such as Tsinghua and Peking University is often higher internationally than the relative position of their graduate education. One reason is that some of the best undergraduate graduates choose to continue their studies overseas, while graduate enrollment keeps expanding, diluting the density of top students, and advisors have to deal with more trainees at the same time.
Another problem comes from the evaluation system. The number of papers, projects, and short-term results exert continuous pressure on teachers and students; graduate students easily become forced to chase publishable topics rather than choose directions that are truly important according to their own pace, even if those directions may yield no results for many years.
The more fundamental contradiction is that many graduate programs do not honestly explain their training goals. They neither implement small-scale, individualized cultivation according to the needs of original research, nor provide professional training directly corresponding to industry employment; nominally, students receive academic education, but in reality they may merely be gaining time before entering the job market.
It seems as though graduate school has become a “reservoir” for employment, providing a kind of “buffer release” for those who cannot find good jobs after graduating from undergraduate study, delaying their entry into the job market and cushioning the pressure on the job market.
Hu Yilin believes that this arrangement merely postpones the problem. Some students eventually enter academia with papers of insufficient quality, continuing to worsen the evaluation and hiring environment; others, after graduation, still lack clear occupational skills and re-enter the same job market with a higher degree.
Reform is not limited to shrinking enrollment. Academic research-oriented programs can reduce scale, increase talent density and advisor input; professional master’s programs can expand, but should clearly aim at vocational training; undergraduate education should also take on more preparation directly needed for entering society. The key is not that all schools adopt the same ratio, but that different schools can honestly choose different orientations and bear the consequences of those choices.
Abroad is not necessarily looser, but freer
Wang Hong’s overseas experience is often summed up as “high pressure in China, loose in Europe and America.” Hu Yilin believes this comparison is not accurate.
Wang Hong found room for interdisciplinary exploration at the École Polytechnique in Paris, France. She took architecture courses and did a short-term internship at an architecture firm, which led her to reaffirm that she would rather engage in mathematical research; later, at MIT, she met Larry Guth. Guth was willing patiently to listen to ideas that were still immature, even muddled, not rushing to dismiss them, but instead letting her gradually discover for herself where the reasoning went wrong.
But these experiences do not mean that the academic environment in Europe and America is generally relaxed. MIT can also be highly competitive, and top advisors may likewise put great pressure on students; the training traditions, institutional systems, and teaching styles of France and the United States are in any case not the same.
Hu Yilin’s summary is: “Abroad is not necessarily more relaxed; it is freer.”
What freedom means is not that every place simply reduces demands, but that students face more real options. Those who like high-intensity pushing can seek out advisors with strict requirements; those who need a longer period of exploration may also find more relaxed institutions. Different schools can embody different ideals, and the personalities of different teachers need not be completely flattened by a uniform evaluation system.
In his view, the most important condition behind this diversity is freedom in running schools.
“The key thing is freedom in running schools,” Hu Yilin said. This includes, at the very least, room to accept donations, admit students independently, openly promote one’s educational philosophy, and decide on curricula and teaching content. Universities should not all be governed by the same set of administrative metrics that determine enrollment scale, curricular structure, textbook boundaries, and teacher evaluation methods.
This does not mean that private universities are inherently excellent, nor does it mean that the state should withdraw entirely from education. The state can still safeguard basic rights, the integrity of degrees, and financial transparency, but it should not mold all universities into the same kind of institution. Some schools can choose small-scale elite research, while others can develop large-scale vocational education; some can emphasize rigorous foundational training, while others can encourage interdisciplinary exploration. Only when these models can compete on an equal footing will students’ choices be more than merely formal choices among a batch of schools with different names but highly similar internal structures.
Hu Yilin also stressed that directly comparing “China” with an abstract “abroad” is in itself not entirely fair. What is called abroad includes France, Germany, the United States, and many more countries with different systems; the diversity among countries itself expands academic options. Therefore, even if Chinese university reform makes great progress, there is no reason to oppose outstanding students going abroad according to their own circumstances. The movement of talent and open exchange are themselves part of academic freedom.
As it happens, Wang Hong’s choice to go from Peking University to France and later to MIT turned out to be a combination suited to her own stage of growth—what one might call “meeting the right people at the right time.” If Deng Yu had gone to France, it might not have suited him; if Wang Hong had gone directly to MIT, that might not have been best either. The superiority of an educational system should not be expressed in its ability to satisfy everyone within a single school, but in its allowing people to move, to turn in another direction, and to search anew for an environment suited to themselves.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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