Yes, Prime Minister of Japan

Not far away, Mizukami Tenpyo, who was attending a cabinet meeting for the first time, covered his face.

Li Xinghe's judgment is completely inconsistent with existing legal rulings, but it is an attempt to find a rational basis for procedural justice and substantive justice.

Shui Jingtianping's original purpose in coming here was to assist in amending the law and try to match the procedure with the result.

Lu Yuchi Hua Yingmei snapped her fingers and changed the topic:

Have you seen the news about the Tokyo Medical University entrance exam cheating scandal?

Li Xinghe had also sought treatment at Tokyo Medical University, so of course he wanted to see them.

Bureaucrats from the Ministry of Education reported one after another:

"Taichi Kano, director of the Science, Technology and Academic Policy Bureau of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, orchestrated a large-scale cheating scandal in the entrance examination to ensure his son could be admitted to Tokyo Medical University."

The Japanese university entrance exam consists of three parts: first, the national entrance exam score; second, the self-study exam scores of various prestigious universities; and finally, various recommendation letters and interviews, with a score ratio of approximately 3:5:2.

Anyone with eyes to see can see that if people can cheat by not getting good scores on the national entrance exam, then the college entrance exams organized by individual universities, along with recommendation letters and interviews, are bound to be rife with irregularities.

Li Xinghe then asked:

"How did he do it?"

Report from Ministry of Justice bureaucrats:

"He instructed the admissions office of Tokyo Medical University to lower the scores of all repeat applicants to prevent his son from failing to qualify. He also instructed the admissions office to lower the scores of all female applicants to prevent his son from failing to qualify. In the end, he spent 20 million yen to bribe the admissions office to ensure his son was admitted to the guaranteed admission list. It is said that he spent a total of 100 million yen, and at the same time, he reached many private bribery agreements with Tokyo Medical University regarding the allocation of national funding."

Li Xinghe was stunned.

Li Xinghe's pupils dilated.

"Forehead……"

What does this amount to?

It's like a bureau chief in a central provincial government department who, in order to get his son into a prestigious university through the college entrance exam, secretly instructed the relevant universities to first deduct points from the scores of all repeat test takers, then deduct points from the scores of female students who were of the opposite sex to his son, and finally instruct the admissions office to protect his son during the interview. As a result, his son passed the college entrance exam smoothly and was admitted to university, while countless repeat test takers and female students who accompanied him failed the exam, and male students who entered the interview to highlight the son's success also failed the exam.

They arbitrarily swapped the scores of tens of thousands of repeat students, female students, and male students applying to the same university, just like wiping toilet paper, all to ensure the bureau chief's son could get into the school safely.

This is still the Japanese university entrance exam, the necessary path for high school students to take to university.

These three processes were so utterly wrong that Li Xinghe was speechless for a moment.

No need to be a mistress, no need to spend money to go abroad and gain overseas study experience, and no need to even take the college entrance examination. Just make a call to the other university, and they will arrange for thousands or tens of thousands of students to have their scores lowered and fail the exam to play a game called "taking the exam but advancing" with the rich kid, where the winner has already been decided.

Li Xinghe's face fell:

"What about people?"

The Ministry of Justice was being sarcastic:

"The Ministry of Education has been arguing with the Special Investigation Department for years, and they've been slowly going through legal procedures."

The so-called "taking it slow" approach is actually a cover-up for such a huge loophole in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The bureaucrats have been playing a judicial delaying tactic with the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office's Special Investigation Department, dragging the matter out until no one pays attention, and then playing a game of cooperation with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to exchange for peace, thus ignoring this hole.

Li Xinghe immediately became alert.

Oh, they've dug up an old case to set me up.

He pretended not to know:

"Then Japan's traditional college entrance examination system needs to be reformed."

The Ministry of Education bureaucrats have probably been waiting for this moment.

Want to change it?

No.

They answered:

"Public universities are okay. But most of the higher education institutions in our country are not public."

"Private universities have alumni associations, affiliated high schools, special exams, and require letters of recommendation."

Eighty percent of Japanese students attend private universities, as private universities are considered the face of Japanese education.

However, the admissions process for private universities is extremely opaque. Exam scores only account for about half of the admissions evaluation. The other half is a bunch of unreliable criteria, which are randomly selected based on merit.

What's famous in the US is the alumni recommendation letter.

The issue of recommendation letters isn't particularly serious at Japanese universities; it probably affects only 10%-20% of incoming students each year. Compared to the US, that's not a large number.

However, Japan has another very serious problem.

That is internal advancement.

A top Japanese university often has its own affiliated high school, and students graduating from that high school are almost guaranteed admission to the main campus's prestigious university. Looking at the records, the graduation rates of the affiliated high schools of major universities are generally above 95%. Therefore, in a prestigious university's admissions, often around 35%, or even more, are students from its affiliated high schools. And those students who can get into these prestigious university affiliated high schools are, of course, either wealthy, powerful, or influential, competing for school resources starting from junior high school.

For students applying to this university, once they arrive, they will see that a prestigious university will first consider internally admitted students, students with recommendation letters, alumni association students, and specially recruited students. Only after all these students have been admitted will about 40%-50% of the resources be left for students taking the regular entrance exams to compete for.

As a Chinese person, Li Xinghe's first thought was to standardize the college entrance examination and abolish universities' right to conduct independent admissions.

"What if I said I wanted more students to be able to enter university without being constrained by tuition fees and opaque admissions processes?"

“You need to subsidize their tuition fees.”

Tuition fees in Japan are extremely expensive. A typical public university costs 50 to 70 yen per year, while a private university costs 80 to 120 million yen. And this is just the general case. If you want to study a prestigious academic field like medicine, 500 million yen a year is nothing special, and 1100 million yen is considered a privilege from a good school, easily emptying the entire assets of a family.

Li Xinghe asked:

"What if I subsidize your tuition?"

The Ministry of Education had probably found an opportunity, and Toshiko Abe hurriedly submitted a price list:

"If you were to subsidize tuition fees for all university students in Japan, it would mean you would need to spend at least 5000 billion yen every year."

"Furthermore, it's not something you can simply decide to subsidize. You need to understand that each university is managed by its own independent legal entity. Whether they accept government tuition subsidies, whether they want to discontinue the original recommendation letter system, whether they will not allow alumni's descendants to enter through lower-level exams, and whether they will allow students from affiliated high schools to easily enter through exams—all of these need to be considered in the internal discussions of each university. Tuition subsidies cannot only be given to students; schools also need them. Based on actual policy implementation and school needs, it would take approximately 2 trillion yen per year to implement a complete set of policy changes."

Two trillion?

Four trillion?

Li Xinghe couldn't help but become sarcastic as well:

"In other words, if I want to reform Japan's university entrance examination system and allow more poor students to attend good schools, I would need to subsidize their exorbitant tuition fees, at least 100 million yen per student per year. I would also need to spend far more than that tuition fee, at least 300 million yen per student per year, to buy into these schools' admission quotas. I would also have to offend almost all the alumni associations and sponsors of private universities because I want to reduce the proportion of admissions that come easily to wealthy families. And these are the powerful figures behind the scenes in various regions of Japan?"

The Ministry of Education officials probably didn't expect Li Xinghe to see things so clearly, so they didn't dare to speak for a moment.

Li Xinghe slammed his fist on the table in anger:

"It's so numb, how come there are so many insects? They should be killed!"

However, he did not immediately begin killing; instead, he first sentenced the main person in charge of the incident:

"Throw that guy, what's his name? Tai, along with his son and the people from the Tokyo Medical University admissions office, onto some small Chinese island in Southeast Asia for hard labor, starting at 20 years. They're not allowed to come back unless either of them dies."

what?

what's the situation?

Why did it suddenly turn?

Ministry of Education was surprised:

"Then will you still provide the subsidy...?"

Li Xinghe's expression suddenly changed:

"Why subsidize? Why not just let Chinese students fill the positions? We've already lifted the restrictions on Chinese and South Korean students for the Japanese civil service exam anyway. If it takes tens of millions of yen to train a Japanese university student, why don't we expand our recruitment of more Chinese students? Not only will we not have to spend money, but we can also collect millions of yen in tuition fees."

All the bureaucrats were astonished.

Ugh?

Where did that patriotic and compassionate spirit you were just displaying go?

It's just a mere 20000 trillion yen? The cost of building an aircraft carrier is far less than that.

If you had reduced the combined fleet's gasoline consumption in the Ryukyu waters by half a month, it might have been enough to subsidize university cafeterias across the country so that students could have more substantial meals.

Then Li Xinghe left.

The bureaucrats were left whispering among themselves:

"There are already one-fifth of Chinese students in the school. If the quota is further expanded, how many of our future government officials, lawyers, and business presidents will be Chinese?"

One-fifth? One-quarter? One-third?

Even including immigrants from Taiwan, the Chinese population in Japan only makes up slightly more than one-tenth of the total Japanese population. Yet, they are expected to constitute one-third of the social elite? Will Japan still be Japan then?

Meanwhile, Ayako Aso, Eimi Shikami, and Tenpei Mizukage followed Li Xinghe out of the conference room and into a small room.

Li Xinghe grumbled as he drank his water:

"They just want to keep me from reforming the old system. They want to give me endless problems to solve."

These bureaucrats just don't want to reform.

Don't you want to reform?

Look at the state of Japan, it's riddled with problems. Where is there no issue?

The issues of education, scientific research, and universities in Japan alone would keep Li Xinghe busy for many years.

There are countless other issues looming ahead, such as healthcare, social security, aging population, foreigners, kindergartens, and county-level administrative divisions. If Japanese bureaucrats could provide Li Xinghe with a thousand-year-long list of tasks, then go ahead and tackle them. With the money you have, spend it as much as you want.

As long as you want to do problems, there will always be more problems to do.

If we were to follow the rubbish logic of Japanese bureaucrats and spend trillions of yen every year to subsidize students, we would fall into their money-spending trap.

Li Xinghe would rather recruit international students from mainland China; he could simply subsidize a portion of their recruitment and have them come to take the civil service exam. This way, he wouldn't spend any money and could gain both talent and revenue. He would acquire Chinese-American civil servants and also earn money from student spending.

It could even undermine the very foundations of Japanese bureaucrats, achieving three goals at once.

What do ordinary Japanese students think?

The Taiko only feeds them and then throws them into factories to work; he cares nothing more about them.

Hua Yingmei and the others certainly knew this, but they also had to admit it:

"But the problem does exist."

Li Xinghe, however, didn't take it to heart and shook his head, saying:

"Hmph. How did the Special Investigation Department's prosecutors find that director of the Ministry of Education who contacted the admissions office of Tokyo Medical University without authorization? I bet it wasn't just a coincidence."

One problem is that tuition fees for medical students in Japan are extremely high. Tokyo Medical University charges as much as 12 million yen per year for a six-year program. After six years of study, you won't even have enough money to buy an apartment in Tokyo.

Training a medical student at a medical university requires at least 60 million yen in tuition fees during the undergraduate stage alone. With various other expenses added, the cost approaches 100 million yen.

Are the other students who can afford to attend medical school just ordinary people?

No, everyone here can afford a hundred million yuan in training fees, who would want to let a mere bureau chief's son be a runner-up? After the shady dealings were discovered back then, everyone's parents swarmed in, naturally mobilizing the Eastern District Prosecutors Office's Special Investigation Department to arrest this scoundrel involved in the college entrance exam conspiracy.

Ayako Aso listened in on the whole thing and asked Li Xinghe:

"So how do you plan to solve this?"

Li Xinghe clenched his fists, determined not to get bogged down in the mess of the old bureaucrats, but to forge his own path:

"No rush... Let's start by recruiting more Chinese-American civil servants. Then we'll begin reorganizing administrative districts, starting with the areas surrounding Tokyo, and gradually cracking down on them. As for university entrance exams, we'll start by expanding the enrollment of Chinese-American international students."

"In this way, we can directly issue an official document allowing Japanese universities to expand their enrollment quotas for students of Chinese and Korean descent, treating them the same as domestic students. We can also allow Japanese universities to enroll domestic students and Chinese students at a 1:1 ratio."

Universities are naturally eager to recruit Chinese students; if Li Xinghe dares to set a quota, they dare to recruit.

Japan has 500,000 to 600,000 high school students a year, while China has over 10 million. Bringing 500,000 high school graduates from China to Japan wouldn't be a big problem.

Once people arrive, they can stay here and assist Li Xinghe with his tasks.

Japan is like an old car riddled with problems.

The bureaucrats were confident they could remain in power; if Li Xinghe dared to make a move, they were ready to die in his presence. Mei, Mei, are you free? Lin Zai, are you free yet…?

Li Xinghe, on the other hand, focused on replacing its parts first, and then tinkering with it as much as possible after replacing the parts.

While they were chatting, Takajo Satsuki suddenly called Li Xinghe:

"First Lady Osamu's plane is almost here. It's a huge new arms deal worth $5 trillion, nearly 100 trillion yen."

Chapter 820: The Queen Angrily Smashes Social Media, Xinghe Deploys Troops to the United States (5600 words)

7 month 20 day.

The most beautiful Chief Cabinet Secretary in history, Lu Yuchi Huayingmei, appeared with the media at a Chinese restaurant, accompanied by Princess Shang Qiujia, to enjoy a heavy, oily meat set meal that male workers love.