Why do Chinese political leaders have engineering degrees whereas their American counterparts have law degrees?
The authors looked at mayors and Party secretaries of cities of over a million (of which there are today some 165); governors and provincial Party secretaries of China’s provinces, autonomous regions, and province-level municipalities; and Central Committee members, and found that by the time of writing there were already more than 80% technocrats (that is, putative or actual office holders with four-year degrees or more in the natural sciences or engineering). Just look at recent politburo Standing Committee membership: In the last two Standing Committees, I believe all but 1 were all engineers.
.. An avid supporter of technocracy, Qian even said that he believed governments should be run essentially like an engineering department. The notion that economic, social, and even fundamentally political problems could be approached with an engineer’s problem-solving mentality seemed somehow to resonate in China, and was largely unchallenged.