Leadership coach's TED Talk targeted by false 'anti-China' claim

"Harvard University professor: Why is it so hard for the Chinese to win the Nobel Prize?" reads simplified Chinese text overlaid on the video shared on Twitter.

The tweet, posted on June 7, has attracted more than 70,000 views.

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Screenshot of the misleading tweet, captured on June 21, 2023.

The clip shows a man introduced as John Sautelle, who appears to blame China's lack of Nobel Prizes on the country's education system.

Chinese scholars have brought home just a handful of Nobel Prizes over the years, with some blaming the country's rigid education system (archived link).

"US, Japan, Italy, Russia, the fundamental reason for winning the Nobel Prize, it's that children in these countries can play for an early age," he appears to say.

"The root cause of China is to go the opposite way."

He appears to say that Chinese children do not enjoy reading and learning as they are pushed to study hard from a young age.

The simplified Chinese tweet sharing the clip slams China's education system as "designed solely for exams and brainwashing".

"Even robots are living a more fascinating life than Chinese children," it says.

The video circulated on Twitter and Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, as millions of Chinese students prepared to take the highly competitive national college entrance exam (archived link).

Some social media users appeared to believe the footage was genuine.

"What he said is true, but this is hard to change," read one comment in simplified Chinese.

"We are raising slaves!" another said.

Leadership coach

A combined Google reverse image search and keyword searches found the footage was taken from a TED Talk that Sautelle gave in 2018 titled "Whose story are we living in?" (archived link).

Below is the screenshot comparison of the two videos.

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The talk focused on the power of stories and invited the audience to think about how much of their lives was dictated by stories. It did not mention the Chinese education system or the Nobel Prize.

A review of the same video published on TEDx Talks' official YouTube channel also does not show Sautelle discussing Chinese education or the prize (archived link).

Furthermore, Sautelle describes himself on LinkedIn as a leadership coach and author based in Australia. His profile does not mention any link to Harvard University (archived link).