Last week, a record 10 million students sat the annual university entrance exam, marking its 30th anniversary. One would have assumed the occasion would provide a perfect backdrop against which mainland leaders could show up in force to claim the credit and beat the drums on how higher education has changed the country.
But the event passed with little fanfare, with state media devoting coverage to the usual melee beforehand - the heavy morning traffic, and anxious parents dropping off their children or milling around outside exam halls.
The leaders have good reasons to remain low-key, not least because the mainland's higher education system is in a mess and crying out for drastic reforms.
More ominously, university students, angered by widespread social injustices and uncertain employment prospects, have again showed worrying signs of militancy, 18 years after the Tiananmen student demonstrations.
The fact that several thousand university students in Henan went on a rampage on Wednesday - a day before the two-day national exam - was much more than an unfortunate coincidence.
The mainland has come a long way since late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's momentous decision in 1977 to resume the national exam and place knowledge acquisition above universities' political requirements, following the 10-year hiatus of the Cultural Revolution.
Since then, about 36 million students have been admitted to universities and technical colleges, and many of them have become part of the backbone of society.
