Some 13 million high school graduates across China are nervously awaiting a test result that will determine the rest of their lives.

The gaokao – a combination of the word “college” and “exam”– is regarded as one of the most important events in the life of any Chinese student. The exam consists of three mandatory subjects: Mandarin, English, and maths, with optional subjects including physics, history, and politics. Depending on the subject, participants spend between one and two and a half hours completing essays, multiple choice, and fill-in-the-blank type questions.

They will have spent 12 years preparing for the exam that will decide their careers and futures.

Still, the recent rise in unemployment – especially among young people – and China’s slowing economy have raised the stakes even higher for the young Chinese of the 21st century.

The gaokao is actually a fairly recent concept – introduced only in 1952 – but testing has long been a feature of Chinese society.

“A good scholar can become an official. He who excels in study can follow an official career,” the quote by renowned scholar Confucius, collected from 479 BC, sums up the situation of many during his time – no matter if you are in trade, agriculture, or service business, the only way to access power was through being a government “official”.

Ancient talk shows

Since the days of feudalism, the selection of talent irrespective of social class has been a defining feature of China with many inspired to become experts in fields such as military strategy, philosophy, and literature.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, during the Han dynasty, the process took the form of “talk shows” and was the pinnacle of cultural exchange at the time. Scholars and academics, regardless of their wealth or social status, performed commentaries on the political and social spectrum of the world on the first day of each month of the lunar calendar.

Hosts and guests who made impactful commentaries secured attention and praise from the public. They later became government consultants and even political figures.

Although the process was organised locally – standardisation over such a vast area would have been nearly impossible at the time – citizens in China learned they could gain status and popularity through their talents.

It was the Sui dynasty, founded in 581, that officially marked the birth of standardised testing.

With more scholars emerging from every corner of ancient China, Emperor Yang Jian started thinking of a way he could bring those talents together to serve his administration.

Finally, under imperial order, the Sui government began the Imperial Examination System (IES) – the largest and most influential exam in ancient times and a process that continues to influence students and academics even now. Through various exams, the IES connected culture, society, economy, and politics into a unified system –  all to serve the emperor.

For scholars, the IES provided an opportunity for a decent job regardless of wealth, status, or family connections. For the Chinese at the time, there were no better job opportunities than serving the emperor, so many students wanted to score as high a score as possible on the exam so they would be selected as civil servants.

It all seems reminiscent of the British system of competitive examinations for the civil service, but as Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of modern-day China observed: “Almost all the examination systems nowadays are emulated from the British system. Going further back, the British examination system was originally learned from China.” Sun got a Western-style education in Hawaii and Hong Kong.

Conflict brings change

Like most examination systems, the IES also had its flaws.

Until the fall of China’s Qing dynasty in the early years of the 20th century, the IES was tailored to select scholars useful to the government. Tests were notoriously difficult but mainly focused on language and politics. Science and critical thinking skills were neglected with the best-performing students being the ones able to memorise facts and literature. Similar criticisms are also observed in Chinese students even today.

After more than 1,300 years, the last imperial examination took place in 1904.

It was the end of an era, but also the start of the modernisation of the exam system.

The Republic of China, which took the place of the Qing Dynasty, brought with it fresh ideas and concepts from the Western world, including the importance of science, military and industrial innovation, and cultural exchange.

Many prominent political figures such as Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang advised the import of Western ideas into Chinese education – “Chinese Learning as Substance, Western Learning for Application.”

Led by scholars such as Cai Yuanpei – who realised the problems and limitations of the IES after studying in Japan, Germany, and France – a reform of the education system began to take place.

Colleges were allowed to develop exam topics and questions by themselves, and students could participate in multiple tests for different colleges, at the time of their choosing. The flexibility encouraged many more people to participate in college exams and ensured the most remarkable students got places at university. Qian Zhongshu, for example, a Chinese writer and literary scholar, was accepted to one of the country’s best universities after turning in an extraordinary performance in writing and literature. His score for maths was just 15/100.

Shortly after the end of the Civil War and the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the communist government established the gaokao with a set date every year.

The idea was to find China’s brightest stars – the young people with the talent and skills to help rebuild the country after WWII and the civil war.

After the disruption and chaos of the Cultural Revolution, the gaokao was reinstated in 1977. In that year, almost six million students participated in the exam, and 270,000 were accepted into university.

Many of the participants became social elites that ended up contributing their expertise in China and even the world, including former Premier Li Keqiang and world-renowned film director Zhang Yimou.

Since then, the number of gaokao participants has increased yearly, with a record 13 million high school students stepping into the academic “battlefield” in 2023.

Throughout thousands of years of evolution, standardised testing in China has inspired many but also created intense competition.

Pressure to perform in this “once in a lifetime opportunity” begins building in students’ minds as early as primary school with some parents turning to expensive tuition to help their children get the best grades.

As China has gotten richer, some families have opted out altogether – sending their children to foreign boarding schools or migrating – but for most families, the gaokao is, always has been, and always will be, the only path to success.

With reporting by Zidong Zhang in Doha.

A year into Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine stands steadfast. The Ukrainians have displayed remarkable resilience and courage in defending their country. They have managed to stop the blitzkrieg Russian President Vladimir Putin had hoped would bring him a quick victory and have carried out a successful counter-offensive in the east and south.

As a result, Russia does not control a significant portion of the territory whose annexation it proclaimed last September in violation of international law, and it is suffering mounting losses.

Despite the less than stellar performance of the Russian army, Putin is showing no signs of abandoning the conflict. In his February 21 State of the Nation speech, he openly labelled the conflict a war, dropping the “special military operation” narrative he used earlier, and vowed to continue going “further” into Ukrainian territory to push the “threat away from our borders”.

The West has so far demonstrated that it stands by Ukraine. On February 20, US President Joe Biden made an unannounced visit to Kyiv, where he met with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy and pledged that Washington will back Ukraine “for as long as it takes”.

The following day, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also travelled to Kyiv to meet with the Ukrainian president. She affirmed Italian support for Ukraine and said that her government intends to supply Spada and Skyguard air defence systems to the Ukrainian army, in addition to the SAMP-T/Mamba, which it had already decided to deliver together with France.

A few days earlier, at this year’s Munich Security Conference, other European leaders pledged their support for Ukraine and even recognised they had been too slow to provide it with the weaponry needed to push Russia further back towards the pre-February 24 lines of control.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for the West to deliver as many tanks to Ukraine “now” despite his own months of dithering on the decision to do so. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak endorsed allies sending combat aircraft to Ukraine and providing training to Ukrainian pilots on the most advanced jets.

The West has also shown unwavering commitment to economic sanctions on Russia aimed at weakening the Kremlin, decreasing its war chest, and constraining its ability to invest in its war-making capabilities.

The latest major sanction – a ban on Russian refined oil products – came into effect on February 5. US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has said that the G7, the group of leading world economies, is discussing plans for new sanctions which could be announced during the bloc’s February 24 virtual summit.

But Western support for Ukraine has also been lacking in certain respects. The West has not endorsed writing off Ukrainian debt, while proposals that assets seized from the Russian central bank and blacklisted Russian oligarchs be given to Kyiv as compensation have yet to progress. It has also faced bottlenecks in terms of production and struggled with getting third countries to approve transfers, which threaten its ability to supply Kyiv with sufficient ammunition.

Western policy is effectively too reactionary and piecemeal. While it is crucial that support remains adaptive in response to evolving threats and potential new attacks, it is important to ensure it is maintained over the long term.

Over this horizon, the lack of a formal alliance between the West and Ukraine is a risk that needs to be addressed.

As the conflict has transformed into a war of attrition, Putin is now clearly hoping to wait out the West on its support for Ukraine and thus secure a victory on the battlefield in the long term.

While Western cohesion in the aftermath of the initial invasion has been among the few positive surprises, Putin recognises that the longer his war goes on, the more costly it will be for the West to finance Ukrainian defence and reconstruction efforts. He sees the war’s economic costs as potentially helping to bring to power more pliable Western leaders in the years to come.

Foremost among these is former US President Donald Trump, comfortably the odds-on favourite to be the Republican nominee again in the 2024 presidential race. He has increasingly criticised Western support for Kyiv and said that he believes he can secure a peace agreement with Putin if re-elected. Meanwhile, a former associate of his advisor Rudy Giuliani has admitted that their efforts in Ukraine sought to undermine its ability to defend itself from Russia.

Europe, too, still has its own prominent politicians who are sympathetic to Putin’s arguments. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has maintained his pro-Kremlin rhetoric, though his budgetary dependence on EU funding has reined in his urge to veto sanctions against Russia.

Other examples include Meloni’s coalition partner, Silvio Berlusconi, who is a longstanding friend of Putin’s, having visited him in Crimea after its 2014 annexation.

France’s perennial far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is also known for her soft approach to Russia. Jordan Bardella, her successor as leader of the National Rally party, has in recent weeks called for lifting energy sanctions on the Kremlin. With France’s next general election not due until 2027, the risk of a pro-Russian president coming to power may not be so pressing, but Putin sees openings elsewhere.

For example, in Slovakia, the parliament approved a snap election for September 30 after the government lost a no-confidence vote. Former Prime Minister Robert Fico, who is critical of EU sanctions on Russia and opposes sending weapons to Ukraine, stands a chance of winning the vote with his Smer-SD party and heading a coalition that may be more sympathetic to Moscow than the current one.

To preclude the risk of support for Ukraine wavering due to disunity, the West must begin to consider the long game in its own strategy. One crucial step is to conclude a formal alliance with Ukraine. If the US, the EU and UK were able to agree on such a move, it would demonstrate to Putin not only the failure of his current war strategy but also underpin long-term support.

Ukraine’s NATO and EU aspirations are, of course, in part aimed at securing just such an alliance. But while Russian forces still occupy large swaths of Ukrainian territory, membership in NATO is not a realistic prospect. Despite the approval of its EU candidacy last year, Kyiv is also a long way from joining the bloc. As Turkey and several Balkan states can attest, EU membership candidacy can be a decades-long waiting house.

That is why a separate formal alliance between the West and Ukraine is needed – one that would not inhibit the country’s EU and NATO aspirations. It does not have to offer formal security guarantees mandating Western intervention either. But it should provide a legal and enduring basis to solidify the current reality that Ukraine and the West are each other’s foremost allies.

Such an alliance could build on the precedent of the declarations on defence and security cooperation signed between the UK and Sweden and Finland last May, which preceded their NATO applications. These agreements pledge support when a member comes under attack but do not mandate direct intervention.

The past year has shown that Putin cannot win this war, but Ukraine could lose it if it is abandoned by the West. Guaranteeing enduring Western support is the only hope of forcing the Russian president to the negotiating table. Failing that, it would ensure he loses on the battlefield.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Sonu Jaiswal had shot the 90-second smartphone video showing the aircraft approaching the runway at Pokhara moments before the crash.

In India’s Ghazipur city, Sonu Jaiswal’s family is distraught and still waiting to identify his body.

“It’s a tough wait,” said Jaiswal’s brother, Deepak Jaiswal.

Sonu Jaiswal, 25, was on the Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu that plummeted into a gorge moments before it was scheduled to land in Pokhara on Sunday, killing all 72 on board.

Moments before the crash, Jaiswal was livestreaming the plane’s landing on Facebook. The 90-second smartphone video began with the aircraft approaching the runway by flying over buildings and green fields over Pokhara, a Nepalese city in the foothills of the Himalayas.

Everything looked normal as Jaiswal’s video shifted from the picturesque views seen from the plane’s window to fellow passengers who were laughing. Finally, Jaiswal, wearing a yellow sweater, turned the camera to himself and smiled.

Then it happened.

The plane suddenly appeared to veer towards its left as Jaiswal’s phone briefly captured the cries of passengers. Within seconds, the footage turned shaky and recorded the screeching sound of an engine. Towards the end of the video, huge flames and smoke took over the frame.

The news of Jaiswal’s plane crashing in Pokhara reached his home barely minutes after the accident as news channels began broadcasting images of the aircraft’s mangled wreckage, still burning and billowing thick grey smoke, his brother Deepak said.

Still, the family was not willing to trust the news, holding out hope for his survival.

By Sunday evening, however, it had become clear. Deepak, who confirmed the authenticity of Jaiswal’s livestream to The Associated Press news agency, was among the first in his family to watch the video that had since gone viral on the internet.

“We couldn’t believe the news until we saw the video,” he said. “It was painful.”

Their father, Rajendra Prasad Jaiswal, left for Kathmandu on Monday evening to receive his son’s body.

Sonu Jaiswal, a father of three children, worked at a liquor store in Alawalpur Afga village in Ghazipur, a district in the northern Uttar Pradesh state nearly 430km (270 miles) from the crash site in Nepal.

Deepak said his brother had gone to Kathmandu to visit Pashupatinath temple – a Hindu shrine dedicated to God Shiva – and pray for a son, before setting off to Pokhara for sightseeing along with three other friends.

“He was not just my brother,” Deepak said. “I have lost a friend in him.”

Sunday’s crash is part of a deadly pattern in Nepal, a country that has seen a series of air crashes over the years, in part due to difficult terrain, bad weather and ageing fleets.

The tragedy was felt deeply in the Himalayan nation, to which 53 passengers belonged.

Officials said on Wednesday there was no chance of finding any survivors of the country’s deadliest plane crash in 30 years, but workers will continue to search for the remains of the last missing passenger.

“There is no possibility of finding any survivor. We have collected 71 bodies so far. The search for the last one will continue,” Tek Bahadur KC, a top district official in Pokhara, said.

Australia defeated Tunisia 1-0 in their second World Cup match, with Mitchell Duke’s header early in the first half keeping the Socceroos’ hopes of qualification alive in the highly competitive clash.

It was Australia’s first World Cup victory in 12 years and with it, they move up to second in Group D behind reigning champions France.

Striker Duke scored midway through the first half with a glancing header past keeper Aymen Dahmen to give Australia the lead, while Tunisia’s best chance came when skipper Youssef Msakni shot just wide.

The victory, only the third for Australia in six visits to the World Cup, was the perfect response to their 4-1 drubbing at the hands of France on Tuesday.

Tunisia made clear their intentions from the start, ranging five defenders and two holding midfielders across the pitch and inviting the Australians to try to break them down.

Australia had some success getting the ball down the flanks but the final ball into the area rarely got anywhere near a blue shirt as the Tunisian defenders wrapped up the Socceroos’ forwards.

Craig Goodwin’s cross from the left looked to be heading the same way until it took a hefty deflection off a Tunisian defender and looped to Duke, who nodded it into the far right corner of the net.

The goal was the first conceded by Tunisia against any team barring Brazil in their last 11 matches and forced the Tunisians out of their defensive shell.

They brought on the squad’s top scorer, Wahbi Khazri, in the second half as they upped the tempo in search of an equaliser, but the Australian defence stood firm with goalkeeper and skipper Mat Ryan a calming presence at the back.

The victory snapped Australia’s seven-match winless run at World Cups since they last picked up three points in a victory over Serbia in 2010.