@XenoAshura - the presumably do have something along those lines, as organised modern societies now are wont to, but A) this is a deeply corrupt, mismanaged totalitarian police state we're talking about B) such authorities are more likely than not drinking much the same Kool-Aid C) there's a pretty nasty lowkey Social Darwinist, elitist-classist undercurrent encoded in the whole Confucian sociocultural value system, in modern times only exacerbated by the PRC's turn to barely-veiled predatory capitalism since the Eighties. (Similar issues are
mutatis mutandis also noticeable in Korea and Japan, presumably Taiwan too, and in usually less structured forms common enough wherever status and income disparities are great and not persistently and systematically worked against.)
The principal's brazenly naked rigging of the Tai Chi competition - presumably aimed to curry favor with the families of the "elite" students and make his school look better in reports to superiors - rather illustrates the point. If you're "undesirable" people of one sort or another
the authorities are not on your side and could care less about what the fig happens to you; indeed they'll quite happily trample you into the mud for their own gain and to promote the "right sorts."
The parallels to the abusive neglect Qi Lin gets from her parents are not coincidental in the least.