Photo: Snapshot of Douyin

A video featuring a group of children in China playing a cooperative basketball dribbling exercise has gone viral on Twitter, igniting heated discussion about education in the country. 

The 10-second-long video shows children at a kindergarten standing in a large circle, with each child dribbling two balls at the same time. Every few seconds the children simultaneously move to their right all the while not missing a beat in continuing to dribble the balls. 

The video gained an eye-catching 34 million views on Twitter and 566,000 likes. 

The video first went online after a Chinese mother posted it Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, to show her daughter's kindergarten life. The video has earned more than 2.6 million likes on Douyin. It later was re-posted by a Twitter account called "Shanghai Panda."

Many Chinese Douyin users highly complimented the teacher for teaching the children how to tackle such a challenging activity. 

However, some Twitter users including an account claiming to be a British Education Institute named "The Core" reposted the video, calling it an example of "brainwashing" and mentioned the game is like "left-wing indoctrination".

Interestingly, many other netizens refuted The Core's comment, saying the game is beneficial to kids' health and ability to cooperate. 

"To me it says exercise, fresh air, team work, coordination, hard work, trust, self-control, personal responsibility, & yes, that hated word, discipline. Each child has superb control & responsibility for their own ball but knows exactly when to let go, working together as one," one US netizen commented in a post that gained 17 likes, the most likes in the thread.

"I think there are some quite good things about the Chinese style of education especially the growth model of intelligence, encouraging hard work," another netizen based in the UK wrote. 

This is not the first time that some foreign accounts or media have attacked Chinese education and culture.

US media Voice of America once misrepresented Chinese internet celebrity Li Ziqi, a vlogger with 12 million followers on YouTube who shares videos about Chinese culture, as being part of the Chinese government's publicity arm. 

Several Chinese experts in education believe that some foreign media or public accounts maliciously misinterpret Chinese culture and education, aiming to vilify Chinese education and maintain the educational sovereignty of their own countries.

Ran Naiyan, vice director of the Beijing Care Youth Education Association, told the Global Times on Wednesday that similar spiteful comments show that these accounts have too little knowledge about China and that they fear China's growing strength in the world.

"We have our limits, but we need to refute them based on facts," said Ran.

Chu Zhaohui, a research fellow at China's National Institute of Education Sciences, echoed Ran's opinion, adding that he believes that these posts are from individuals and do not necessarily reflect an entire country. 

Chu said that it is not proper for public accounts like "The Core" to post opinions that are too subjective, adding that sources lik Li Ziqi, who only share traditional Chinese culture without giving her opinions on the subject are far more suitable.