I think it's safe to say that Chinese schools teach their kids to pass exams, and pass them very well. Whether or not they actually learn anything is another question. But an educated guess would be : not very much useful stuff at all. The problem is how the material is framed, it's not that it isn't useful or even important, it's that the purpose of learning is to pass exams.
You're right, Google and self learning is probably the best. It's just that the Chinese believe that they should steer their kids forcibly on what to learn and at what rate.
Creativity was never an agenda, and that's a serious problem too.