This weekend in Shanghai, I met Zhou Libo, China’s most popular stand-up comedian and, among other things, a judge on China’s Got Talent, which has just concluded its first season (the winner was a man who plays the piano with his toes).

Mr Zhou is the closest China has to a Jon Stewart, a comedian who draws his material from topical issues such as the rapid rise in house prices. He also does imitations of China’s political leaders, including Wen Jiabao, the premier.

On my visit to China with a group of journalists, I today visited Beijing Middle School 101 – a school at which 4,000 students up to the age of 18 prepare for university. It was a remarkable insight into the achievements and aspirations of China’s new generation.

I had expected to find intelligent and highly-motivated students, but what was more surprising was how immaculately many of the group of 30 students we met spoke English, and their thoughtful and open comments on Chinese society.

Here are a few things they said, first on China’s one-child policy:

“Being a single child is lonely sometimes. My parents are out and there is no-one home. There is no-one you can tell your heart to, so it really hurts.”

“I try to work hard to repay my parents. My dad is not so pushy with me. When I fail a test, my mother is not angry but she is sad.”

“Our grandparents keep saying that the past was different, that children born in the 1980s and 1990s lack the sense of responsibility for society and we do not strive hard enough. We do not have siblings so we don’t understand how to share and how to tolerate people. It is going to be tough but we will learn to share.”

On China’s economic development:

“I don’t think China is a rich country. A lot of people in China are still hungry, so how can we say it is a rich country? China is still a developing country so we need more time to to better. I think our national leaders are outstanding and they are trying to improve the situation.”

“There is a lack of spiritual belief. Sometimes I feel disheartened that materialism prevails. People chase after money and fame but it should not be the only thing that people live for. We need to develop in health and education and human rights. We need to find a creed to live for.”

On the most sensitive subject – human rights in China – the students appeared to share the official hostility toward the award of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese dissident, but one quoted Martin Luther King in saying that reform was needed more broadly:

“People suffer because they give their opinion on sensitive issues and they go to jail for that so may I quote Dr King: ‘No we are no satisfied.’”

The Beijing 101 students are not typical of all Chinese teenagers – they are mostly the sons and daughters of doctors, lawyers and officials from the Chinese elite. Many of them have either been abroad already or want to study abroad in future.

Still it was a salutary experience to meet such well-informed and articulate (even in their second language) students of a rising economic power.

I am in China this week and, on my first full day in Beijing, took a trip to the Great Wall at Mutianyu. While there, I saw the following customer service declaration on the cable car. It made this visitor happy: