I actually don't think I'm very qualified based on my own personal set of values to believe that this sort of parenting is ineffective. The reason why is because I agree that these sorts of harsh methods are actually effective at getting kids (and people in general) to perform better at whatever the task at hand may be. I just question why it's necessary. Medicine is not the only career where financial success is a guarantee. There's also the issue as to whether financial success can even be called success. I've had my fair share of Chinese Mother figures, so it's not like I'm completely in the dark as to what experiencing life in a household like this is. The difference is that the only time when I feel it's appropriate to act like this is when the student (and I mostly think this applies to teaching situations) asks for it. Being harsh as fuck when it comes to getting a kid (or otherwise) to learn something well is the best method of teaching short of just being really good at getting kids to understand what it is you're trying to teach. No, it's not very humane, but it works. Once you thoroughly beat any interest the kid has in learning something out of him, though, there is absolutely no reason to continue. Parenting, unfortunately, isn't an opt-out job. And since parents (although they think they might) don't know what their kids want any more than their kids themselves, I don't believe they have the right to force their kids down a certain learning pathway and be total dicks about it. This notion applies especially well to religion from my perspective, although for many of the more conservative religions folk that's far too hard to accept (especially since their kids are damned for all eternity if they don't love Jesus or whatever), so that entire aspect of "Chinese parenting" isn't exclusively Chinese.
However, I do respect the idea of wanting your kids to be financial successful. Money is certainly capable of buying happiness. It's just that I think choosing the career for your kid while he's still in the womb grossly overreaches the boundaries of a parent in their kids life. Parents are there to imbue you with the obvious lessons like "get an education and work hard all the way through life" and that should really be enough. Choosing what activities your kids are and are not allowed to do on the sole basis of whether it's a distraction is downright harmful because it denies kids their ability to pursue something they are passionate about. Saying your kid will become a doctor will more often than not be translated by a kid as "you're not allowed to love music or art or psychology or philosophy or literature etc." because, honestly, not that many people want to go into medicine. And for god's sake, it still isn't the only field where financial success is a guarantee. I'm going into freaking chemical engineering. That's the third highest-paying college degree in the US right now. Am I passionate about engineering? Not particularly, but the financial perks, as I said, are awesome. On top of that I'm pretty good at math and science (more so than the more subjective/creative areas of study). It's something that right now I feel benefit me the most, and I know myself better than my parents do. Every kid knows themselves better than their parents. Psychologists believe that parents don't even play that large of a role in the development of their kids anymore. Which is an even larger argument against controlling every aspect of your kids life.
I'll reiterate, though: parents do reserve the right to teach their kids to be successful. And they reserve the right to drill that harder than anything. But what is success? I think it's happiness. Parents don't fucking know how to make their kids happy. People don't know how to make themselves happy. Money can buy happiness but only a little. Passion is the main source of happiness, and a parent can never give their kids passion. Passion is something that has to be discovered - granted, sometimes the same passions get passed down through generations, but more of that might have to do with genetics and the same general upbringing endowing kids with the same creative gifts as their parents. (Yes, I consider creative fields to be the ones to be passionate about, due to my own shortage of empathy - I don't understand how people share passion for things like accounting...) Myself? I've found myself lately seeking to become two things: an environmentalist and a teacher. I don't mean these things so much in the professional sense of the word, but, regardless of how I define them, neither of these general "states of being" (for lack of better words) are known for being a great opportunity to make money. My parents certainly taught me to strive for success, but did they do that by limiting my academic options to "only the absolute best" and my extracurricular activities to "violin or piano only"? Fuck no. I guarantee my parents would have readily supported an education in music had I chosen to do that instead (and I'm under the impression that this was an option, even though I honestly never considered it very strongly). My parents didn't force me to sacrifice anything for the sake of a grade. Does this mean that I'm successful? I'm certainly not happy, so I wouldn't say that I am very successful. But I think Amy Chua would be able to say I'm only a moderate failure as a child, which is the highest of compliments for someone of my comparatively low intelligence. And I didn't have to sacrifice any part of who I was or actually wanted to be to get there. Not that I'm "there" yet, but you get the picture.
Yeah, it's racist. Bite me.
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