Rote learning is still the word of the day.  Creativity isn't really shunned, but it is pushed aside in the drive for test scores that increase the university's ranking and the teachers bonuses.  

The rote learning is not the disease, it is the symptom. Until the Gaokao, and other exams are changed in style then rote learning will remain.  There is enormous pressure on students to get high Gaokao scores and the Gaokao itself requires lots of memorised answers to questions, hence rote learning.

The Gaokao (and other Chinese exams) is the disease, until that is changed rote learning will remain. Until you start getting questions containing phrases such as 'in your opinion', 'why'. 'explain .... and justify your points' little will change.

My students exhibit next to no creativity in my university classes. To add to that, their Chinese teachers don't seem to be creative in any way either. I would venture to add that if a student displayed creative thought, the majority of Chinese teachers wouldn't know how to respond anyway. To them, as it has been pointed out, creativity serves almost no purpose in their school lives and certainly it has no place in there social lives. In business, money is made by copying or stealing. I actually got fed up with this crap last week and walked out on one of my classes just to shake things up.