China’s great minds survived Maoist dogma to play a big part in national development
Stephen Chen 26 September 2009
An ugly rumour spread through the north China countryside in the summer of 1950, just months after the proclamation of the People’s Republic.
Farmers heard the Soviet Union was building nuclear bombs with human organs. The country’s new leader, Mao Zedong, the farmers believed, had ordered the army to collect them. The rumour sowed panic and the Communist Party had to send people to villages to explain what nuclear bombs really were.
China has come a long way in 60 years, and in no field is this more evident than science. Before the rise of Europe in the 16th century, China led the world in science and was responsible for many inventions. But the creative energy and inquisitive spirit of its people gradually gave way to complacency and narrow-mindedness. The Communist Party has been determined to put China back at the forefront of science. Instead of fearful peasants, the mainland now has a tech-savvy, scientifically literate population that is at the forefront of engineering, nanotechnology and quantum physics.
President Hu Jintao’s political mantra is “scientific development”, and under his watch the ranks of mainland scientists and engineers have grown to 45 million. More than 240 billion yuan (HK$273 billion) was spent on research and development last year.
Over the past six decades, scientists have experienced the same highs and lows as others on the mainland. Some left - part of a brain drain that started before the Communist Party took power and continues to this day. Some carried out research under enormous pressure and achieved breakthroughs at the most unlikely of times. Others swapped their lab coats for suits and occupied some of the highest offices in the land.
When the People’s Republic was founded in 1949, many Chinese scientists studying or working overseas decided to return, sharing a sense of optimism that years of national humiliation was finally at an end. Soon, however, those scientists made a discovery of particular importance - Mao’s idiosyncratic approach to the field.
In the 1950s, China eagerly followed the Soviet Union, and everything the powerful ally did was imported, copied and followed. To question the correctness of the Soviet way was to question the correctness of communism itself. Many of the returned scientists were Western-trained and had academic opinions that differed from those of the Soviet Union.
Li Ching-chun, a world famous botanist, left China in 1950 because bureaucrats asked him to take sides in a debate between US and Soviet biologists about whether genes existed. Li insisted that the US scientists were correct, and that genes did exist. For that he was stripped of his teaching posts and publicly humiliated.
Hu Huakai , a professor at the University of Science and Technology of China, recalled how in 1966, leftist leaders did not like Einstein because he lived in the United States and said Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels knew little about modern physics. Therefore his theory of relativity must be wrong, they said. Scientists were forced to publish many articles in academic journals, arguing from every impossible angle that Einstein was wrong. Almost every established branch of science was challenged.
It was little short of a miracle that Chinese scientists still achieved many breakthroughs in such an environment.
In the 1950s, geologist Li Siguang developed a new theory about how oil was formed. With his help, the government discovered several big oilfields. In 1964, China successfully tested its first nuclear bomb. A year later, researchers synthesised the world’s first insulin, which was to save the lives of many diabetics. Long-range missiles with nuclear warheads were successfully launched in 1966, followed by testing of a hydrogen bomb in 1967 and China’s first satellite launch in 1970.
As reform and opening up began in the late 1970s, politicians gave scientists a new mission: fuelling economic development.
The central government also began to recruit engineers and scientists for top positions.
Dr. Wan Gang, for example, was a researcher before becoming minister of science and technology, the first non-party member to hold cabinet office. Before leaving for Germany 15 years ago, he had spent long enough in mainland research institutes to know how hard life could be. He had starved and laboured in the countryside and the most luxurious vehicle he had driven was a tractor.
In 2000, German car giant Audi put Wan in charge of the development of several new models. Nevertheless he returned to China, where he first headed a car industry laboratory in 2001, and then a university, before becoming science minister in 2007.
Wan said the government job was difficult but that he enjoyed it. The position had given him huge power and tremendous resources to develop the new-energy sector. “It is a historic mission. I am proud to be part of it,” he said.
In the past three decades, China has built high-energy-particle colliders, commercial nuclear power plants, supercomputers and the Long March series of rockets that sent a probe to the moon and astronauts into space.
It has dammed the Yangtze River, built a bridge across Hangzhou Bay and constructed a railway across the frozen tundra into Tibet.
The approach being taken is systematic. In 2006, the central government launched 16 large scientific projects. Each would receive more than 10 billion yuan a year and talent from thousands of public and private research institutes would be involved. Their mission was straightforward: ending the technological dominance of multinational companies by 2020.
“Scientists and engineers are at the spearhead of China’s economic development,” said Mu Rongping, director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Policy and Management. “They are aiming for the heart of China’s business rivals.”
But there are concerns that innovation could be stifled if science remains at the beck and call of political bosses.
“Chinese political leaders can summon national resources for big scientific projects with one hand and bend the law of nature for their political needs with another,” said Han Qi, a professor at the academy’s Institute for the History of Natural Science.
“Mainland scientists are not good at winning Nobel prizes, but they are doing a good job making the country rich and powerful.”
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The scientific long march
China’s great minds survived Maoist dogma to play a big part in national development
Stephen Chen
26 September 2009
An ugly rumour spread through the north China countryside in the summer of 1950, just months after the proclamation of the People’s Republic.
Farmers heard the Soviet Union was building nuclear bombs with human organs. The country’s new leader, Mao Zedong, the farmers believed, had ordered the army to collect them. The rumour sowed panic and the Communist Party had to send people to villages to explain what nuclear bombs really were.
China has come a long way in 60 years, and in no field is this more evident than science. Before the rise of Europe in the 16th century, China led the world in science and was responsible for many inventions. But the creative energy and inquisitive spirit of its people gradually gave way to complacency and narrow-mindedness. The Communist Party has been determined to put China back at the forefront of science. Instead of fearful peasants, the mainland now has a tech-savvy, scientifically literate population that is at the forefront of engineering, nanotechnology and quantum physics.
President Hu Jintao’s political mantra is “scientific development”, and under his watch the ranks of mainland scientists and engineers have grown to 45 million. More than 240 billion yuan (HK$273 billion) was spent on research and development last year.
Over the past six decades, scientists have experienced the same highs and lows as others on the mainland. Some left - part of a brain drain that started before the Communist Party took power and continues to this day. Some carried out research under enormous pressure and achieved breakthroughs at the most unlikely of times. Others swapped their lab coats for suits and occupied some of the highest offices in the land.
When the People’s Republic was founded in 1949, many Chinese scientists studying or working overseas decided to return, sharing a sense of optimism that years of national humiliation was finally at an end. Soon, however, those scientists made a discovery of particular importance - Mao’s idiosyncratic approach to the field.
In the 1950s, China eagerly followed the Soviet Union, and everything the powerful ally did was imported, copied and followed. To question the correctness of the Soviet way was to question the correctness of communism itself. Many of the returned scientists were Western-trained and had academic opinions that differed from those of the Soviet Union.
Li Ching-chun, a world famous botanist, left China in 1950 because bureaucrats asked him to take sides in a debate between US and Soviet biologists about whether genes existed. Li insisted that the US scientists were correct, and that genes did exist. For that he was stripped of his teaching posts and publicly humiliated.
Hu Huakai , a professor at the University of Science and Technology of China, recalled how in 1966, leftist leaders did not like Einstein because he lived in the United States and said Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels knew little about modern physics. Therefore his theory of relativity must be wrong, they said. Scientists were forced to publish many articles in academic journals, arguing from every impossible angle that Einstein was wrong. Almost every established branch of science was challenged.
It was little short of a miracle that Chinese scientists still achieved many breakthroughs in such an environment.
In the 1950s, geologist Li Siguang developed a new theory about how oil was formed. With his help, the government discovered several big oilfields. In 1964, China successfully tested its first nuclear bomb. A year later, researchers synthesised the world’s first insulin, which was to save the lives of many diabetics. Long-range missiles with nuclear warheads were successfully launched in 1966, followed by testing of a hydrogen bomb in 1967 and China’s first satellite launch in 1970.
As reform and opening up began in the late 1970s, politicians gave scientists a new mission: fuelling economic development.
The central government also began to recruit engineers and scientists for top positions.
Dr. Wan Gang, for example, was a researcher before becoming minister of science and technology, the first non-party member to hold cabinet office. Before leaving for Germany 15 years ago, he had spent long enough in mainland research institutes to know how hard life could be. He had starved and laboured in the countryside and the most luxurious vehicle he had driven was a tractor.
In 2000, German car giant Audi put Wan in charge of the development of several new models. Nevertheless he returned to China, where he first headed a car industry laboratory in 2001, and then a university, before becoming science minister in 2007.
Wan said the government job was difficult but that he enjoyed it. The position had given him huge power and tremendous resources to develop the new-energy sector. “It is a historic mission. I am proud to be part of it,” he said.
In the past three decades, China has built high-energy-particle colliders, commercial nuclear power plants, supercomputers and the Long March series of rockets that sent a probe to the moon and astronauts into space.
It has dammed the Yangtze River, built a bridge across Hangzhou Bay and constructed a railway across the frozen tundra into Tibet.
The approach being taken is systematic. In 2006, the central government launched 16 large scientific projects. Each would receive more than 10 billion yuan a year and talent from thousands of public and private research institutes would be involved. Their mission was straightforward: ending the technological dominance of multinational companies by 2020.
“Scientists and engineers are at the spearhead of China’s economic development,” said Mu Rongping, director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Policy and Management. “They are aiming for the heart of China’s business rivals.”
But there are concerns that innovation could be stifled if science remains at the beck and call of political bosses.
“Chinese political leaders can summon national resources for big scientific projects with one hand and bend the law of nature for their political needs with another,” said Han Qi, a professor at the academy’s Institute for the History of Natural Science.
“Mainland scientists are not good at winning Nobel prizes, but they are doing a good job making the country rich and powerful.”
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