The evolving structure of science and technology and frequent reversals of policy under the People's Republic have combined to give Chinese science a distinctive character. The variation in quality and achievements stems in part from a large and poorly educated rural populace and the somewhat limited opportunities for secondary and higher education — conditions common to all developing countries. The character of Chinese science has also reflected the concentration of resources in a few key fields and institutions, some with military applications. In more politically radical periods — such as the Great Leap Forward (1958–60) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) — efforts were made to expand the ranks of scientists and technicians by sharply reducing education and certification standards.
Historical development of science and technology policy
China's leaders have involved themselves in the formulation of science policy to a greater extent than have the leaders of most countries. Science policy also has played a significant part in the struggles between contending leaders, who often acted as patrons to different sectors of the scientific establishment. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders, not themselves scientifically trained, have traditionally taken science and scientists quite seriously, seeing them as keys to economic development and national strength. Government efforts to direct science to further the economy and generate military payoffs, however, have historically been met with repeated frustrations. The frustration in turn contributed to frequent reversals of policy and had exacerbated the inherent tension between the scientific and political elites over the goals and control of the nation's science and technology. In any economic system there are likely to be tensions and divergences of interest between managers and scientists, but in China such tensions had been extreme and had led to repeated episodes of persecution of scientists and intellectuals. Science in China had been marked by uneven development, wide variation in quality of work, high level of involvement with politics, and high degree of policy discontinuity.
In the post-Mao Zedong era, the anti-intellectual policies of the Cultural Revolution were reversed, and such top leaders as Deng Xiaoping encouraged the development of science. But China's leaders in the 1980s remained, like their predecessors over the past 100 years, interested in science primarily as a means for national strength and economic growth. The policy makers' goal was the creation of a vigorous scientific and technical establishment that operated at the level of developed countries while contributing in a fairly direct way to agriculture, industry, and defense. Since the early 1980s, major efforts to reform the scientific and technical system through a range of systemic and institutional changes were initiated in order to promote the application of scientific knowledge to the economy. As in the past 100 years, policy makers and scientists have grappled with such issues as the proportion of basic to applied research, the priorities of various fields of research, the limits of professional and academic freedom, and the best mechanisms for promoting industrial innovation and widespread assimilation of up-to-date technology.
Pre-1949 patterns
In the context of China's high yield agriculture (hence surpluses in the economy which were translated into leisure time for other pursuits) and Confucian [meritocracy] (hence a continued over-supply of the literate vis-à-vis the openings in officialdom and persistent record keeping by the premodern standards),Chang, Chung-li. The Income of the Chinese Gentry. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962.: ch. 1Deng, Gang. Development versus Stagnation: Technological Continuity and Agricultural Progress in Premodern China. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing, 1993.: Appendix 1 China became one of the hotbeds of scientific discoveries and technological development of the premodern world.Needham, Joseph, editor. Science and Civilisation in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954–2000. It is commonly agreed that China led the world in science and technology from about the tenth century to about the fifteenth century. The Chinese sciences and technologies were concentrated in several fields, mainly material production, transport, weaponry and medicine. A common feature of all Chinese discoveries was their trial-and-error basis and incremental improvement. Here, China's continued history and large population became an advantage. However, this trial-and-error approach had its developmental ceiling. And, incremental improvement faced diminishing returns.Elvin, Mark. The Pattern of the Chinese Past. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973. So, although China once led the world in scientific progress, it was unable to realize its own version of the 16th-century European "Scientific Revolution," despite that movement having documented roots in China.Hobson, J. M. The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
In the first two decades of the twentieth century an increasing number of colleges and universities were founded, and growing numbers of Chinese students were educated abroad. The Science Society of China, whose membership included most of the country's leading scientists and engineers, was founded by Chinese students at Cornell University in 1914. In 1915 it began publication in China of a major journal, Kexue (Science), which was patterned on the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1922 the Society established a major biological research laboratory in Nanjing. The Society devoted itself to the popularization of science through an active and diverse publication program, the improvement of science education, and participation in international scientific meetings.
Participants in the May Fourth Movement of 1919 advocated that science (nicknamed, "Mr. Science"), along with Democracy ("Mr. Democracy") could save China. Belief in the idea of "saving China through science" (kexue jiuguo) increased during the ROC period. Founded in 1921, the Chinese Communist Party reflected the May Fourth Movement's high regard for science, as many of its early leaders (including Chen Duxiu, its first general secretary) had been active in the movement.
The establishment of the Guomindang government at Nanjing in 1927 was followed by the creation of several government research and training institutions (see Republican China). The Academia Sinica, founded in 1928, had a dozen research institutes, whose personnel did research and advised the government. The late 1920s and early 1930s saw the establishment of many research institutes, such as the Fan Memorial Biological Institute in Beijing and the Beijing Research Laboratory, which eventually formed departments in physics, biology, pharmacology, and other fields. Most of the research institutes were characterized both by very limited funds and personnel and by productive, high-quality scientific work. By the 1930s China possessed a number of foreign-trained scientists who did research of high quality, which they published in both Chinese and foreign scientific journals. These scientists worked in the major universities or in research institutes funded by the government or foreign organizations (such as the Rockefeller Foundation) and were concentrated in Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai.
Mao Zedong viewed science as a liberating force, characterizing it as a "weapon in [humanity's] fight for freedom." His seminal essay On Practice defined "social practice" as "material production, class struggle, or scientific experiment."
In the Yan'an era, the CCP further embraced science as part of its drive for self-sufficiency and local industrialization to overcome economic blockade from the Nationalists. In 1939, the CCP Central Committee established a scientific research institute in Yan'an, which became the Yan'an Academy of Natural Sciences in 1940. In 1940, the Natural Science Research Society was founded in Yan'an; CCP leadership emphasized its importance, stating that "economic work and technical work are an indispensable part of revolutionary work."
1950s: Soviet influence
After the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, China reorganized its science establishment along Soviet lines. The Soviet approach to science and technology was highly centralized, with the Academy of Sciences if the Soviet Union and several industrial ministries, and emphasized applied science (which could be more readily applied to economic production) more than basic science.
Zhou Enlai was a major figure in developing science and technology policy in the early PRC.
The government's view of the purpose of scientific work was set forth in the September 1949 Common Program of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, which stated, "Efforts should be made to develop the natural sciences in order to serve the construction of industry, agriculture, and the national defense." The Chinese Academy of Sciences was founded in November 1949; it incorporated many scientists who had studied in Western countries or worked for institutions of the Kuomintang government (like the Academia Sinica or the Beiping Academy). In March 1951 the government directed the academy to determine the requirements of the production sector of the economy and to adjust scientific research to meet those requirements. Scientists were to engage in research with significant and fairly immediate benefits to society and to work as members of collectives rather than as individuals seeking personal fame and recognition.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences was explicitly modeled on the Soviet Academy of Sciences, whose director, Sergei I. Vavilov, was consulted on the proper way to reorganize Chinese science. His book Thirty Years of Soviet Science was translated into Chinese to serve as a guide. Soviet influence also was realized through large-scale personnel exchanges. During the 1950s China sent about 38,000 people to the Soviet Union for training and study. Most of these (28,000) were technicians from key industries, but the total cohort included 7,500 students and 2,500 college and university teachers and postgraduate scientists. The Soviet Union dispatched more than 10,000 experts to China. An estimated 850 of these worked in the scientific research sector, about 1,000 in education and public health, and the rest in heavy industry. In 1954 China and the Soviet Union set up the Joint Commission for Cooperation in Science and Technology, which met annually until 1963 and arranged cooperation on over 100 major scientific projects, including those in nuclear science. When the Chinese Academy of Sciences completed a draft twelve-year plan for scientific development in 1956, it was referred to the Soviet Academy of Sciences for review. In October 1957 a high-level delegation of Chinese scientists accompanied Mao Zedong to Moscow to negotiate an agreement for Soviet cooperation on 100 of the 582 research projects outlined in the twelve-year plan.