Are the Chinese only good at copying?

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Abc123
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Are the Chinese only good at copying?

Post by Abc123 »

Interesting overview on the state of Scientific research in China.

China’s great leap forward in science

https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... m-internet


The economic rise of China has been accompanied by a waxing of its scientific prowess. In January, the United States National Science Foundation reported that the number of scientific publications from China in 2016 outnumbered those from the US for the first time: 426,000 versus 409,000. Sceptics might say that it’s about quality, not quantity. But the patronising old idea that China, like the rest of east Asia, can imitate but not innovate is certainly false now. In several scientific fields, China is starting to set the pace for others to follow. On my tour of Chinese labs in 1992, only those I saw at the flagship Peking University looked comparable to what you might find at a good university in the west. Today the resources available to China’s top scientists are enviable to many of their western counterparts. Whereas once the best Chinese scientists would pack their bags for greener pastures abroad, today it’s common for Chinese postdoctoral researchers to get experience in a leading lab in the west and then head home where the Chinese government will help them set up a lab that will eclipse their western competitors.

There is always a certain fraction of talented, innovative people. China has the advantage of having lots of people
Many have been lured back by the Thousand Talents Plan, in which scientists aged under 55 (whether Chinese citizens or not) are given full-time positions at prestigious universities and institutes, with larger than normal salaries and resources. “Deng Xiaoping sent many Chinese students and scholars out of China to developed countries 30 to 40 years ago, and now it is time for them to come back,” says George Fu Gao of the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing – who himself gained a PhD at Oxford before studying at Harvard.

“The startup packages for researchers in good universities in China can be significantly higher than Hong Kong universities can offer,” says Che Ting Chan, a physicist at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology in what was previously China’s affluent and westernised neighbour. “They provide more lab space and can help settle the spouse.” That, he notes ruefully, “makes recruiting young faculty staff increasingly challenging here.” Other well-off east Asian countries, such as Singapore and South Korea, are feeling the competition too.

The Chinese authorities are pursuing scientific dominance with systematic resolve. The annual expenditure on research and development in China increased from 1995 to 2013 by a factor of more than 30, and reached $234bn in 2016. The number of international publications coming out of China has remained in step with this rise. “Money is plentiful to certain Chinese researchers, possibly more so than to their competitors, especially if it means gaining an edge,” says stem-cell biologist Robin Lovell-Badge of the Francis Crick Institute in London.

Continued
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