Access
This article is part of Nature's premium content.
Published online 23 July 2008 | Nature 454, 382-383 (2008) | doi:10.1038/454382a
News Feature
China: The great contender
China's performance has been remarkable in any number of fields. Declan Butler charts the country's scientific and economic growth.
In the Olympics of scientific and technological performance, China has surged forward from the pack trailing at the back to overtake many of the long-standing pacesetters. Its impetus is such that it is surely only a matter of time before the country secures a place on the podium.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Comments
Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking 'Report this comment' (or, if that doesn't work for you, email redesign@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published.
Many aspects of evidence show that the research in science and technology has achieved a rapid progress in the last decade years. It's very encouraging and many and more overseas choose to return to their motherland, in contrast to several years ago. I am sure that China will play an important, if not a dominant, role in world's economy, science and technology, and many other issues, though it needs a tough effort to achieve this.
Like any Communist country China superficially gives an alluring picture of development. However, by means of a careful and deep analysis it becomes clearly evident that wide cracks exist in this system. To this day no totalitarian country has been successful in fully utilizing her or his potential and surely China is no exception. While China like most Communist countries has excelled in sports, her health standards in general still provide a gloomy picture. As is well known that in most Communist countries for the glory of the State talented children are removed from their parents and made to specialize in a particular sport. The children thus lose their childhood, though in the process the State does generate medals. Although the State in reality is backward. This success in obtaining medals is then utilized as a propaganda ploy by the concerned State. In general except for some islands of prosperity, that too mainly amongst the Communist Party members and other privileged people, in general the people in China suffer from uniform poverty. Moreover, since a lot of developmental data on China is exaggerated (for obtaining political mileage), thus it is dangerous to use this data as a reliable indicator of development. In addition while the Nobel Prizes are no criterion (as there is a lot of politics involved in this Prize) for the status of science in a particular nation, nevertheless, quite a few Nobel Laureates are very good. As anticipated, to this day no Chinese from the Chinese soil has won a Nobel Prize. It must be taken into consideration that the Chinese population is approximately 1.3 billion! Dr. Upinder Fotadar
But, many think that China in fact was the first scientific & technological hegemon before any country in human's history. As we all know, ancient Chinese they had obtained numerous scientific & technological achievements, such as: the paper-making technology, the printing technology, paper-made books, (these 3 were the very key steps in human's inheritance & spread of tradition, education and knowlege), newspaper, ...; the gunpowder, bomb, cannon, elementary rocket (including multistage rocket), fire lance, flamethrower, horse collar (these are the bases of modern weapons and key inventions in human's military); the compass (key invention for western navigation & colonization period), rudder; paper money, copper coin (Shang Dynasty), check (Song Dynasty), banknote (Song Dynasty), brand (Song Dynasty), credit banking (bases for morden finance and economy); Chain drive, kite, crank handle, crossbow, fork, heavy ploughs, pound lock, (key invention in mechanics); Land mine, naval mine, use of Chromium (Qin Dynasty), cast iron, blast furnace, Bessemer process (Song Dynasty the 11th century), use of coke as fuel, Cupola furnace, ..., (key inventions in human's industrial history) Planting of rice (Hemudu Culture 5000 BC, & even earlier - Tianluoshan Culture 7000 BC, also current Hybrid Rice by Wof Prize recipient YUAN Longping), silk, tea, wine (7000 BC)... Porcelain (china), restaurant menu,... ... ...
Undoubtedly, China is an ancient civilization, however, there are other comparable civilizations in that region namely, India, Iran and a few others. However, what has the past of China to with the present China, which is in general backward, totalitarian and brutal. While the past could be used as a springboard for the future, however, countries can not survive and surely will not prosper only because they had a glorious past. Dr. Upinder Fotadar
I don’t want to talk about ancient China. I think Bert Hussanel from above already listed enough. I would just like to ask Dr. Upinder Fotadar a few questions. 1) Have you ever visited China before? If yes, good! When? If you visited any city in China 10 years ago, this means you have to go there again. I believe most of Chinese who left China ten years ago will not be able to find their way home easily. 2) How did you learn something about China? If you were trained in science or used to be a research scientist, please be a scientist again. That is to say- to observe the facts, to see the problems, to tell the truthâ€. ---WB---
I do understand your sentiments. However, no objective and honest person will refer to Communist China as a democracy! Yes like many parts of the world there have been segments of development in China, however, China in totality still presents itself as a backward State. When indeed China becomes prosperous, people from all over the world will flock to China and not mainly to Europe or America as is the case now. In my opinion to unleash her potential, China should be a democracy. Dr. Upinder Fotadar
As a researcher who has collaborators in both China and India, I have to say, with all due respect, Dr. Fotadar's comments does not do the fairness to China's progrerss. In the past ten years, I spent about a month each year in India and two months in China to work with scientists there. I traveled extensively in both countries. At least from what I saw, China is light years ahead in infrastructure, health, eduction, and of course sports. I worked as volunteer in the poorest regions in both countries. To my surprise, the illiteracy rate for India in such regions is as high as 70%; but in China, I barely met any person younger than 40 who can't read. The government has an official illiteracy rate of 4%, which I think very true. As far as the infrastruture is concerned, mega highways, bridges, high speed trains rivaling those of Japan and US are being built in China thousands miles each year, but such things are practically non-existent in India. In China, every basketball court and soccer field is packed with young people after school, and the general population have a life expectancy 7 years longer than that of India. Every year I went back to China, it amazed me how much it had changed in the last 12 months. It's very easy to get a visiting visa to China and the streets of big cities are full of people like me. If they try to hide anything, I would have to say they didn't try hard.
I fully appreciate the views of Dr. James Mobley on India and China. We both are lucky to belong to democratic countries, therefore we can express our views freely. I doubt whether Dr. Mobley would be able to express his views freely in Communist China, particularly on issues such as human rights, freedom of speech, etc. China is a tightly controlled, brutal, totalitarian system and in my opinion her future like all such societies (if our past experience serves as a concrete indicator) is gloomy. I doubt China will emerge as an exception to this rule. It is tricky to compare the development of India and and China as India is an open system and China a closed one. Moreover, one is not still allowed to move feely in many areas of China. Therefore, most development data on Communist China must be thoroughly analyzed before being accepted as credible. As is well known that totalitarian states more often have a sophisticated propaganda machinery. By the way India has the largest railway system on the globe and this system is pure indigenous and also effective. While China is known to import locomotives and railway systems from abroad. Nothing wrong with that, though surely you can not give credit to China for this. Also it must be mentioned that the magnetic levitation railway (Maglev), was built for the Chinese by the Germans. I am informed this system has problems in China as the Chinese have difficulty in absorbing such technologies. Dr. Upinder Fotadar
Sorry for the error in my last letter. The sentence should read, "By the way India has the largest railway system on the globe and this system is purely indigenous and also effective". Dr. Upinder fotadar
Sorry for the grammatical error in my last letter. The sentence should read, "By the way India has the largest railway system on the globe and this system is purely indigenous, and also effective". Dr. Upinder Fotadar
I seriously doubt Dr. Fotadar has made any decent observation on the system of China which he labeled as totalitarian,tightly controlled,closed and brutal. As a native Chinese, I have to agree with Dr. Fotadar on totalitarian and non-democracy(in western style). Tightly controlled? How tight? Maybe not so much as you fancied. It is true that the system has been trying hard to control. But please always bear in mind that the nation has more than 1.3 billion people. Are you really so naive to believe any system would have lasting success in controling 1.3 billion minds? It looks to me it might be his/her own eyes that were closed when Dr.Fotadar claimed China is now a closed sytem. May I remind Dr.Fotadar of the last sentence of the 5th paragraph of the above article? I wonder how such a great number of Chinese students managed to get out of that "closed and tightly controlled" system. By refering China as a brutal sytem, Dr.Fotadar might be right. But, I dont find this system to be more brutal than any other system in human history. The existence of communist system in China is only less than 60 years. Even in such a short period the system itself has evolved tremendously and there are strong forces from whithin driving this evolution. As to the outcome of the evolution, only time will tell. p.s. One last point whereupon I agree with Dr.Fotadar: to unleash her potential, China should be a democracy.