Science in China

Science : According to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s publication Main Science and Technology Indicators 2008, China’s $87 billion R&D expenditure in 2006, in purchasing power parity dollars, was higher than all countries except the United States and Japan, and only the United States has more researchers--1,387,882 compared with China’s 1,223,756. Officials with China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) like to point out that China is now second only to the United States in the number of publications in international journals.But in many ways, China punches below its weight in science.Physicist and former president of Chinese Academy of Sciences Zhou Guangzhao says in China, “success is often scored by quantity rather than quality.” For that reason, Zhou contends, most Chinese scientists are content to follow well-trodden paths and churn out routine papers rather than strive for fundamental breakthroughs. Deference to status also makes it difficult for junior researchers to challenge academicians or science mandarins. That wasn’t so in the 1950s and 1960s, when Zhou was working on China’s atomic bomb project; then, he says, scientists treated one another as equals and worked collectively toward the goal of strengthening China. These days, many scientists say, there is greater freedom in society, but a market economy has made private interests the driving force of science, supplanting the idealism that inspired earlier generations of researchers.