China's S&T Strategy: A Work in Progress

By Peter K. MacKinnon

From an economic perspective China is the world's workshop. Massive social, political, and economic transformations have occurred over the past three decades to allow that to have happened. For many in the West it seems like yesterday that China was in the throws of the Cultural Revolution — the lost decade. In its wake, Deng Xiaoping, the new leader, quietly and subtly initiated an era of reform that began in the late 1970s that continues today.

Since the 3rd Plenum of the 11th Party Congress in 1978, science and technology have been given an increasingly higher priority as a means to strengthen and modernize internally and gain prestige internationally. The drivers of the program have been the recognition of S&T as a source and backbone for sustaining and enhancing economic development, as a precursor of inventions and new technologies, and as a cradle for channeling and focusing scientific and technical talent. It is China's goal to be among the top 10 S&T nations by 2010.

From humble beginnings at the low end of the product value-chain, China has steadily risen to become a state-of-the art producer and manufacturer of a vast array of products from high-end consumer goods to advanced manufacturing components. Yet China strives to become much more in terms of meeting both domestic needs and addressing foreign markets. S&T are seen as critical to those aspirations.

China's S&T development programs can be viewed in three tiers. The first and second address programs aimed at tackling major S&T needs for short- to medium-term economic development. Examples include the Spark Program for rural development and the National Program for S&T for Sustainable Development. They are designed to renovate China's agriculture and traditional industries and to improve labour performance.

The second tier is aimed at developing emerging technologies and high-tech industries. Initiatives include the National High-Technology Research and Development Program— also known as the 863 Program — and the Torch Program. The latter has been instrumental in creating high-tech zones within the Special Economic Zones introduced in 1979. Collectively, these zones have been successful in attracting joint ventures, foreign companies that undertake R&D, as well as significant levels of foreign investment and technical know-how.

The third tier focuses on basic and applied research as they apply to long-term economic development and basic scientific discovery. The National Basic Research Priorities Program, also known as the 973 Program, is a key third-tier thrust. Its objective is to mobilize China's scientific talents in conducting research on major scientific issues in agriculture, energy, information, resources and environment, population and health, materials, and related areas.

A common characteristic of all the preceding S&T reforms, strategies, and programs is an attempt to catch up to the West. China previously depended upon technology transfer and imitation, but now pursues strategies based on technological cooperation in selected areas and on indigenous research and technological development. Concurrently, China is moving toward strengthening its basic R&D capabilities and enhancing its S&T talent pool.

China's current S&T policy requires that available resources be concentrated on developing selected high technologies deemed to be key to the nation's economic advancement. The national priorities are information technology, biotechnology and advanced agriculture, advanced materials, advanced manufacturing and automation, energy, and resources and the environment.

The notion of government choosing directions and thrusts has its parallels in many countries including Canada. For example, the 863 Program and its continuous renewal since its launch in 1986 has been a tour-de-force in providing the link between applied research and technological advancement. Despite varying degrees of quality, as in many other nations, China's output of research articles has expanded dramatically in terms of sheer numbers of peer reviewed research papers.

Until relatively recently, modern forms of innovation have been absent from China's centrally planned, command and control-based economy. But since the launch of the Reform Era in 1978, central planning has shifted from reforming micro-operational mechanisms to reforming allocation of resources, through to establishing a ‘socialist market economy' based on that transformation. At the same time, China has extended and shifted the S&T decision-making power of government-owned research institutions to a market-based system of competition among institutions. This has resulted in a formal effort to democratize S&T as a foundation for future national development.

Despite China's position as the world's fourth largest economy by GDP, it is still a developing country. This is reflected in the generally poorly equipped and mixed quality of researchers and educators within its universities, institutes, colleges and state laboratories. Still, there are many regional and world-class facilities scattered around China concentrated in its highly industrialized and densely populated eastern regions.

Since the launch of the 863 Program, the central government has shifted from managing R&D projects to making policies and strategies for S&T and providing service and demonstration expertise. For example, tax policy has been one of the key levers used to promote S&T innovation.

As a result of the openness arising from the Reform Era, hundreds of thousands of Chinese have had the opportunity to study abroad. While running the risk of creating a serious "brain drain", this policy, perhaps more than any other, has provided China with long-term tangible and intangible benefits. It also has allowed China to regain ground lost before and during the Cultural Revolution, helping to train a new generation of scientists and engineers. At the same time, the ever increasing number of China's best and brightest, studying and working abroad, has infused the international scientific community with new, young talent while enhancing global R&D collaboration.

The shaping of China's S&T policies and programs is beginning to pose a dilemma for Chinese officials over whether to leap ahead technologically or to follow a more incremental, absorptive strategy of S&T development. One can only expect to see even more policy thrusts in S&T emanating from the next Party Congress in the autumn of 2007.

Peter MacKinnon is a principal of Synergy Technology Management. synergytm@ca.inter.net