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The Organisation and Development of Science*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Extract

When China's Communists came to power in 1949, they began to outline ambitious plans to thrust China into the company of modern, industrial and scientifically advanced countries. They were not prepared with blueprints for the task which fell to them, for national responsibilities came sooner than they had anticipated. Their appraisal of what steps were required, what priorities to assign, the best allocation of resources at hand and to be developed, and the national goals which might be realistically achieved, took time to determine. After an initial period of consolidation and consideration, they set their course of development in the First and Second Five-Year Plans. These were intended to bring about the modernisation of the world's most populous nation at the fastest possible pace in ways which would not jeopardise the state's political control and ideological commitments.

Type
Science in Communist China
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1961

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References

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7 These are crude projections from figures on college graduates presented in Chung-kuo Chiao-yü Nien-chien (Chinese Yearbook of Education) (Shanghai: 1948)Google Scholar. Anderson Shin, Director of Union Research Institute, Kong, Hong, in “The Comparative Status of Science and Education between Communist China and USSR” (paper read at the Third International Sovietological Conference, 09 18–24, 1960, Lake Kawaguchi, Japan), p. 11Google Scholar, estimates that some 20,000 scientists and technicians were scattered over China in 1949.

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19 Ibid. p. 29. The purposes of this organisation are thus described: “The activities of the Association are directed toward the workers, peasants and soldiers, and its aims are: (1) to enable the labouring people to master a scientific knowledge of production so as to give full play to their powers in national economic construction; (2) to explain all natural phenomena from the materialistic viewpoint so as to get rid of superstitious notions; (3) to extol OUT accomplishments in scientific technique and the inventions resulting from the creative efforts of the labouring people so as to promote the people's patriotic spirit; and (4) to popularise medical and health knowledge so as to safeguard the people's state of health.”

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22 Russian advisers, about a dozen in number, introduced an additional organisational level in the Academy by grouping the research institutes within four, kter five, departments. The Academy adopted Soviet administrative practices, probably includ ing accounting and reporting procedures and systems of internal communications. It followed Russian advice in the consolidation and redistribution of research projects, and, in principle, accepted the Russian reward and status system of Academicians.

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58 This figure, subject to radical revision, is arrived at as follows: 862 names on the 1950 roster of natural scientists, less 174 abroad, equals 688; 200 completed training or were up-graded through further training in the Soviet Union by 1960; 150 completed training or were further trained to post-graduate levels in China; probably less than 100 returned to China after 1949 from the United States, Europe and Japan with post-graduate degrees at the doctoral level in the natural sciences: gross total, 1,338. From this should be subtracted losses through death, those inactivated for political unreliability, retirement and ill-health, and those involved in other activities, such as politics, administration, etc.

59 See “Chemistry Department of Northwest University and Sian Chemistry Research Institute Join Efforts in Scientific Research,” Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 12 23, 1959Google Scholar, in Union Research Service (hereafter URS), Vol. 19, No. 12, pp. 174176.Google Scholar

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65 Peking Radio, 09 26, 1956.Google Scholar

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79 Research was developed under the Academy of Medical Sciences at the Research Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion, with six sections, and at the same time hospital and health organisations throughout the country launched research programmes. Scientific work in agriculture had been centred in three national and fifteen provincial research institutes, but suddenly in 1958 agricultural research, according to reports, was metamorphosed and throughout China research teams and institutes were at work: 157 at the provincial level, 190 in chuan or ch'ü, 771 in hsien or county and 7,690 in communes. Jen-min Jih-pao, 04 12, 1960Google Scholar; Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 12 25, 1960.Google Scholar

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89 While no list of the members of the Academy Council has been found, its Standing Committee probably includes the President, Vice President and Secretaries of the Academy.

90 This was discussed by Yü Kuang-yuan at the Eighth Party Congress, Peking Radio, 10 9, 1956.Google Scholar

91 See Appendix for “Regulations on the Organisation of the Departments of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.”

92 Jung-chen, Nieh, Jen-min Jih-pao, 09 27, 1959Google Scholar, in CB 608, p. 9Google Scholar; Hung Ch'i, No. 9, 10 1, 1958Google Scholar, in URS, Vol. 13, No. 19, pp. 283, 286Google Scholar. Many Chinese Communist statements and writings seem to have an underlying feeling or fear that time is running out and speed is important.

93 Hung Ch'i, No. 9, 10 1, 1958Google Scholar, in URS, Vol. 13, No. 19, p. 295.Google Scholar

94 Ibid. pp. 284, 285.

95 Ibid. p. 287.

96 Jen-min Jih-pao, 05 24, 1957, in CB 460.Google Scholar

97 The reported science budget of the Soviet Union for 1961 is $4.44 billion (4 billion new roubles at the official rate of exchange of $1.11 to the rouble), or 5 per cent, of the total budget—reported in the New York Times, 12 21, 1960.Google Scholar

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102 Reported in the New York Times, 12 26, 1960.Google Scholar

103 Kuo Mo-jo to the NPC, Jen-min Jih-pao, in CB 467, p. 12.Google Scholar

104 Ibid.

105 Ibid., p. 13; Jen-min Jih-pao, 05 27, 1957Google Scholar, in CB 460, p. 10.Google Scholar

106 “Ch'ang Chin-fu Maps Scientific Tasks,” NCNA, 06 6, 1960Google Scholar, in CB 622, p. 33.Google Scholar