The U.S. May Be Overstating China’s Technological Prowess

Johanna M. Costigan & Jeffrey Ding
China’s technological prowess is frequently invoked by U.S. policymakers hoping to get votes, attention, or enough bipartisan support to pass a bill. Competition with China was a central motivating factor in federal legislation like the CHIPS and...

Excerpts

09.06.22

The American-Trained Rocket Scientist Who Shaped China’s Surveillance System

Josh Chin & Liza Lin
The role Qian Xuesen would play in propelling China into a technological and ideological clash with the United States seems almost fated in retrospect. Born in Hangzhou in 1911, the year China’s last dynasty crumbled, Qian had traveled to the United...

Viewpoint

04.08.22

Closing the U.S. to Chinese Biotech Would Do Far More Harm Than Good

Scott Moore & Abigail Coplin
Biotechnology intrinsically blurs boundaries between science and commerce, market and state, the global and the national, and even personal privacy and collective interest. Progress depends more heavily in biotech than in other high-tech industries...

Books

03.24.20

Vernacular Industrialism in China

Eugenia Lean
Columbia University Press: In early 20th-century China, Chen Diexian (1879-1940) was a maverick entrepreneur—at once a prolific man of letters, captain of industry, magazine editor, and cosmetics magnate. He tinkered with chemistry in his private studio, used local cuttlefish to source magnesium carbonate, and published manufacturing tips in how-to columns. In a rapidly changing society, Chen copied foreign technologies and translated manufacturing processes from abroad to produce adaptations of global commodities that bested foreign brands. Engaging in the worlds of journalism, industry, and commerce, he drew on literati practices associated with late-imperial elites but deployed them in novel ways within a culture of educated tinkering that generated industrial innovation.Through the lens of Chen’s career, Eugenia Lean explores how unlikely individuals devised unconventional, homegrown approaches to industry and science in early 20th-century China. She contends that Chen’s activities exemplify “vernacular industrialism,” the pursuit of industry and science outside of conventional venues, often involving ad hoc forms of knowledge and material work. Lean shows how vernacular industrialists accessed worldwide circuits of law and science and experimented with local and global processes of manufacturing to navigate, innovate, and compete in global capitalism. In doing so, they presaged the approach that has helped fuel China’s economic ascent in the 21st century. Rather than conventional narratives that depict China as belatedly borrowing from Western technology, Vernacular Industrialism in China offers a new understanding of industrialization, going beyond material factors to show the central role of culture and knowledge production in technological and industrial change.{chop}
12.17.19

Modification to Our ‘Field of Work’ Categorization Scheme

As we do periodically, we recently updated our categorization scheme for foreign NGOs’ fields of work in China. We added “Science” to the “Technology” category to yield the new label “Science and Technology.”

Conversation

01.11.19

With China on the Moon

Yangyang Cheng, Geremie R. Barmé & more
On January 2, China made history by successfully landing a vehicle on the far side of the moon. What does that milestone mean for China, the United States, and the future of space exploration?

Conversation

11.27.18

How to Be a Chinese Scientist without Being China’s Scientist

Yangyang Cheng, Yu He & more
As trade tensions between the United States and China worsen, a new technological cold war looms, casting its shadow over American universities and research institutions. How should individual scientists of Chinese origin decide whether to accept a...

Viewpoint

10.05.18

Banning Chinese Students is Not in the U.S. National Interest

Chang Chiu & Thomas Kellogg
President Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire to radically revamp America’s immigration policies. Indeed, his family separation policies, which sparked nationwide protests and public revulsion after they were rolled out in May 2018, were...

Stephen Hawking: China’s Love for the Late Physicist

Tessa Wong
BBC
As the world mourns Prof Stephen Hawking, who has died aged 76, there has been a particular outpouring of emotion in China, where the visionary physicist was revered by scientists, students, the state and even boy band stars.

China Spends $279 bln on R&D in 2017: Science Minister

Reuters Staff
Reuters
China’s total spending on research and development is estimated to have hit 1.76 trillion yuan ($279 billion) last year, China’s science minister said on Monday, a year-on-year increase of 14 percent.

China’s Caves Are Hiding Plants That Exist Nowhere Else in the World

Amanda Erickson
Washington Post
At first glance, a cave doesn’t seem the likeliest home for exotically lush flora. It’s dark, damp and dingy, more likely to host sparkly stalagmites than bristly bushes.

China Wants to Make a Mark in Space—but It’ll Need a Little Help

Sarah Scoles
Wired
In a China Global Television Network video from 2003, taikonaut Yang Liwei leans back in his orbital capsule, the overstuffed stripes of his spacesuit legs filling the frame. His helmet shield is up, so the viewer can gaze into his eyes as he speaks...

China Is Placing Underwater Sensors in the Pacific near Guam

Anthony Kuhn
NPR
China’s official People’s Daily newspaper reported in December that Chinese scientists had lowered acoustic sensors into the Mariana Trench, at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Philippines’ Duterte Reneges on China Deal, Bans Foreign Research Ships

Manuel Mogato
Reuters
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has banned all foreign scientific research off the country’s Pacific coast and told the navy to chase away unauthorised vessels, despite earlier allowing Chinese oceanographers to operate there.

Yes, They’ve Cloned Monkeys in China. That Doesn’t Mean You’re Next.

Gina Kolata
New York Times
Researchers in China reported on Wednesday that they have created two cloned monkeys, the first time that primates have been cloned with the technique that produced Dolly the sheep more than 20 years ago.

Scientists Discovered an Ancient Flying Reptile Eden in China

Quartz
Scientists have unearthed a massive trove of fossilized eggs and remains in China—giving us a peek into the life and death of a giant flying creature that lived tens of millions of years ago.

China Suddenly Has Way More of the World's Most Powerful Computers Than the US

Echo Huang
Quartz
China has surpassed the US by a record margin—nearly 60—to become the nation with the most supercomputers, according to the latest Top 500 survey,

Viewpoint

11.03.17

The Future of Particle Physics Will Live and Die in China

Yangyang Cheng from Foreign Policy
“Don’t you dare kill my project.”My phone interview with a senior official at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) had started with bland, yet polite, responses. But it took a sharp turn toward audible agitation and hostility as I raised my final...

China Seeks Dominance of Global AI Industry

Louise Lucas
Financial Times
While the National Science Foundation in the US has no increase in funding this year, China has promised to “vigorously use governmental and social capital” to dominate the industry.

Conversation

02.16.17

Can China Become a Leader of Innovation?

Jost Wübbeke, Yu Zhou & more
China’s ambitious high-tech strategy is raising alarm in industrialized nations. From American and South Korean chipmakers to German car and machine manufacturers, some industry leaders expect the imminent arrival of strong Chinese competitors. Does...

After 1,000 Year Slumber, China Vows to Invent Again

Eva Dou
Wall Street Journal
Beijing spends billions on moonshot projects, hoping to shake off its reputation as a copycat economy and curb dependence on foreign powers

China Space Program: Two Astronauts Return to Earth After Monthlong Tiangong-2 Stay

Avaneesh Pandey
International Business Times
The astronauts spent 30 days in the space lab, where they carried out medical and scientific experiments, and tested the complex’s habitability

How China’s Government Helps —and Hinders— Innovation

Anil Gupta and Haiyan Wang
Harvard Business Review
Given its ideological leanings, China presents itself as a unique experiment in the power of the state to help the economy become more innovative

China’s Most Powerful Rocket Lifts Off from Island Launch Center

Stephen Chen
South China Morning Post
Analysts say development of Long March CZ-5 is crucial to success of nation’s future space program, including mission to Mars

China Launches Longest Manned Space Mission

Ben Blanchard and John Rutwitch
Reuters
China sent two astronauts into orbit to spend a month aboard a space laboratory--the plan is to have a permanent manned space station in service around 2022

Space Tourism: Chinese Company Says It’s Designing World’s Biggest Spaceplane

Avaneesh Pandey
International Business Times
The state-backed China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology is building a spaceplane that can fly up to 20 people to the edge of space

China Grapples With HIV Cases Among Gay Men, but Stigma Runs Deep

Fanfan Wang
Wall Street Journal
Surge in infections worries health authorities and prompts soul-searching in a conservative society

China Hunts for Scientific Glory, and Aliens, with New Telescope

New York Times
The new telescope is twice as sensitive as the world’s next-biggest single-dish radio telescope

Geneticist Defends His Groundbreaking Technique

Shan Juan
China Daily
Peer scientists ‘gang up on’ NgAgo and its tenability....

The Heritage of a Great Man

Freeman Dyson from New York Review of Books
Why did communism grow deep roots and survive in China, while it withered and died in Russia? This is one of the central questions of modern history. A plausible answer to the question is that communism in China resonated with the two-thousand-year-...

Sinica Podcast

02.22.16

Allegiance

Kaiser Kuo & Jeremy Goldkorn from Sinica Podcast
Kaiser and Jeremy recorded today’s show from New York, where they waylaid Holly Chang, founder of Project Pengyou and now Acting Executive Director of the Committee of 100, for a discussion on spying, stealing commercial spying, spying, and Broadway...

China Issues Rules Banning Dishonesty In Science Publishing

Associated Press
Chinese regulators overseeing the field of academic publishing for scientific articles have issued rules explicitly banning dishonest practices.

China Building World's Biggest Animal Cloning Factory

CBS News
The world's biggest animal cloning center is scheduled to open in the Chinese port city of Tianjin next year.

Luis Ho Pushes China Into World Astronomy Club

New York Times
Luis Ho, 48, is the director of the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics and a professor at Peking University in Beijing.

Ancient Teeth Found in China Challenge Modern Human Migration Theory

Georgia McCafferty and Shen Lu
CNN
Scientists in southern China have discovered human teeth dating back at least 80,000 years.

Media

10.07.15

An International Victory, Forged in China’s Tumultuous Past

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian
On October 5, a share of this year’s Nobel Prize in medicine went to 84-year-old Chinese pharmacologist Tu Youyou for her discovery, decades ago, of the anti-malarial drug artemisinin. Tu and her team made the discovery during the Cultural...

Youyou Tu: How Mao’s Challenge to Malaria Pioneer Led to Nobel Prize

Tom Phillips
Guardian
Tasked in 1969 with finding a cure for malaria, China’s first laureate in medicine looked to nature and traditional medicine.

Biggest Ever Winged Dinosaur is Found in China

Ian Sample
Guardian
An ancient feathered creature dug up in northeastern China is the largest winged dinosaur ever found, researchers say.

A Scientific Ethical Divide Between China and West

Didi Kirsten Tatlow
New York Times
Experts worry that medical researchers in China are stepping over ethical boundaries.

In China, ‘Breaking Bad’ is Real

Wall Street Journal
Chinese police have arrested a Chinese college chemistry professor for joining forces with a drug kingpin.

China Shocks World by Genetically Engineering Human Embryos

Sarah Knapton
Telegraph
Critics warn China's the ‘Wild West’ of genetic research, on its way to desiging children. 

Caixin Media

02.09.15

In China, Quantum Communications Comes of Age

This may be a quantum leap year for an initiative that accelerates data transfers close to the speed of light with no hacking threats through so-called quantum communications technology.Within months, China plans to open the world's longest...

In Pictures: Designed in China

BBC
The Guo Shoujing Telescope, or Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope, is named after the 13th Century Chinese astronomer and is aimed at bringing Chinese astronomy into the 21st Century.

China’s Air Pollution Leading to More Erratic Climate for US, Say Scientists

Jonathan Kaiman
Guardian
Computer modelling shows intensification of U.S.-bound Pacific storms, driven by fine aerosols from coal power plants and traffic.

Features

02.14.14

It’s Hard to Say ‘I Love You’ in Chinese

Roseann Lake
“We didn’t say ‘I love you,’” said Dr. Kaiping Peng, Associate Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley. I’d ventured over to his China office on the campus of Beijing’s mighty Tsinghua University to talk to him...

Conversation

05.16.13

China: What’s Going Right?

Michael Zhao, James Fallows & more
Michael Zhao:On a recent trip to China, meeting mostly with former colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, I got a dose of optimism and hope for one aspect of the motherland. In terms of science, or laying down a solid foundation for better...

Xu Liangying, 92, Scientist and Advocate, Dies

Chris Buckley
New York Times
“Superstition is the great enemy of truth,” Xu told a Chinese magazine, Caijing, last year. “We must use science and democracy to eradicate modern superstitions of every kind, to eradicate superstitions that are born of loyalty.”

The Passions of Joseph Needham

Jonathan D. Spence from New York Review of Books
It is now a little over four hundred years since a scattering of Westerners first began to try to learn the Chinese language. Across that long span, the number of scholars studying Chinese has grown, but their responses to the challenges of Chinese...