The German journal "Die Zeit" has published an interview (in German) with Jiangang Li, a vice director of the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science. The interview discusses China's plan for nuclear fusion and, my focus here, contains a few comments regarding China's ambitions in science.
When asked about his view on the claim that China is good in copying but bad in developing its own technologies, Li answers that "it will surely take 100 years until China will become leading in science worldwide". The interview continues (my own translation):
Zeit: "But didn't China declare the goal to become worldwide leader in 40 years?"
Li: "To be honest, I find that unrealistic."
Zeit: "What are the major problems?"
Lu: "It is not enough to have a few intelligent people. Education must reach everyone. Even though the numbers of student are increasing, only 10% to 20% of the young people make it to university. Already today, China has a excellent top executives. But this level of education is not reached by most people."
...
Zeit: "What is the major difference between the science world in China and Europe?"
Li: "I think that politics in Germany is often a bit slow, because consensus has to be reached in all questions before decisions are taken. In China, if the government decides that a research project should begin, then it can start within one month. That is an advantage of our system."
I find Li's "insider" comments interesting, as they confirm my impression regarding the current state of education and level of science. It opens up a with questions, too: what does leader in science mean? The output of papers? I'm rather sure that China will rather quickly become number one in publishing, especially regarding the enormous amount of conferences that take place in China every year. These conferences, often bearing the IEEE logo and indexed by the important indexes, have important sounding names, but are absolutely worthless regarding the scientific quality. I've been to one, it was rather depressing and eye opening experience.
I find it also interesting that at least in these few sentences Li finds it more important to increase the number of students than changing the way they are educated (which I find more pressing).
And regarding his last point, the major difference between science in China and Europe being the speed with which decisions are taken, well, if there is the will, then Germany can take quick and intransparent decisions too, as seen with the financial crises, where even today a substantial amount of information is not available to the public...
