C&EN London

China has ambitious plans to become a major player in the world of science and technology by the middle of the next century. Streamlining its science and higher education systems, increasing competition for research funding, and attracting the country's brightest young talents into science and technology are key elements in its strategy to achieve this aim.

Speaking at a conference in Beijing recently, Chinese President Jiang Zemin said that China needs to nurture a large number of young scientists and engineers to help modernize the country through the development of science and technology. Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji added that the revitalization of the country through the use of science and technology was his government's prime task. Jiang and Zhu both appealed to the country's scientists and engineers to assist in this task.

At the same conference, which combined academic congresses of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, CAS President Lu Yongxiang appealed for faster reforms in the science sector. Lu said that China expects to become a strong power in science and technology by 2050.

Entrance to Peking University in Beijing, one of China's premier universities.

[Photos by Michael Freemantle]

But the country will need to overcome formidable problems to achieve this aim. "In the future, what will matter in China is how well the government can handle the necessary increase in numbers of students, its increase in R&D spending, and its brain drain to the U.S. and other Western countries," observes Lukas Haeussling, who heads Germany-based BASF's East Asia Scientific Liaison Office in Shanghai. "Most important are the current changes to state-funded research institutes. These are being set free and are now on their own in competing for funds to support their activities. They used to be associated with a specific industry through funding from the parent ministry--for example, the Ministry of Chemical Industry."

Sidebar: Fund supports Sino-German cooperation in chemistry R&D

Current reforms in China stem from policy decisions taken by the Chinese government during the past 20 years, according to CAS academician Youqi Tang, who is a past president of the Chinese Chemical Society (CCS). The new era began in 1978, a couple of years after the removal of the Gang of Four from power, he explains. The Gang of Four, which included Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong's wife Jiang Qing, exerted tremendous influence on the running of the country in the years preceding Mao's death in 1976. His death signaled the end of 10 years of turmoil that had begun with the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966.

Tang

Sidebar: Cultural revolution resulted in generation gap

In 1978, China started to abandon its centrally planned economy and initiated a process of market-oriented reforms. China's leader at the time, Deng Xiaoping, proposed that "scientific and technological work must take the lead" in developing the country's economy. Deng also launched his famous "open door policy" which, among other things, allowed Chinese scientists to travel abroad and foreign scientists to visit China.

"Many Chinese people think Deng Xiaoping saved the country from the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution," says Min-Bo Chen, deputy secretary general of CCS and a physical chemistry professor at Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC). "You cannot imagine the situation before 20 years ago. Educational activity stopped during the Cultural Revolution. Nobody agreed with that policy."

Min-Bo Chen

Chen points out that there was no higher-education system in China from 1966 to 1972. "The system was resumed in 1972, but only in a very primitive form," he says.

In 1985, the central government decided to reform the science and technology system, notes Shan-Tung Tu, vice president of Nanjing University of Chemical Technology. Research institutes and universities were granted more freedom and independence in their research activities but in return were no longer expected to rely on the government as the only source of funding for research.

"Before 1985, we did not have to worry about budgets or funding," explains Xi Fu, president of CCS and a professor of polymer chemistry at the CAS Institute of Chemistry in Beijing. "After 1985, the situation changed quickly. We had to find money for our research and part of our salaries."

The most well-known funding body for scientific research projects in China is the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), which is similar to the U.S.'s National Science Foundation. "Researchers in both universities and research institutes can apply for grants from NSFC," points out Jiesheng Chen, a chemistry professor at Jilin University, in Changchun. "In 1997, the foundation awarded around $80 million in total to research projects, of which more than $3.5 million was allocated to chemistry projects.

"NSFC was established in 1986," Jiesheng Chen continues. "Since 1991, the annual growth of the funding has averaged about 25%. This is much higher than the annual GDP [gross domestic product] growth rate, which has averaged about 10% over the same period."

Other state-funded programs include the "National Climbing Plan," which focuses on basic research, and the "863 Plan," which is applications-oriented, according to Jiesheng Chen. "There are also various foundations at the local government level, but the amounts of the funds vary enormously from province to province."

Statue of Mao Zedong greets people who pass through the entrance of Fudan University in Shanghai

Grants for chemistry research projects are mainly used for purchasing chemicals, instruments, and equipment. A portion of the grant is also deducted by the university or institute to pay for overhead costs, such as electricity and water.

"Normally there is no need to pay the salaries of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, because their living expenses are paid by the government," points out Jiesheng Chen. "However, institutes deduct money from the grants to help pay the salaries of researchers on the staff. This is because the financial support from government is not sufficient to pay for the salaries of staff members. In universities, researchers also teach, so they receive salaries for teaching. Some researchers also occasionally receive funds from industry."

NSFC provides most of the grants for basic research in China, but competition for them is fierce. The success rate is about 20%. "The amount of each grant is still low in comparison with that in developed countries," comments Jiesheng Chen. "For example, a chemist with a so-called freely applied NSFC grant in 1997 has about $12,000 to spend over three years. After the necessary deductions, he or she can hardly afford even a trip abroad to attend an international conference."

State funding for scientific research is also channeled through national bodies such as CAS. At present, 123 research institutes in China belong to the academy, of which 15 are devoted to chemistry.

CAS evaluates each of its institutes every year, according to Changpei Fei, deputy director of the CAS Institute of Chemistry. "The level of our CAS funding depends on this evaluation," he says. "The numbers of research papers published in Chinese and foreign journals, books, citations, awards and prizes, grants from different sources, and patents are all considered in this evaluation process."

Fei

A policy recently initiated by CAS President Lu aims to boost the quality of CAS research by focusing funding on selected institutes. According to Lu, the plan is to reduce the number of CAS research institutes from 123 to 80 by the beginning of 2000.

At the same time, CAS is attempting to attract fresh blood into its institutes through its "hundred young scientists project." CAS has recently increased the project to allow 600 talented young scientists to work with CAS researchers over a period of three years. CAS is also increasing the number of visiting researchers and scholars from 15,000 to 30,000 over the same period.

The news is not so good for all the scientists on the permanent staff of CAS institutes, however. To strengthen competition, CAS will cut their numbers from the present level of more than 60,000 to around 30,000 within the next 12 years. Those remaining will be employed on a contract basis.

The cutbacks continue an ongoing trend. "Over the past five years, CAS has reduced its total staff from 80,000 to 60,000," Fei tells C&EN.

Fei points out that the total staff at the Institute of Chemistry three years ago was 840. "We now have a staff of 640, of whom 400 are researchers," he says. "Around half of these are involved in pure research in chemistry, and the other half in applied research. We have around 200 technicians."

The institute was founded in 1956 and is one of the oldest sponsored by CAS. Its 18 laboratories cover all branches of chemistry and occupy 10 buildings.

The total income for the institute in 1997 was about $5.4 million, of which only $840,000 came from the government through CAS. "We have to earn more than 80% of our income by ourselves," says Xi. "We obtain this funding from industry, including foreign companies, and from foundations such as NSFC."

Over the past decade, a number of research laboratories and analytical centers have been set up in China with World Bank credit and other funding sources to carry out research that can contribute to the industrial development of the country.

"Since 1987, about 150 'state key laboratories' have been established all over the country," says Jiesheng Chen. "Most of them are affiliated with universities and national research institutes. There are also a number of key laboratories belonging to ministries, but the level of investment of the central government in these laboratories is much less substantial than that in the state key laboratories."

One of the laboratories is the State Key Laboratory of Engineering Plastics (SKLEP) at CAS's Institute of Chemistry. SKLEP's director, Jiasong He, points out that the laboratory was established in 1991 with a World Bank loan. "In 1987, the World Bank launched a 'key studies development project' worth $120 million to support selected key laboratories in China," He notes. "About $20 million of this was allocated to CAS. SKLEP was one of the successful CAS candidates."

He

Apart from the World Bank loan, SKLEP also receives financial support from a variety of other sources, including various state ministries and commissions and NSFC. During the period 1991-96, the total amount of funding for the laboratory was about $700,000, according to He.

Most of SKLEP's laboratory space is devoted to specific projects focusing on the development of high-performance polymer alloys and composites. SKLEP also has a wide variety of modern instrumentation, such as a Fourier-transform pulsed nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer, scanning and transmission electron microscopes, a photoelectron spectrometer, and a thermogravimetric analyzer interfaced with a Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer.

A young scientist describes his research at the Youth Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Chemistry in Beijing.

Similarly well equipped is the State Key Laboratory of Rare-Earth Materials Chemistry & Applications in the department of chemistry of Peking University. Rare-earth minerals are an important resource in China and their chemistry has been a favored area of study in the country for many decades, points out Lemin Li, the laboratory's director and a Peking University chemistry professor.

The laboratory's research activities are wide-ranging. They include, for example, the design, synthesis, and characterization of rare-earth coordination compounds and the study of how relativistic effects influence the properties of rare-earth compounds.

At Tsinghua University in Beijing, the State Key Laboratory of C₁ Chemistry & Technology is devoted to "the development of highly effective catalysts and new technology for converting C₁ compounds such as CO, CO₂, and CH₄ into useful chemicals and clean fuels," according to the laboratory's director, Zhu Qiming. Current major projects include the synthesis of oxygenates from synthesis gas, the catalytic conversion of methanol and other alcohols, and the conversion and controlled oxidation of methane.

The university also operates the tribochemistry division of a state key laboratory devoted to tribology, the science and technology of surface interactions such as friction, lubrication, and wear. Research embraces topics such as the correlation between the structures of lubrication films and their antifriction and antiwear properties.

Other research activities at the university's chemistry department are carried out in the bioorganic phosphorus chemistry laboratory, a state key laboratory of China's Ministry of Education and the Beijing Tsinghua Engineering Research Center of Liquid Crystal Technology.

The department also runs Beijing Tsinghua Liquid Crystal Material Co. Since its establishment in March 1989, the company has synthesized more than 60 liquid-crystal compounds and developed five series of twisted nematic liquid-crystal mixtures.

The Analysis Center of Tsinghua University, established in 1972, was the first center for instrumental analysis in a Chinese university. The center offers undergraduate and graduate courses in analytical chemistry and training in analytical techniques. It provides not only sample analysis for researchers at the university, but also analytical services on a commercial basis for customers outside the campus.

"The total value of our equipment is about $3 million," says the center's director, Raman spectroscopy specialist Jian-Yuan Yu. Much of it was bought with World Bank credit and help from foreign industry, he points out. The center also carries out research projects on the microanalysis of surface structure, analysis of trace elements, and other analytical areas.

In Shanghai, the State Key Laboratory for Bioorganic Chemistry is one of three laboratories at SIOC. "This is one of the best chemistry institutes in China," claims SIOC Director Guo-qiang Lin. "It is very international. We receive about 300 overseas visitors on average each year." Visitors have included several Nobel Laureates, such as Purdue University emeritus professor Herbert C. Brown, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1979 for his work on boron compounds.

Lin

The institute has an impressive array of modern analytical instruments, including eight NMR instruments and five mass spectrometers. SIOC professor Min-Bo Chen points out, for example, that the state key laboratory has the first 600-MHz NMR instrument installed in China.

Apart from the state key laboratory, SIOC has two CAS laboratories, one focusing on organometallic chemistry and the other on computer chemistry. It also has a state center for chemical analysis.

SIOC was founded in 1950. It now has 800 staffers, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students. The number of graduate students at SIOC has grown dramatically in recent years. "Between 1978 and 1997, we had a total of 211 Ph.D. students and 370 master's students," explains Lin. "Since 1994, we have been taking about 40 graduates for our master's program and about 25 Ph.D. students each year."

Facilities to support their research include a well-stocked library, which boasts a complete set of Chemical Abstracts starting from volume 1, number 1, in 1907. "The library is open seven days a week, from 8 AM to 10 PM," Lin says.

SIOC publishes three journals on behalf of CCS. It also has an impressive glassware workshop. "We make all the glassware we need ourselves," says Lin. "Our aim is to save every penny. We even make our own NMR tubes. Some of our glassware is exported to countries such as Canada and the U.S."

SIOC also owns a factory, the Research Center of Organic Synthetic Engineering, which manufactures polymers and fine chemicals, according to Lin. Total sales in 1997 were worth $7 million, compared with $3.5 million the previous year. By the end of this year, Lin estimates that total annual sales should reach $12 million. The institute has also engaged in a number of technology transfers and joint-venture deals with pharmaceutical companies.

The institute receives ample funding, according to Min-Bo Chen. "The sources of funding include NSFC, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science & Technology, and CAS. Most of the government funding, from the ministries, is for fundamental research," he says.

China is the most populated country in the world. Its population of 1.24 billion is greater than the combined populations of the world's second and third most populous countries--India and the U.S.--which have populations of 963 million and 267 million.

China also has one of the world's fastest growing economies. During the past decade, its economy has grown on average about 10% per year, although the rate of growth is now slowing. China set a target of 8% GDP growth for this year, but in the first six months achieved only 7% annualized growth.

Economic growth in China is higher in urban areas, however. For example, in China's commercial capital, Shanghai, an nualized economic growth was 9.4% during the first six months of this year.

Yet despite this impressive economic growth, there is, as in other developing countries, a stark contrast between the grinding poverty of most of the population and the relative wealth of a minority. The disparity is reflected in income differences. In 1996, for example, city dwellers earned on average $590 per year compared with $234 for those in rural areas. When the World Bank's purchasing-power-parity (PPP) ratio is applied to these incomes, they equate approximately to $2,600 per annum for urban areas and $1,030 for rural areas. The richest 5 million families in the country receive annual incomes of more than $6,000 a year, or $26,400 when the PPP ratio is applied.

China is largely an agricultural country, although about 30% of its people now live in cities and towns. About 70% of Chinese citizens are farmers. This compares with 80% in 1978 when Deng introduced economic reforms.

Unemployment is an increasing problem. As many as 15 million urban workers in China are jobless--equal to 7.5% of the urban workforce and more than double last year's level. Government economists say another 15 million of the almost 70 million employees in China's state enterprises may have to be laid off. The government has reduced the number of its employees by more than 3.5 million during the past 12 months. And tens of millions of the country's 120 million peasants who are unemployed are migrating into cities to find work.

In 1995, in an attempt to bolster the economy further and improve the living standards of its people, the Chinese government introduced a policy of "revitalizing the country through science and education." The policy is regarded as central to the country's development. The aim is to "speed up the development of science and technology" by increased investment, particularly in market-oriented research.

"The government will be responsible for investing in basic scientific research, whereas industry is expected to invest in applied research and the development of technology," says Nanjing University's Tu. Industry, which currently provides 30% of investment in R&D, is expected to increase the provision to 50%, Tu adds.

This year, the government plans to increase spending on science by 13%, and it has a program to pump $300 million or so into basic research over the next five years. The overall target for 2000 is to raise R&D investment to 1.5% of GDP.

"China only spent about 0.5% of its GDP on R&D each year over the past three years," observes Jiesheng Chen. "And although the central government promised to increase the percentage to 1.5 by early next century, scientists are not optimistic because the percentage has been declining recently."

Data published last year by China's State Science & Technology Commission reveal that R&D institutions accounted for 41.1% of national R&D expenditures in 1996. Private enterprises accounted for 36.8%, higher education for 13.0%, and a sector labeled "others" accounted for 9.0%.

In developed countries such as Germany, Japan, and the U.S., private enterprises account for 65 to 75% of national R&D expenditures. In these countries, the higher education and R&D institution sectors each account for 10 to 20% of the total.

"The balance in China is too much on the institutional side," says BASF's Haeussling. "China needs to decrease the proportion of R&D expenditure by R&D institutions and increase the expenditure by industrial enterprises."

Part of the problem is that industry in China is reluctant to invest in R&D, and many academic researchers are averse to market-oriented research. "There are a large number of chemists and chemical engineers in China," notes Jiesheng Chen. "The chemists are mainly in universities and research institutes, and the engineers mainly in factories, companies, and other industrial units.

"Like in Western countries, there has been a debate in China on the balance between basic research and application-oriented research," Jiesheng Chen adds. "Some researchers, especially scientists, want to emphasize basic research, but officials in the government are inclined to invest more in application-oriented research programs. Chemists in academia therefore feel under pressure to link their research to applications because this type of research project is more likely to get funded than a pure basic research project."

According to Tu, many scientists in China are keen to move into the private sector because of the funding shortages in the other sectors. "Enterprises, however, are somewhat hesitant to accept scientists," he says. "Many state-owned enterprises lack motivation to sponsor research projects or technical innovation that may require investment risk. We therefore believe that ownership reform should be speeded up."

Ownership reform is already moving at a fast pace. One recent survey shows that China now has more than 50,000 nongovernment science enterprises. Shanghai alone has around 7,000 private science and technology enterprises. Overall, science and technology contributed 41% of Shanghai's economic growth last year, up from 38% in 1996.

"A number of high-technology zones have been set up all over the country and investment in these zones is highly encouraged, provided that the products are market oriented," notes Jiesheng Chen.

China has 53 state-level industrial parks of science and technology. These parks currently house over 16,500 technology-intensive enterprises. More than 60% of Chinese universities are working on collaborative projects with these enterprises. The Ministry of Science & Technology recently decided to open four of these parks to foreign companies. These parks are located in Beijing; Suzhou in eastern Jiangsu Province; Hefei, the capital of Anhui Province; and Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi Province.

As part of its revitalization process, the Chinese government is also streamlining its own administration. In March, the National People's Congress, the highest legislative body in China, approved reforms that cut 11 of the 40 state ministries and commissions that constitute the State Council. This council, which is led by Premier Zhu, is responsible for implementing the decisions of the Chinese Communist Party's Politburo.

"Before March, there were too many ministries from industry," says CAS academician Tang. "For example, there were eight separate ministries for machinery, each with a vote in the State Council."

As a result, industry had far too big a voice in the council, comments Tang. Furthermore, each decision in a factory had to be approved by the ministry. The process was highly bureaucratic. "Now, decision-making is being pushed down to companies in order to cut the level of bureaucracy," he says.

In this reorganization, the Ministry of Chemical Industry will be merged with two government-run petroleum companies and become the National Bureau of Petroleum & Chemical Industry (C&EN, March 16, page 9). The ministry is currently responsible for five research institutes of chemical industry, two research institutes of chemicals, and the Central Research Institute of Science & Technology in Beijing. It is also responsible for two universities of chemical technology, one in Beijing and the other in Nanjing.

The reorganization will create a number of superministries, including a ministry responsible for telecommunications, electronics, and the broadcast media. The plan will involve substantial downsizing. About 4 million government bureaucrats are likely to lose their jobs. In addition, many teachers, researchers, and other state employees are likely to be cut. At the ministerial level, about 100 jobs are expected to go.

The reorganization includes the conversion of the State Science & Technology Commission, which was responsible for science and technology policy, into the Ministry of Science & Technology. The head of the ministry, polymer chemist Zhu Lilan, made history last month when she became only the second minister from Beijing to set foot in Taiwan since the founding of the People's Republic of China there in 1949.

Zhu led a 14-member delegation that attended a seminar in Taipei that focused on cooperation and exchanges in science and technology across the Taiwan Strait. She attended the seminar in her capacity as a professor at Peking University rather than as a government minister.

On her nine-day visit, she said that mainland China had a lot to learn from Taiwan's market-oriented strategy of technological innovation. She added that exchanges with Taiwan should be strengthened in the 21st century.

China has a compulsory education system that requires children to attend a primary school for six years and a junior secondary school for three years. Students can then attend an ordinary secondary school for three years to bring them up to university entrance standards. Alternatively, they can attend vocational and specialized schools for two to four years. These schools train students for employment. Technicians and technical workers in the chemical industry are trained at specialized secondary and vocational schools.

"There are about 20 million students in each year at school in the whole of China," according to Hua Tongwen, a professor of inorganic chemistry at Peking University. "However, about 2 million in each year do not go to school."

These nonattenders tend to live in the countryside or in mountainous regions where there is a low level of economic development. "Their parents cannot provide support for children to go to school," she adds.

"There are about 100,000 ordinary secondary schools in China with 60 million students and about 200,000 chemistry teachers," according to Hua. China also has 1,054 universities and colleges with 3 million students and 400,000 teachers, of which about 20,000 are chemistry teachers. More than 300 of the universities and colleges teach chemistry. In addition, more than 1,000 adult higher education institutes all over China enroll a total of 2 million students. One-eighth of them study chemistry, Hua says.

Every year, about 3 million senior secondary school graduates apply for admission to colleges and universities, but only about 30% are successful, notes Hua. She adds that selection is based on an assessment of moral integrity carried out by the applicant's school, physical fitness checked by a designated hospital, and scholastic aptitude tested by a national entrance examination.

"Chinese universities enroll about 1 million freshmen each year," says Peking University's Li. At his university, about 10% of the roughly 2,000 freshmen choose chemistry, he notes.

A chemistry undergraduate student typically studies for four years to obtain a B.S. degree, another three years for an M.S. degree, and a further three years for a Ph.D. degree. The system has been in operation only for the past 20 years. "The first degrees were awarded in 1981 to students who had enrolled in 1978," says CAS academician Tang.

Yiliang Sun, deputy secretary general of CCS and a chemistry professor at Pe king University, points out that formal degrees were not awarded before the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. "There were only undergraduates and graduates," he says. "The undergraduate course at Peking University took six years. At other universities it was four or five years. On graduation, students were assigned lifetime jobs."

According to SIOC's Min-Bo Chen, before 1966, the whole graduate program was different from the Western system. "You can find many Chinese professors who had undergraduate and graduate training, but who do not have degrees," he says.

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China's universities and colleges are affiliated with state ministries or local provincial governments. For example, 36 universities and colleges are affiliated with the Ministry of Education, which until the recent government reorganization was the State Education Commission. The Ministry of Education's responsibilities include university research.

"The Ministry of Education is the highest authority in charge of state education affairs," Tu points out. "Under it, there are education departments of specific ministries and provincial education commissions. However, from an administrative aspect, universities may be under the leadership of the Ministry of Education, under the direct leadership of specific ministries, or under the local government.

"This means that the funding sources are different," he continues. "As the reorganization of the government goes further, we will probably end up with two kinds of universities--the national universities and the provincial or city universities."

Tu explains that the funding of universities by ministries or local governments is determined by student numbers. But the level of support varies from ministry to ministry and from local government to local government.

Some universities are poor because the ministries that finance them cannot provide sufficient funding, comments Tu. "Universities are therefore setting up their own companies to raise extra money," he says.

As an example, he cites the 1997 budget of Nanjing University of Chemical Technology. The Ministry of Chemical Industry provided one-third of the budget. Research funding, split equally between government research funding and funds from industry, accounted for another third of the budget. The remaining third was raised by a company set up by the university and from tuition fees.

"The whole education system is being reformed," observes Zhong-Xian Huang, a chemistry professor at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Huang

The reforms include Ministry of Education plans to merge some universities. The aim is to optimize resources. For example, the ministry is preparing to integrate four major universities in East China's Zhejiang Province. The integration will result in the largest university in China. The new Zhejiang University will comprise the existing Zhejiang University, Hangzhou University, Zhejiang Agricultural University, and Zhejiang University of Medical Sciences. The four universities currently have a total of 46,000 undergraduates, nearly 5,000 graduate students, and some 10,000 teaching and administrative staff members.

The government also has selected about 100 universities for special support under the so-called 211 program. Jilin University's Jiesheng Chen explains that the program, which started last year, aims to ensure that China will have about 100 top-class universities as the country enters the 21st century.

Fudan University is one of the universities designated for support. Huang points out that the university will receive about $48 million over five years under the 211 program. Half of this will be provided by the national government and half by the Shanghai municipal government.

"Out of the $48 million, the chemistry department will receive about $840,000 over five years," Huang continues. "The money cannot be used for staff salaries or student grants, but only for hardware."

Fudan University is generally regarded as one of the top universities in China. "The university is third in importance and prestige after Peking University and Tsinghua University," says Fan Kangnian, chairman of Fudan University's chemistry department.

"We have 90 faculty members in the chemistry department," he continues. "We receive funding from the Ministry of Education. For research we have NSFC grants, funding from various ministries, and also funding from various Chinese and international companies. We have also received money from a World Bank loan for equipment."

The university, which was founded in 1905, has more than 10,000 undergraduate students and almost 4,000 graduate students. Its chemistry program started in 1926. Fan points out that the chemistry department has about 520 undergraduates, 80 M.S. candidates, and 50 Ph.D. candidates.

Bing-Yun Sun, 24, who graduated with a B.S. degree from Fudan last year, is a typical chemistry student. She is working for a master's degree under Huang.

Sun was born in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, and between 1981 and 1993 she attended primary and then middle schools attached to Xi'an Institute of Technology. At 18, after passing her school examinations, she took the national exam to enter a university.

Her tuition and accommodation--a room she shares with three other female students--are free. For books and living expenses, she receives a grant from the university amounting to around $37 per month. But she does not have a part-time job to supplement her income. "I do not need to," she says.

Bing-Yun Sun

Sun seems happy with the way things are and optimistic about the future. "The situation here is much better than it was 10 years ago," she tells C&EN. "The schools and universities are better equipped and there is more cultural interchange between East and West.

"We have a free job market and the prospect is good for young scientists in China, especially those who speak English," she adds.

And like other students in China, she hopes to travel one day. "I would like to go to Sydney, Hawaii, or Ireland," she says.

"When Deng Xiaoping introduced reforms in 1978, he encouraged people to learn science and technology from the Western world," notes SIOC's Min-Bo Chen. "Most staff have experience of the Western world. This is one of the main reasons for improvements in China over recent years."

Although this East-West cross-fertilization of scientific expertise has benefited China in many ways, it has also resulted in a serious problem--a brain drain. Many of the country's brightest scientists not only have gone away, but also have stayed away, thus depriving China of much-needed expertise in science and technology.

"Nowadays at least 50% of chemistry graduates with a B.S. receive grants from the U.S., Japan, and Europe to go abroad," says CAS academician Tang. "They can go freely. The reason is that we cannot pay them enough in China and there are not enough opportunities. Over the last 10 years, the problem has become more and more serious. The other 50% of our graduates tend to take jobs with commercial enterprises."

The internal drain to commerce has become particularly noticeable in the past year or so. "During a recent trip to Shenzhen and Guangzhou, I witnessed a new phenomenon, the brain drain to commercial enterprises," notes BASF's Haeussling. "This deprives a lot of the institutes in this area of some of the brightest students and some of the most promising young researchers."

Tang points out that a Ph.D. with two or three years postdoctoral experience earns between $120 and $160 per month in China. "In commerce, these chemists can earn three times as much," he says. "Even a top professor at a university earns only around $220 per month, although those who are CAS members earn an extra $85 per month."

The external brain drain is especially noticeable in the major research institutes such as CAS's Institute of Chemistry in Beijing. "Out of 28 graduate students who received a Ph.D. in 1997 at the Institute of Chemistry, 22 went abroad, mostly to the U.S.," says CCS President Xi, a professor of polymer chemistry at the institute.

Xi

According to Jiesheng Chen, all of the sciences are losing talent. "The government has a number of favorable policies to attract excellent Chinese scientists from abroad, and indeed quite a large number of scientists have come back to join their colleagues in China." he says.

"However, young graduates still prefer to study and work abroad. Most of them go to America, Europe, and Japan. And in recent years, universities in Hong Kong and Singapore have also attracted a lot of young chemists. The problem for chemistry is that excellent graduates are leaving and the profession is short of high-quality chemists, especially at the Ph.D. and postdoctoral levels."

Although salaries for top scientists in China are low by Western standards, they provide a reasonable standard of living there. "Living standards are not luxurious, but we are comfortable," Min-Bo Chen says. Health care costs are very low. "We pay 10% of the cost of medicines. The government pays the rest. Hospital treatment, including surgery, is free."

Education of children is also relatively inexpensive by Western standards. "We pay about $120 per year per child for education fees," says SIOC Assistant Director Dawei Ma. "We have modern facilities such as a TV, telephone, fridge, hi-fi, radio, microwave, air-conditioning, and a personal computer. This lifestyle is typical of all professors in China."

But like most academics, he does not own a car. "Not even our director has a car," he says. "We use bicycles, taxis, buses, or the subways. Taxis are very cheap."

Living standards for top academics are certainly far superior to those of 20 years ago. During the Cultural Revolution, "we had little food," says Jiasong He of the Institute of Chemistry. "Now there is plenty for everybody."

Visitors to large cities like Beijing and Shanghai can see an abundance of food for sale in the markets, and the restaurants are busy. At the SIOC cafeteria, for example, staff and students pay around $1.80 for a meal that typically consists of portions of eel, white fish, and prawns; green beans; a bowl of egg soup; and as much rice as one can eat. At another site at SIOC, staff and students who bring their own bowls and chopsticks can buy lunch for as little as 36 cents.

According to Peking University chemistry professor Li, about 40% of those who go abroad do return. Gao-Yuan Wei, an associate professor of polymer science and engineering at Peking University, is one of them.

Wei, 36, returned to China in 1992 after spending seven years in the U.S. and after two years as a postdoc at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in England. He graduated from South China University of Technology in Guangzhou in 1982. He then went to Cornell University where he obtained a master's degree in chemical engineering in 1985. In 1990, he got a Ph.D. degree in chemistry at the University of Washington, Seattle.

"I spent nine years abroad without returning to China," he points out. Although very much influenced by the West, he felt an obligation to return. "The state encouraged graduate students to go abroad," he says. "I received government support for my first year at Cornell."

Research conditions have improved since his return. "In 1992, chemicals were relatively scarce and expensive," Wei says. "Now they are more readily available, distribution is better, and costs are lower. We have also received a lot of funding recently to upgrade the instruments in our department.

"The younger generation also does not feel any restrictions," he says. "We can express our views freely, for example, on government policy, and we can exchange information with colleagues in China and abroad."

Jiesheng Chen also returned to China, in his case because he felt the country needs people like him. Born in 1964, he took an undergraduate course in chemistry at Zhongshan University, Guangzhou, from 1979 to 1983. In 1986, he received a master's degree at Zhongshan, and in 1989 he received a Ph.D. degree at Jilin University, Changchun, where he then lectured for a year.

Between 1990 and 1994, Chen was a postdoc at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London. Since then, he has been a chemistry professor at Jilin University and, since 1996, vice director of the university's Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis & Preparative Chemistry, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Education.

"It is obvious that to stay in a Western country, one can lead a more comfortable life than in China," he says. "But scholars with research experience are highly needed in China. I encountered a lot of difficulties when I returned to China, and although one needs enormous courage and resolution to overcome these difficulties, I still have the feeling of being needed."

Zhong-Ren Chen, currently a chemistry postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, points out that many young Chinese scientists are doing cutting-edge research in the top science programs in the U.S. He was born in the coastal city of Ningbo in East China and educated at Zhejiang University. He received a Ph.D. degree from California Institute of Technology.

"The key, if China is to become a strong power in science and technology, is to attract top talents back and provide them with the best possible research and living conditions," he says. "These include social stability, economic development, evolution toward a more democratic society, and a strong science policy."

The Chinese government has already initiated a number of programs to entice young talent back to the country. One of these, announced this month, is called "Project Yangtze." Under this program, between 300 and 500 professors who are leading figures in their fields will receive a special subsidy of $12,000 per year on top of their normal salaries and welfare benefits. According to the Ministry of Education, the program "is aimed at easing the problem of a shortage of talented young scholars in the country." Ministry officials say that they hope the program will help increase the competitiveness of Chinese academia and create "a group of world-renowned masters."

Another program, already up and running, is aimed specifically at outstanding young scientists in China. The program was set up by NSFC in 1994. "Each grant from this program amounts to $72,000, an attractive sum when you compare it with a normal NSFC grant, which in 1997 amounted to about $12,000," says Jiesheng Chen. "Excellent young Chinese scientists abroad are strongly encouraged to apply for this grant. And over the past four years, more than 70% of those awarded the grants have studied or worked in a Western country."

"We are facing a tough task in developing science and education," says Min-Bo Chen. "It is tough because we have the largest population in the world, China is not rich, and funding for research and education is limited."

But many scientists are confident that China can become a top-ranking country in science and technology. Jiesheng Chen, for example, is cautiously optimistic. "China will definitely have a reasonable position in science and technology in the world by the middle of the next century based on current development trends," he says. "However, a lot of factors can affect the advancement of science and technology. These include social stability, government policies toward science and technology, successful reforms, and continued economic growth. In my view, the most important of these are the reform and optimization of the research and education systems."

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Copyright © 1998 American Chemical Society