China's great science leap
Discovery
BBC
4.3 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 20 September 2021
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
President Xi Jinping is investing seriously into his strategic vision of turning China into a nation of scientific pace-setters. China’s past contributions to modern science have been proportionally lacklustre, but with a reinvigorated focus over the past two decades, China is fast turning from imitator to innovator. What might this increasing scientific prowess mean for the future of China’s development, as well as for the international scientific community?
Whereas once many Chinese scientists chose to go abroad to further their careers, presenter Dr Kevin Fong hears how the government has sought to lure its brightest researchers back. He asks what that means for both scientific collaborations and the culture of science in China and the UK. As scientific research relies on transparent information sharing, what are the challenges of collaborating with an authoritarian regime?
In this first episode, Kevin Fong hears how Chinese science has advanced over recent decades following a low point during the Chinese cultural revolution. He speaks to a Chinese bio-chemist about his career in the US and finds out why he decided to move back to China to start a biotech business. At Loughborough University, Kevin meets a team of researchers working on Artificial Intelligence tools with Chinese counterparts, to help monitor and predict air pollution.
But are Western countries equal partners and beneficiaries of these academic partnerships? As China is set to become the UK’s most significant research partner, at a time of rising geopolitical tensions, we examine how the UK might navigate these choppy waters and what the risks and benefits of scientific collaboration might be.
(Photo: Chinese scientist at work, Credit: Guang Niu/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Rory Stewart and I grew up wanting to be a hero and I'm still fascinated by the ideas of heroism. |
| 0:08.9 | In my new series, I'm taking in the long sweep of history from Achilles to Zelensky and asking, what is a hero? |
| 0:16.1 | Simply doing your job, being a decent human being. |
| 0:20.0 | A true hero is someone who just kind of shines by |
| 0:23.1 | their own light and that light is to be recognized by others. The long history of heroism |
| 0:27.8 | with me, Rory Stewart. Listen on BBC sounds. You're with Discovery on the BBC. I'm Kevin Fong. |
| 0:38.1 | Is this the moment that tells the world that China has finally arrived? |
| 0:46.3 | Those were the sounds of celebration as China's Changi probe touched down on the moon in December last year, |
| 0:54.1 | on its successful mission to return |
| 0:56.3 | a sample from the lunar surface. China joins America and Russia as the only countries in the |
| 1:02.9 | world ever to have achieved that feat. China's history is long and complex. It's been many different things over the millennia, |
| 1:14.1 | reinventing itself over and over again, and never more so than in the past 30 years. |
| 1:19.9 | In 1990, the majority of China's population of one billion people existed below the world poverty line. |
| 1:28.5 | Today, that number is fewer than 90 million, turning the fortunes of the country around |
| 1:34.4 | in a timescale that is sometimes difficult to grasp. |
| 1:40.5 | Science and technology have been central to this seismic transformation and look set to take center stage in China's hopes and ambitions for the future. |
| 1:50.0 | How has China travelled so far, so fast? |
| 1:55.0 | More importantly, where is it headed and what does all of this mean for the future of science, technology and engineering in the UK |
| 2:02.2 | and the rest of the world? |
| 2:05.3 | China's great leap in science is coupled with great strides in innovation. |
| 2:11.0 | In 2019, China surpassed the US to lead the world for the first time in terms of patent applications. |
| 2:18.5 | Stephen Chen has been a science reporter for the South China Morning Post for 15 years. |
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