Via Twitter,
an interesting comment about Chinese science from a Chinese Communist Party official (
full transcription here):
Zhang doesn't only blame the US. He outlines how Chinese S&T is falling short:
- Few original breakthroughs;
- Lack of corporate leadership in innovation;
- Disconnect between industry and academia;
- Persistent credentialism and exclusivity culture;
- Overburdened workers.
It would be really interesting to understand exactly what Zhang meant, but I suspect this is buried in about seven layers of nuance that you need a lifetime in Chinese academia to understand who he was Really Criticizing.
I wish I knew more about the various histories of scientific innovation within nation-states, and how they grow and thrive. There must be some kind of curve/growth (one wonders what a similar critique of US chemistry academia would sound like in 1925) and what limitations the communist system places on Chinese academia (and also what baseline innovation would look like without Communist intervention in 1948?)*
*I mean, you almost have a perfect natural experiment between the People's Republic and Taiwan in terms of academic productivity....
