China

Computing in China I: Domestic Development of Supercomputers

Philip Cho — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:21:53 -0800

Description

As with many other technologies, China's supercomputers are developed through partnerships between industry and government. The top producer, Dawning, works with the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Computer Technology and the company's president Li Jun, will head the National Research Center for High Performance Computers. The National University of Defense Technology and the People's Liberation Army Research Institute of Chemical Defense each also have commercial fronts developing high performance computers. Strikingly absent are top universities such as Beijing University and Qinghua University, possibly indicating the government's tight control.

The silent presence of the military is indicated by gaping holes in the data on funding and distribution. In 2008, government agencies rank second in overall use of supercomputers at 12%, following the energy sector at 35%. Of the number of projects supported, the National Natural Science Foundation ranks first at nearly 70 with a vague category of "Other Programs" listed second at a little less that 40. The location of 18% of the country's supercomputers is also listed as "Unknown," second only to Beijing at 30%.

The national goal is to develop high performance computers using domestically designed microprocessors. The Dawning 5000A was supposed to use the home-grown Longsoon III (Godson) processor. However, manufacturing problems, costs, and delays led the company to switch to AMD. Funded by the 863 program (grant no. 2002AA110020) and the National Natural Science Foundation (grant no. 90207011), the National University of Defense Technology developed in 2005 an EPIC microprocessor designated YHFT64-I, which is compatible with IA-64 instruction set architecture at 300MHz.

China has rapidly advanced in supercomputer technology and will soon dominate the growing domestic market with machines cheaper than the US and of comparable speed. Although US companies still hold 57% of the Chinese market for supercomputers, this is down 3% from 2007 and will continue to fall as the number of Chinese HPC manufacturers continues to rise, producing increasingly faster and cheaper machines. Dawning at 28% market share in China, is second only to HP at 33%, which is on a downward trend.

From the standpoint of Linpack performance, Chinese supercomputers have jumped from 33.1% in 2007 to 53% in 2008. At the forefront is the Dawning 5000A, designed by Dawning and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute for Computer Technology under the direction of Dr. Sun Ninghui 孙凝晖. Running at 160 teraflops, it has recently been in the news as the unofficial seventh fastest supercomputer in the world. The computer uses 6,600 AMD K10 quad-core Opterons at 700 kilowatts per hour. The first 200 million yuan (29 million USD) unit will be installed at the Shanghai Supercomputer Center (SSC) for research in genome mapping, earthquake and weather prediction, mine surveys, and stock analysis. Dawning also has plans to develop a one teraflop (with accelerator) Personal High Performance Computer for about 100,000 RMB (14,705 RMB) targeted at medium and small enterprises for engineering and animation projects.

Second is Lenovo's DeepComp 7000 designed jointly with the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (HS21/x3950 Cluster, Xeon QC HT 3 GHz/2.93 GHz, Infiniband). The microprocessor is Intel EM64T Xeon E54xx (Harpertown) 3000 MHz (12 GFlops). The first was installed in 2008 at the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for network analysis. The previous model, the DeepComp 6800 was installed at the CNIC in 2003 (Peak 5.3 Teraflops, 265 nodes, Itanium 2, 1.3 GHz processor, 2.6 TBytes memory, 80 TBytes storage, Quadrics QSnet, Redhat AS 2.1 operating system).

Data for this table was generously provided by Dr. Zhang Yunquan of the Speciality Association of Mathematical and Scientific Software.[full-size image]

Websites of Chinese High Performance Computer Manufacturers

Dawning曙光 http://www.dawning.com.cn
Lenovo 联想
PowerLeader宝德 http://www.powerleader.com.cn
Inspur浪潮http://www.langchao.com
SW神威 http://www.sw.com.cn
National University of Defense Technology/Galaxy Wind国防科大/银河风云 http://www.galaxyhpc.com http://www.galaxywind.com
Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences中科院过程所 http://www.ipe.ac.cn/
PLA Research Institute of Chemical Defense/ISYS Technology防化研究院/宇驰科技 http://www.isys.com.cn
Galactic蚬壳星盈 http://www.galactic.com

Signals

China's Fastest Supercomputer Shows Strengths and Weaknesses

World's fastest supercomputer: Roadrunner

The Top500: Annual Supercomputing Bragging Rights

China's Longxin Microprocessor

World of Warcraft Dominates China’s Supercomputer Use in 2007

China's Longxin Microprocessor

Philip Cho — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 03:34:15 -0800

Description

According to Xu Zhiwei, Deputy Director of the Institute of Computing Technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences will debut its 65 nm Longxin 龙芯III (also known as Loongson or Godson), 4-core (10W) 1.2 GHz microprocessor at the end of the year, and an 8-core (20W) version in 2009. The chip uses MIPS64 cores with 200+ additional instructions for X86 binary translation and media acceleration. Given the low power consumption and less than cutting-edge 65nm silicon process, the Longxin III probably has a low transistor count. This would make it more comparable to Intel’s low-end Atom processor than the upcoming Core i7.

Longxin processors are manufactured by STMicroelectronics NV. BLX IC Design Corporation and the CAS jointly produced previous versions including the 32-bit Longxin-1 in 2002 and a 64-bit chip in 2005. A Chinese computer manufacturer, Lemote Technology Corporation龙梦 (http://www.lemote.com/english/index.html), has claimed to have released a Linux PC called the Fulong Mini 福珑迷你based on the Longxin 2F processor. However, the validity of this claim is questionable as the company made a similar claim last year without delivering a single documented unit. China’s fastest high performance computer, the Dawning 5000A was also supposed to use a Longxin processor, but instead opted for AMD.

The Chinese government has given high priority to domestic development of microprocessor technology. The Longxin is just one of several projects including the National University of Defense Technology’s YHFT64-I EPIC microprocessor and the Shanghai Fukong Hualong Micro-system Tech’s Navigation-1 领航一号 chip to be used in the country’s Beidou (Compass) GPS system.

China: Science & Technology

Source

World of Warcraft Dominates China’s Supercomputer Use in 2007

Philip Cho — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:17:46 -0800

Description

Six of China’s top ten supercomputers are not dedicated to scientific, military, or commercial applications, but to gaming. According to the 2007 list of Top 100 High Performance Computers in China, 11,700 cores of computing power were owned by the gaming company, The9. The company chose its name to signify that “internet culture” is the ninth mode of art in China, along with painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, music, dance, drama and film. The9 primarily runs massively multiplayer online role-playing games in China including World of Warcraft, Soul of the Ultimate Nation, Granado Espada and Joyful Journey West. The company has claimed as many as one million simultaneous WoW players in April, 2008.

This is just another indication of how online gaming has been shaping China’s computer industry. According to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), gaming has been a major factor in the explosive growth of the internet in China, especially in rural areas. The enhanced graphics capability of the upcoming Longsoon (Godson) 2H processor developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences may assist in Chinese supercomputers such as the Dawning 5000A to break into more of the gaming market.

Top 100 High Performance Computers in China 2007

http://www.samss.org.cn/2007-China-HPC-TOP100-20071110-eng.htm

The Register Article on The9

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/02/the9_supercomputer/

China: Science & Technology

Source

U.S. colleges recruiting Chinese high school students

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:20:07 -0800

Description

UPI reports

Harvard, Stanford and other top U.S. colleges say they're actively recruiting China's best high school students and offering them full scholarships.

Recruiting the best Chinese students will help elite U.S. colleges maintain international dominance, especially in math and science, said William Fitzsimmons, Harvard's admissions dean.

"There are no quotas, no limits on the number of Chinese students we might take," Fitzsimmons told more than 300 students during a recent visit to a high school in Beijing.

Of course, American universities have long attracted international undergraduates. However, the practice of actively recruting them from more than a handful of elite schools, and offering them substantial financial aid, is newer.

China: Science & Technology

Source

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/11/09/US_colleges_scour_China_for_top_students/UPI-93521226256390/

China's Fastest Supercomputer Shows Strengths and Weaknesses

Philip Cho — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 08:24:46 -0800

Description

The release of China’s latest supercomputer, the Dawning 5000A, reflects both the growing strengths and weaknesses of the country’s computing research. Running at 160 teraflops, the Dawning 5000A would be the world’s seventh fastest supercomputer, had it not missed the TOP500 listing by a week. The supercomputer uses 6,600 AMD K10 quad-core Opterons at 700 kilowatts per hour. The 200 million yuan (29 million USD) unit, designed by Dr. Sun Ninghui 孙凝晖 will be installed at the Shanghai Supercomputer Center (SSC) for research in genome mapping, earthquake and weather prediction, mine surveys, and stock analysis.

The supercomputer was supposed to use the home-grown Loongson III (Godson) processor. However, manufacturing problems, costs, and delays led the Dawning Information Industry Corporation to switch to the AMD. According the company’s vice president, Nie Hua, "Our client (the SSC) required the major functions of the system to run in the Microsoft Windows operating system, whereas Longsoon chips primarily run the competing Linux operating system.” Future Dawning supercomputers may use the Longsoon chips, but this is unlikely in the near future because of performance problems.

China: Science & Technology

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Buddhist Temples as Aquatic Wildlife Preserves

Philip Cho — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:36:26 -0800

Description

A bit of curious news….

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming Institute of Zoology plan to use Buddhist temples as aquatic wildlife preserves. A research team led by Yang Junxing found that at least five species of indigenous fish previously thought extinct still live in the Dragon Ponds of several temples, possibly due to the secluded nature of the temples and the caretaking of the monks. Among some of the rare species are Sinocyclocheilus grahami Acrossocheilus yunnanensis, Racoma grahami, Yunnanilus plenrotaenia and Discogobio yunnanensis. The biodiversity of the numerous freshwater lakes on Yunan’s alpine plateau has been disseminated in recent years by over fishing, introduction of new species, and pollution. Researchers at the zoological institute hope to conduct a comprehensive survey of temple ponds in the region and to seek government support in implementing measures to protect the wildlife at these religious sites.

Source

Brazil and China Continue Space Cooperation

Philip Cho — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 04:08:19 -0700

Description

As the second China-Brazil Earth Resource Satellite (CBERS-2) ends its five year mission, the new director of the Brazilian Space Agency, Carlos Ganem, professed a continued commitment to cooperate with China to fulfill Brazil’s ambitious space program. The two countries will jointly launch CBERS-3 and CBERS-4 by the end of 2008. Brazil will also depend heavily on Chinese experts in an effort to develop and launch a satellite transport rocket from the Alcantara launch facility by 2011. To this end, the BSA has just tested the second stage of a four-stage satellite launch vehicle.

Physics & Space Science

Source

Coal Liquefaction Becoming Less Attractive as Alternative Fuel

Philip Cho — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:33:30 -0700

Description

Coal-to-liquid increasingly seems an unlikely candidate for a clean and economical alternative energy of the future. According to a recent RAND report the environmental cost of coal-to-liquid fuel remains high. Coal liquefaction produces about twice the CO2 emissions of conventional oil and carbon sequestration on a large scale has not proven technically or economically feasible on large scale. Coal-to-liquid fuel only "appears to be competitive" with crude oil if crude prices stay above $94 a barrel for an extended period. Moreover, even with carbon sequestration, "neither alternative fuel offers a path toward large long-term reductions in total carbon dioxide emissions to limit climate change."

This report follows other studies in countries such as China that have also come to equally negative conclusions, resulting in the termination of nearly all coal liquefaction projects in the country. http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR580/

Source

Rising violence across Africa against Chinese facilities and workers

Philip Cho — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:30:52 -0700

Description

Nine Chinese workers of the China National Petroleum Corporation were kidnapped near Darfur in the Southern Kordofan State. The CNPC leads a consortium of oil companies, the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, which includes India’s ONGC, Malaysia’s Petronas, and Sudan’s Sudapet. Four Indian oil workers were kidnapped in May.

This follows a disturbing trend of rising violence across Africa against Chinese facilities and workers. China maintains few military forces on the continent and primary depends on local government and private security firms for protection.

Source

Online Gaming in China: From the Rural Internet to the Future of Academic Networking

Philip Cho — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:26:07 -0700

Description

Grassroots Spread of the Internet in Rural China

Contrary to expectations, the spread of the internet in rural China has been driven by the grassroots rather than the government or other top-down promotion. According to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), internet users in the country jumped by 53.3% in 2007, adding 73 million new users for a total of 210 million. Forty percent or 29.17 million of these new users were in rural areas. [1][2]

The unstated irony of the wildfire spread in rural areas is that previous studies as well as organized initiatives all downplayed rural people as major players in this change. The focus had been on government and NGO initiatives to educate farmers, especially about agricultural technology. [3][4]

Online Gaming

According to the CNNIC, the number of online gamers has skyrocketed to over 120 million, each averaging about 7.3 hours per week. The majority of these users make less than 2,000 yuan (6.6 yuan/USD) a month and play at massive internet cafes, especially in rural areas, for less than 10 yuan a night. The revenue from the gaming industry reached 10.57 billion yuan in 2008, 61.5 percent growth over last year, with projections of about 26.23 billion by 2012.

Portal website such as Baidu, Sina, and Sohu have begun to transform the traditional search engine platform to include more games and resource content. Rupert Murdoch’s MySpace China will also make gaming a central part of its social networking.

Scientists and Engineers Networking through Online Gaming?

There is potential for the networking capabilities of online gaming to be used by universities and research institutes in China to increase much badly needed communication among China’s scientists and engineers. The next generation of researchers is already fully accustomed to interacting with their peers through online gaming sites. The next step will be to create an online gaming environment for open scientific exchanges.

[1] Survey Report on Internet Development in Rural China 2007. China Internet Network Information Center. August 2007.

[2] Statistical Survey Report on Internet Development in China. China Internet Network Information Center. January 2008.

[3] Jinqiu, Zhao., Hao, Xiaoming. and Banerjee, Indrajit. "The Internet and Rural Development: The UNDP Project in Western China" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Dresden International Congress Centre, Dresden, Germany,2008-09-13 http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p90025_index.html

[4] ICT for Agriculture and Rural Development in China (http://www.apdip.net/resources/case/rnd42/view)

Signals

China's Coal Liquefaction Projects Terminated Under Threat of Bad Loans

Philip Cho — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:57:49 -0700

Description

In a startling move, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has terminated all but two coal liquefaction projects. According to Zhou Dadi, former director of the Energy Research Institute of the NDRC, development of the technology had proven too risky an investment as domestic expertise and equipment was simply inadequate. With an investment of 120 billion yuan (US$17.55 billion)，the combined output capacity of the existing and the planned coal-to-liquid (CTL) projects was to be about 16 million tons. In a revealing statement Zhou added that, “many small CTL projects…were financed by bank loans. It will be troublesome if the loans default, which will hurt the interests of many depositors…Small investment in coal-to-liquid projects does not make sense. Heavy investment, however, is likely to turn sour if the mid-and-small enterprises cannot be freed from the technology obstacles." Falling oil prices nailed the coffin on many of the unprofitable projects.

This is a major development that has gotten no attention outside of China. As the nation has abundant coal resources, China’s leaders originally heralded coal liquefaction technology as the last-best-hope to solve the impending energy crises that other alternatives such as nuclear power could not solve. CTL was to keep China’s factories running at break-neck speed, without which leaders fear social unrest from rising unemployment. China also cannot hope to fuel its military in anything but a short term engagement because of very limited reserves. Military leaders had hoped that CTL might assist in solving this problem.

China: Science & Technology

Source

Will Open Science Make It Even Harder to Build Science Communities in China?

Cesar O. Castro — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 22:46:05 -0700

Description

Taken from a blog post by Anthony Townsend, IFTF researcher. Not only do I agree that this presents a potentially significant problem for China, but it is possible that smaller, moer highly networked scientific communites will meet or exceed the R&D output of China.

Here's his post:

A pair of reports last week suggest that China's science community, while thriving, still has a long way to go before it becomes the kind of knowledge-circulating system needed to support world-class technical innovation.

First as Lan Xue argues in Nature, the aspiration of Chinese scientists to publish in internationally-recognized journals means that their research results do not circulate freely amongst their peers. In a sense, much of the output of Chinese science is "being published in a language that few researchers in China understand and at prices that few of them can afford".

Second, domestic conferences don't seem to be picking up where written discourse is disconnecting. A survey of 380 scholars conducted last year by Chen Shijun from the Scientific and Social Research Centre at Tianjin University found that only 2 in 5 were satisfied with the quality of the gatherings. The report in SciDev.net lists the many problems with organization, presenter selection, and paucity of real debate and discussion.

One has to wonder how China is going to solve some of these problems, especially as the scientific world seems to be moving rapidly towards a community model characterized by highly internationalized, English-centric web publishing and intensely collaborative workshops and conferences. If these reports are to be taken at face value, it seems that young Chinese researchers are not being adequately prepared or exposed to either of these key elements. On the other hand, though, given China's size and the potential for creating semi-independent national science networks large enough to flourish without constant outside stimulation, Chinese science has the potential to go its own fruitful way. In doing so, it might avoid some of the potential downsides of web-enabled science, such as the narrowing of scholarship described in James Evans' recent study of electronic publication. His takeaway: "as more journal issues came online, the articles referenced tended to be more recent, fewer journals and articles were cited, and more of those citations were to fewer journals and articles. The forced browsing of print archives may have stretched scientists and scholars to anchor findings deeply into past and present scholarship."

Science and Technology Places

Source

http://www.iftf.org/node/2254

China's Space Walk and Russian Advisors

Philip Cho — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 05:21:52 -0700

Description

China’s successful launch of the Shenzhou VII and subsequent spacewalk further reflect how the nation’s space program has risen on the bootstraps of Russian technology. Although the Chinese press has touted the supposedly home-grown Feitian space suit, the mission still relies on Russian advisors, who in addition to technical support provided Russian Orlan space suits. The Long March 2F rocket was also optimized with Russian assistance. The boosters use UDMH/N204 (nitrogen tetroxide) and consist of a two stage core vehicle with four strap-on stages. Four YF5-1 chamber motors with swinging nozzles have 75,500kg of thrust for the first stage. The second stage has a YF20-1 (75,600kg thrust) rocket motor with fixed nozzles and a YG21-1 swiveling venire motor with four chamber motors (4,813kg total thrust). The four strap-on stages are single 75,500kg thrust YF5-1 engines with fixed nozzles. The walk marks the second stage in China’s goal of building a spacelab by 2020. After the spacewalk, Chinese astronauts will attempt capsule docking. In 2010, Shenzhou VIII, IX, and X will be launched in rapid succession of one month intervals. The first two launches will be unmanned, carrying laboratory equipment.

China: Science & Technology

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Will China Be the First Nation to Run Out of IP Addresses?

Jerry Sheehan — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 08:28:01 -0700

Description

Back in 2004, there was a great deal of fanfare about the early adoption of IPv6 by China. The Chinese Education and Research Network Information Center (CERNIC) was at the center of IPv6 adoption efforts and created CERNET2. CERNET2 provides IPv6 services to 25 universities in 20 cities in China.[1] CERNET2 received a fair amount of press at the time with some arguing that this early embrace of the new protocol could lead to a competitive economic advantage. These views were reinforced by Chinese officials who identified the nature and importance of the problem. Zhao Houlin, Director of the International Telecommunications Union noted, "When 26 Chinese share one Internet protocol address, while each American possesses six IP addresses…this is the quandary facing China in the IPv4 era." His colleague Jiang Linta, Chief Engineer of the China Academy of Telecommunications Research, came to an even more stark conclusion "We cannot survive without IPv6."[2] Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the protocol, apparently they stopped with CERNET2. On September 23, 2008 the China Internet Network Information Center sounded an alarm that they only had roughly 830 more days worth of IPv4 address resources at current growth rates. As ChinaTechNews.Com reported "Li Kai, director in charge of the IP business for CNNIC's international department, says that if a netizen wants to get access to the Internet, an IP address will be necessary to analyze the domain name and view the pages. At present, most of the networks in China use IPv4 addresses. As a basic resource for the Internet, the IPv4 addresses are limited and 80% of the final allocation IP addresses have been used. By the current allocation speed, China's IPv4 address resource can only meet the demand of 830 more days. If there is no available new resource by then, new netizens will not be able to gain normal access to the Internet and the business expansion of network operators will be impossible. Li says that a new IPv6 network address, which is a basic network resource without these limitations, has been developed in America, but this kind of IP address is only used among educational websites in China."[3] China currently has only 27 blocks of registered IPv6 addresses, far less then many smaller nations in the world and ranks 14th on the global list of adopters.[4] Current effort, according to the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission, are focused on trying to get 500,000 trial users of IPv6 by 2010.[5] It will be interesting to watch the expedited transition made by the Chinese in the next two years to IPv6 as they face the ever decreasing viability of IPv4. It is important to note that the events playing out in China will play out in other countries, they are simply occurring here first due to the number of devices they want to make Internet aware.

China: Science & Technology

Source

[1] "China Launches Largest IPv6 Network", Ignrid Mason, December 29, 2004, cnet news, China launches largest IPv6 network - CNET News
[2] "Chinese IPv6 in CIO", Richard Bejtlich, TaoSecurity, August 21, 2006, http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/2006/08/chinese-ipv6-in-cio.html
[3]"CNNIC: China's Internet Will Be Short of IP Addresses Soon", ChinaTechNews.Com, September 23, 2008, CNNIC: China’s Internet Will Be Short Of IP Addresses Soon - ChinaTechNews.com - The Technology Source for the Latest Chinese News on Internet, Computers, Digital, Science, Electronics, Law, Security, Software, Web 2.0, Telecom, and Wireless Industries
[4]"CNNIC: China's IPv6 Application Still Lags Behind of Developed Countries", ChinaTechNews.com, March 9, 2006.CNNIC: China’s IPv6 Application Still Lags Behind Of Developed Countries - ChinaTechNews.com - The Technology Source for the Latest Chinese News on Internet, Computers, Digital, Science, Electronics, Law, Security, Software, Web 2.0, Telecom, and Wireless Industries
[5]"China Telecom Refines Plans for IPv6 Introduction, Application", Marbridge Daily, September 12, 2008, China Telecom Refines Plans for IPv6 Introduction, Application | Marbridge Consulting - China Telecom News

Africa will be a Central Testing Ground for China’s Dual-Purpose Military Industry

Philip Cho — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:40:41 -0700

Description

Africa will be a Central Testing Ground for China’s Dual-Purpose Military Industry

Recent Pentagon and RAND reports have pointed out China’s trend toward integrating the military with commercial enterprises to boost production and innovation in dual-use technologies. Especially in information technology, “national champion” companies such as Huawei, Datang, Zhongxing, and Julong are storefront facades for the Chinese defense industry. For example, Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, was the former director of the People’s Liberation Army Information Engineering Academy. The company remains joined at the hip with the military both financially and in research and development. Analysts have focused on the Chinese military as partner and consumer of the nation’s high-tech enterprises. However, little attention has been paid to other potential markets and future testing grounds for dual-use technologies.

Africa will be critical for China to achieve its goal of creating a vibrant military-industrial complex. Rather than weapons, China’s greatest opportunity in Africa is the growing need for technologies of surveillance and control of its people. Dual-purpose medical, biometric, telecommunications, and weather monitoring technology that can be used to track migrations and congregations of people across Africa will provide a fertile testing ground and market for China’s developing commercial military.

As giants such as Microsoft look to gain a foothold in the continent’s rapidly growing IT market, the Chinese, on the ground and in the skies, have already been building Africa’s IT infrastructure from cell phones to satellites. In 1998, for example, Huawei began undercutting better known competitors such as Nokia and Ericsson to become the largest supplier in sub Saharan countries of CDMA and NGN products. In 2007 alone, Huawei’s sales in Africa topped 11.5 billion, a jump of 62% of all international revenue compared to 2006.

China’s Need to Protect Its Interests in Africa Against Rising Local Violence and Perceived Threats from the US

To protect their commercial and political interests, China will provide increasingly more sophisticated surveillance and control technologies to Africa. This will be necessary to check threats from both rising violence against Chinese companies on the continent and US plans, which the Chinese perceive as aimed at containing their influence. China does not maintain a significant military presence in Africa, but relies on its close relationship with individual leaders and governments, often through military advisors and private security firms. Both the Chinese and their African allies have a common interest in controlling anti-government forces, which are increasingly hostile to China’s rapid growth in Africa. In the past, China has pursued a divide and conquer strategy of supplying their individual allies with weapons, rather than supporting regional security efforts. However, military solutions are not adequate for China and their allies to achieve an even more important goal of pursuing commercial development and reaping profit from ripening African economies.

Violence against Chinese interests in Africa is on the rise. In April, 2007, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, a separatist group in Eastern Ethiopia, attacked a China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation oil field, killing 70 employees, including 9 Chinese, and kidnapping 7 other Chinese workers. In Nigeria, gunmen kidnapped 5 Chinese technicians working for the Sichuan Telecommunications Company followed by 3 more in May, 2008 working for the Chinese Civil Engineering Construction Corporation. In December, the Sudanese Justice and Equality Movement attacked a China National Petroleum Corporation facility in the Heglig area of Western Kordofan. More recently in March, 2008, 500 Zambian miners rioted and attacked their Chinese managers at a Chambishi copper smelter. The common outcry, as with other incidences all over Africa, was for better working conditions and a general expulsion of what Zambian opposition leader, Michael Sata, called “the Chinese invaders.”

Recent US military actions directly threaten China’s tenuous hold on Africa. In the 1990’s, the US moved the 7th fleet logistical command from Subic Bay in the Philippines to Singapore’s Changi Naval Base. This allows the US to control the Malacca Strait, the jugular of China’s link to the African continent and the portal to the South China Sea. China imports 95% of its oil by sea of which 80% are transported through the Malacca Strait. Through the South China Sea passes two-thirds of the world’s trade in liquefied natural gas and by 2020, China is expected to import more than 30 million tons per year. In 2007, the US also announced the creation of Africom, a unified military command for Africa, making the region strategically equal to the Pacific Rim, Middle East, Latin America, North America, and Europe.

Private Chinese Security Firms will Expand Their Business in Africa

China’s hold on Africa is thus becoming increasingly unstable. China has no ability to challenge the US at sea, even with a new nuclear submarine base at Hainan island. An increased Chinese military presence in Africa would be unprecedented and would possibly result in an arms escalation in the region, not to mention incite greater local resentment and violence against the Chinese. China’s best option remains to strengthen ties with current regimes.

Surveillance and control technologies will be the newest in the arsenal of methods to assist in achieving a pro-Chinese, pro-business, and functionally stable political climate. China is the logical supplier of such technologies to African leaders and has already provided equipment to the Sudanese government to monitor opposition. Many US companies such as Cisco Systems are legally barred from exporting such technology.

In the near future, China will begin exporting to Africa mini versions of its Golden Shield system, a nationwide high-tech surveillance network linking everything from CCTV, cell-phones, and national identity cards. Several leading companies have already emerged such as Shenzhen based, China Security and Surveillance Technology, which has developed CCTV software to alert police of unusually large gatherings of people. Building on American technology, Guangzhou based Pixel Solutions produces high-tech national ID cards and face-recognition software for governments and businesses. Chinese companies like these can be expected to lead the charge into 21st century Africa to help ensure “peaceful stability and protection” against anti-government forces labeled as “terrorists.”

Signals

Materials science in China

jorgemata — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 03:44:16 -0700

Description

The stellar rise of materials science in China is documented in a commentary by Zhou, Li and Shi in the August issue of Nature Materials. This commentary, by three former presidents of the Chinese Materials Research Society, is part of a special issue on research in China.

Since the opening of the country to the outside world thirty years ago, the output of scientific publications in materials science from China has risen from almost nowhere to become the third largest in the world. However, as argued in the commentary, as well as the editorial that introduces this special issue, the quality of this research is still lagging behind Western standards, despite clear efforts to improve the situation.

The significant advances that have been made in the Chinese research infrastructure are outlined in an exclusive interview with Lu Yongxiang, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Also in the August issue, a second commentary, by Paul Ching-Wu Chu, President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, focuses on Hong Kong and how its future prosperity relies on its reinvention as a knowledge-based society.

Excerpts from editorial "The dragon awakens" by Joerg Heber, Nature Materials:

The record-breaking economic growth since China opened itself to the outside world thirty years ago is mirrored in the number of scientific publications. For 1981, the Thomson ISI Web of Science lists 1791 papers with at least one author based in China, for 2007 this figure has grown to 98,147 publications. In materials science, China’s output in publications already ranks third behind the US and Japan.

This fast scientific growth has been enabled by dramatic increases in research budgets, which are expected to increase from about 1.5% of the gross domestic product (GDP) to at least 2.5% by 2020. All this on the back of an already fast-growing GDP that has averaged about 10% growth per annum in recent years. The budget of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, which funds basic science in China, grew by an average of more than 20% each year for the past decade. These figures illustrate that research funding, even for basic sciences, is much less an issue than in many other countries.

However, the quality of some of this research is still an issue, because in the past the system used to be geared towards high volume output rather than quality. This problem is now acknowledged and there is a perceptible shift in emphasis towards high-quality research.

Further deficits lie in the education of students. Each year, approximately 10 million students take the nationwide National College Entrance Exam. Of these, only a few thousand will be accepted for the country’s most prestigious universities. The question is whether the present extreme selection process truly promotes independent, creative thinking that is needed in many areas to push Chinese science towards the forefront of research in fundamental sciences.

Nevertheless, the situation is improving rapidly, and close scientific exchange with Chinese scientists is more and more inevitable.

Commentary "Materials research in China" by Lian Zhou, Hengde Li and Changxu Shi, former presidents of the Chinese Materials Research Society:

Taking steel as an example, China produced 25 million tons in 1977, compared with 489 million tons of an increasing number of steel varieties in 2007. Similar advances can be listed for a number of other materials and materials-consuming commodities, such as titanium alloys or structural and functional ceramics. Not to mention the huge production of electronic devices such as TVs and mobile phones. In high-tech areas such as nanomaterials, China now has hundreds of companies putting their nanotechnology products on the market.

[...]

In recent years, research funding in China has been increasing steadily with an annual growth rate of around 20%, compared with an approximate annual increase of 10% in national gross domestic product (GDP). In 2006, the total research funding totalled 300.3 billion RMB (about 43.5 billion US$), accounting for 1.42% of the total GDP. An international comparison of expenditures on R&D is shown in Fig. 1. It is apparent that the present portion for research expenditure in China is still too low. Nevertheless, in comparison with other research areas, materials science does see some relative advantage.

[...]

As a result of [several] initiatives, China’s output in scientific papers has grown at an annual rate of 18% over the past 10 years. However, owing to a lack of originality, the scientific quality of many of these publications still lags behind international standards. For example, from 1996 to 2006, China’s total number of papers in the Science Citation Index (SCI) published in materials science and technology reached 45,000, second only to the United States and Japan, although the average citation number is much lower and stands at only 2.65.

From this comparison, it is apparent that the quality and the effectiveness of research funding in China needs to be improved. Of course, as research funding in China increases, original innovations will emerge and will improve the quality of the scientific output. In addition, what should not be ignored is the fact that there is quite a large number of independent materials research laboratories, institutes and centres that are interfacing with industry. Not only do they perform applied research targeted at specific applications, but they are also involved in basic research. Hundreds of these centres used to be large governmental labs attached to various ministries. About ten years ago they were converted into independent enterprises with the aim to earn profits — it would improve the quality of scientific output if these enterprises could be redirected towards more basic research.

[...]

Currently, China’s science and technology research is carried out mainly at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), at industrial research institutes, and in universities. By the end of 2006, the total number of research staff in China stood at 36 million. The focus at CAS is mainly on basic research, with nearly 30 scientific institutes doing materials-related work. Research in the independent industrial institutes, with nearly 800 of them involved in materials science, is mainly devoted to technological innovation and applied research. Furthermore, about 380 universities have set up departments of materials science and engineering.

[...]

In 2006 there were 147,000 registered university students majoring in materials science and engineering. Of the 27,800 students that graduated in the same year, more than 1,000 did so with a PhD degree.

These numbers demonstrate that, at present, student numbers are certainly not a problem, although there are a number of challenges China faces in the education of its students. For example, the quality of the faculty in some universities needs to be improved, a modern curriculum introduced, more freedom given to the students to select their courses, interdisciplinary education should be promoted through materials research centres, and finally, more funds are needed to allow students to conduct research activities that help them to stimulate their scientific interests and creativity. Universities are too traditional in structure and in operation. Facing tough international competition and the need to bring Chinese science and technology to the global stage, university education is the most important task we need to tackle. However, this is not to say that a good university education will solve all problems. Leading scientists and innovators are not simply created in the classroom. Their own motivation and education beyond school, a good mix of education involving tours of duty at multiple institutions as well as other external circumstances may be of influence.

Another problem is with Chinese researchers leaving the country, which began with the opening of China in 1978, when a large number of students left to go abroad to study. Today this number continues to increase, while at the same time the age at which they leave China is decreasing. Many young students now go abroad for undergraduate degrees or even to attend foreign high schools. The problem is that only an estimated third or a quarter of these students return to China. This is insufficient […]. A number of attractive programmes have therefore been established by various institutions. A recent figure from 2006 disclosed that since 1978 275,000 overseas scholars have returned —many of them as professors and senior researchers.

The political part of the commentaries has deeply impressed me. In the commentary by Zhou, Li and Shi we can read:

China is a large country with a huge population, and has a long history. For the past two centuries, its population has gone through many wars, internal turmoil and natural disasters. Following such difficult times, it is clear that the Chinese people want to live a safe, peaceful life in health and prosperity. It is our duty as researchers to work towards this goal, and advances in materials science have always had an important part in this. The continuation of this aim should be the guiding light for materials science in China.

[...]

China is an old country, yet in its development it is still young; it is large but at the same time weak. Its steps on the road to modernization are just beginning.

And in the commentary "Prolific research on a barren rock" by Paul Ching-Wu Chu, in the office of the President at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, and in the Texas Centre for Superconductivity, University of Houston, Texas, we can read:

[...] even the government’s innovation and technology strategy has expressly stated that Hong Kong’s research focus is on market relevance and industry participation, without realizing that private business generally has only a short-term interest in the bottom line. […] For long-term strategic vision the stimulus has to come from the government, as it has in China, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. Hong Kong has never had an industrial policy, in stark contrast to its neighbouring countries.

The habitual confidence of Hong Kong business people in their ability to weather any storm no longer serves the city well. For one thing, Hong Kong now faces strong competition from other economies in the region with rising levels of affluence. It is no longer competing with regional underdogs. The benefits of its low tax regime are largely cancelled out by its high property or rental prices, which many see as another form of heavy taxation. The old British laissez faire attitude of waiting for the market to lead may leave Hong Kong lagging seriously behind other more proactive government leaderships in charting out new economic courses in the ever-changing global economy.

Can it be this political part as important as Philip Cho said past May 25, 2008 (http://sciencex2.org/en/node/21151)?:

In April, 2007, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology created a stir by selecting the 55 year old [Wan Gang] as its first director who was not a communist party member. Two months later, the Ministry of Health elected as director [Chen Zhu], also not a party member. These two appointments were the culmination of a trend since 2004 of a new generation of non-communist party leaders filling key positions in China’s research and higher-education community. [...]

[...]

These changes, however, may only be cosmetic. The directors, as the public face of China’s science and technology ministries and top universities, may be young with international savvy. Yet, many of the vice-directors [...] remain party bureaucrats. The Chinese Academy of Science especially [...] continues to combine science and politics as its top leadership are also all high party officials. Hence, while China’s science and technology community may be opening up to the rest of the world at the highest administrative levels, the political climate within the country may remain the same.

Could you imagine a Western scientist speaking of how old his country is, how strong and weak at the same time, how many wars and calamities had the country endured? It doesn’t matter how much time I spend reading about China or talking to people there of from there, it continues to strike me as thinking of other world.

Materials, Chemistry, & Nanoscience

Source

Nature Materials, Vol.7 No.8, August 2008. http://www.nature.com/naturematerials

Two Chinese universities now top feeders of American Ph.D.s

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:14:58 -0700

Description

For decades, American graduate schools have attracted students from all over the world. Over time, of course, the origins of international graduate students has shifted. For years, the NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates has been following where Ph.D. recipients received their undergraduate degrees, and each year it publishes a list showing what universities and colleges graduate the largest number of students going on to get Ph.D.s in the U.S.

The latest survey shows that in 2006, two Chinese universities contributed more Ph.D. students to American graduate programs. This is notable because until now, American universities have dominated (but not monopolized) the top five slots. The top fifty schools, and the number of Ph.D.s their graduates received in 2006, are below.

1. Tsinghau University 571
2. Beijing University 507
3. UC Berkeley 427
4. Seoul National University 393
5. Cornell University 308
6. University of Michigan 272
7. University of Texas Austin 267
8. Brigham Young University 259
9. UCLA 248
10. University of Florida 243
10. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 243
12. Harvard University 241
12. University of Wisconsin-Madison 241
14. Penn State University 236
15. National Taiwan University 226
16. MIT 197
17. Yonsei University (Korea) 193
18. Rutgers University 190
19. Ohio State University 182
20. University of Virginia 180
21. UC Davis 177
22. Texas A&M 175
23. University of Minnesoa-Twin Cities 169
24. University of Maryland College Park 167
25. Stanford University 166
26. Yale University 164
27. Fuda Universityn University (China) 163
27. University of Science & Technology (China) 163
29. UC San Diego 162
30. Brown University 161
31. Princeton University 160
32. Michigan State University 159
33. Nanking University (China) 155
34. University of Mumbai (India) 153
34. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 153
36. Virginia Tech 151
37. Indiana University - Bloomington 150
38. University of Arizona 148
38. UC Santa Cruz 148
40. Nankai University (China) 147
40. University of Washington - Seattle 147
42. Shanghai Jiaotong University (China) 144
43. Middle East Technical University (Turkey) 134
44. University of Pennsylvania 133
45. UC Santa Barbara 127
46. Duke University 122
47. China University of Science & Technology Anhwei 120
48. Korea University 119
48. North Carolina State University 119
48. University of Colorado - Boulder 119
48. Zhejiang University (China) 119

(copied from Universities Weblog)

Fifteen of the top 50 universities in this list are outside the United States; nine are in China, three are in South Korea, and India, Taiwan, and Turkey each have one. The one thing that I find surprising is that more Indian universities aren't in this list. Given the number of graduate students I meet who are from one or another IIT, I would have expected at least one of the campuses to have been in the top 50.

Another way to into the data is to look at what countries overall send the largest number of Ph.D. recipients.

1. China 4,323
2. India 1,524
3. Korea 1,219
4. Taiwan 431
5. Canada 363
6. Turkey 357
7. Russia 223
8. Japan 222
9. Thailand 199
10. Romania 187

Here, India shows up in the #2 spot, which indicates that its American-bound graduates are spread across a large number of institutions. Compare this with China, where fully a quarter of its American Ph.D.s come from Tsinghau and Beijing.

This list can't be read just as a sign of the decline of American competitiveness, as a couple reports have; rather, it reflects some of the peculiarities of the global education market. There are no European universities in the list, because there are world class graduate institutions there: a brilliant undergrad from Cambridge or Helsinki can get a great education-- and, depending on their field, build equally useful or better professional connections-- staying closer to home. (Notice that the only European country in that top 10 list is Romania.)

It's also worth noting that, as the Mercury News observes, "Many who come for doctoral study decide to stay - and contribute to the nation's innovation. One recent survey found that 93 percent of all new doctorate recipients holding permanent visas and 65 percent of temporary visa holders said they would remain in the United States after graduation."

Abstract:

China: Science & Technology

Source

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvydoctorates/
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/doctorates/
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08301/
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9919746
http://www.universities-weblog.com/50226711/more_on_where_doctoral_candidates_come_from.php

China approves big budget for GMO amid food worries

jorgemata — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 11:07:10 -0700

Description

Excerpts:

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's cabinet has approved a huge budget for research of genetically modified crops amid growing concerns over food security, a move scientists say may speed up commercial production of GMO rice or corn.

The State Council, or cabinet, at a meeting chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao, gave the green light on Wednesday to a program aimed at promoting indigenous genetically modified crops (GMO), Xinhua news agency said.

[...]

Xinhua said the program aims to obtain genes with great potential commercial value whose intellectual property rights belong to China, and to develop high-quality, high-yield and pest-resistant genetically modified new species.

"The plan's approval is a very positive signal to the future research and commercialization of more GMO crops," said Huang Jikun, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The cabinet also urged relevant authorities to "waste no time to implement the program and understand the importance and urgency of the program".

The article speaks about GMO contamination. It seems the authors are accusing the Chinese government of acquiescing to "contamination" of food, or tolerating it.

Earth Systems & Environmental Science

Source

China approves big budget for GMO amid food worries, by Niu Shuping. Reuters, July 10, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSPEK11727520080710

Cleaning up Himaraya

Koichi Mikami — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 05:33:58 -0700

Description

Chinese government plans to restrict access to Mount Everest in order to clean up the mountain in 2009.

IIASA Workshop, 2 July 2008

Source

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/a-mountain-of-trash-china-closes-everest-for-cleanup-857661.html

Looking to China for clues on future modes of governance

Christopher Doll — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 05:32:29 -0700

Description

China's rapid development into an emergent superpower poses a special challenge to its political leaders. As economic development is delivered to a greater number of people, it will needs to balance this centrally planned development with louder demands for democracy.

This provides a challenge but also great opportunities for the Chinese leadership to develop innovative forms of government and mechanisms for listening, which can be tailored to the experience of the people who are unfamiliar with democracy. Should these prove successful, then new, more nuanced modes of participation may emerge which could be more effective and efficient than Western style democracies and provide a model for other emerging economies to follow.

Source

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10078

Glaciers are depleting in the Northeren Areas of Pakistan

Syed Faisal Zaidi — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 05:19:06 -0700

Description

There are hundreds of glaciers in the Upper Indus basin which includes areas of Pakistan, India and China. According to the research made by scientists using satellite imageries and remote sensing software, it is thought that the size of the glaciers is reducing

IIASA Workshop, 2 July 2008

Source

www.gcisc.org.pk

Possibility of a new Indian-Chinese rivalry, this time in space

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:35:11 -0700

Description

The Times writes on a warming rivalry between India and China in space:

India and China are taking their rivalry into orbit, with Delhi determined to catch up with Beijing in what is starting to look like an Asian version of the Cold War “space sace”.

General Deepak Kapoor, India’s Chief of Army Staff, has spoken publicly for the first time of his fears about China’s military space programme and the need for India to accelerate its own.

“The Chinese space programme is expanding at an exponentially rapid pace in both offensive and defensive content,” he told a conference attended by India’s military top brass this week. “The Indian Army’s agenda for exploitation of space will have to evolve dynamically. It should be our endeavour to optimise space applications for military purposes.”

Describing space as “the ultimate high ground”, he called for the establishment of an interservices space command to supervise surveillance, reconnaissance and rapid response.

India & South Asia: Science & Technology

Source

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4182216.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093

Ben Goertzel on the future of science in China

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 00:20:15 -0700

Description

Serial entrepreneur and AI expert Ben Goertzel reflects on the future of science in China, and the comparative fortunes of China and the U.S.:

Hugo [de Garis, an Australian-born AI researcher who's worked in Europe, Japan, the U.S., and is now teaching at Wuhan University] is convinced that China is the country of the future and America is already obsolete. He foresees a coming century of reverse brain drain, where China recruits smart scientists and engineers from Western nations....

It might happen—I don’t rule it out. Of course, unlike Hugo, I think some sort of technological Singularity is very likely by mid-century and maybe sooner—but let’s ignore that for the moment ... talking just in conventional political/cultural terms, it’s not obvious to me that he’s right.

No doubt China has very many very smart and ambitious and hardworking people... but the cultural differences w/ the West are profound and I don’t think any of us understands what they mean in terms of the future of science and engineering.

One observation I like to make is as follows. People talk about the knowledge economy ... where manual work has long been outsourced to 3rd world countries, leaving 1st world countries increasingly consumed w/ knowledge work.

And more and more so, the US becomes a pragmatic knowledge integration economy—specialized knowledge like programming and science gets farmed out to 3rd world countries, but the task of integrating together various pieces of knowledge for practical purposes is still done in America. Even in Novamente, which is a damn international company, we do programming and science and project management overseas, but the figuring-out of what programming and science needs to be done to serve business goals, is largely done in the US. Because the US is where our customer companies are—even if their work is largely done overseas, the high-level staff defining their vision are mostly here. The matching-up of technology and business, where Novamente is concerned, occurs mainly within the arena of US culture. (We do have overseas customers, but they are either run by Americans or following business models that closely copy American ones.)

The next step, I think, is the creativity economy. Even integrative knowledge will become commoditized. Creation of new ideas will be the LAST thing to get commoditized. But this is exactly where America excels. No nation on Earth fosters creativity as well as the USA. And for this reason, I’m not so sure that America’s period of dramatic success is over. The more science and technology accelerate, the more critical creativity becomes—and, lame as American culture and institutions are, they seem better than most alternatives at fostering wide-ranging creativity. (The only cultures I’ve known that seemed maybe more creativity-friendly were Australia, New Zealand and Hungary. But those are small places, population-wise.)

There is loads of creativity in China, for instance, on a personal level. Very creative people. But I’m not sure the culture fosters creativity in the way that US culture does. Oriental culture seems to favor obedience a lot more than US culture, and creativity is often not compatible with obedience.... The US is probably the most anarchic major developed country—which has its downsides, especially for those below the poverty line in the US—but, it seems that anarchy and creativity are inextricably entwined.

If China evolves a culture of creativity, then Hugo will be proved right and this will become the Chinese century ... and maybe the Singularity will get launched in China (hey, maybe it will get launched there anyway via Hugo’s and my collaboration!!!)..... But that’s a big “if”, I suppose. Yet one feature of Chinese history is its tendency toward sudden, radical changes of one sort or another. Time will tell.

China: Science & Technology

Source

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/goertzel20080620/

Chinese government refusing to allow edge.org book to be published, Implications for China's Intellectual Future

Max Marmer — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:59:03 -0700

Description

Chinese government refusing to allow edge.org book What Is Your Dangerous Idea?: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable, because "some content is not accordant to Chinese regulations, for example, some content about religious, soul."

Steven Pinker one of the 109 Authors of the Q&A book responds poignantly, "There is a profound issue lurking here. Everyone says that China will be the next scientific and economic power. Is this compatible with their ongoing rejection of open debate and exploration of ideas? Is a technologically advanced society compatible with anti-intellectualism and suppression of debate? It's hard to see how China will ever compete with the West as a source of scientific and technological innovation if ideas cannot be discussed and evaluated. Or will the Internet — which can never be completely censored — and a stream of PhDs returning from the West eventually pressure them to open up?"

China: Science & Technology

Source

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dangerous08/dangerous08_index.html

China builds new nuclear submarine base

Philip Cho — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 04:07:40 -0700

Description

Digitalglobe satellite pictures confirm that China has constructed a major underground nuclear submarine facility in Yulin (Sanya) at Hainan island. The Federation of American Scientists reports that the Chinese navy has already deployed a Jin class (Type 094) ballistic missile submarine to the base. In addition to an extensive tunnel system, among the base’s new capabilities (compared to the one in Jinggezhuang) is a demagnetization facility to remove residual magnetic fields from the metal in a submarine, making it harder to detect.

The People’s Liberation Army Navy lacks tactical experience operating SSBN’s at sea and DoD reports limit the JL-2 range to around 7,200+ km. Deep waters around the base also make it more vulnerable to US attack submarines in the South China sea which have decades of experience trailing Soviet SSBN’s in open water. These in combination with ASW aircraft and submerged listening devices will hamper effective deployment of the Jin.

China: Science & Technology

Source

http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2008/04/new-chinese-ssbn-deploys-to-hainan-island-naval-base.php
http://www.janes.com/news/security/jir/jir080421_1_n.shtml

China’s Agricultural Production Faces Challenges with Labor Shortages and Lack of Training

Philip Cho — Sun, 25 May 2008 09:08:24 -0700

Description

Even before the current world food crises, China has been suffering from record inflation. A spike in pork and other food prices pushed inflation to a 12 year peak of 8.7%, with food price inflation accounting for approximately 85% of overall inflation. In the short term, the nation remains financially insulated and maintains sufficient grain reserves of about 150 to 200 million tons.

In the long run, however, China’s agriculture is vulnerable to labor shortages and loss of farmland. After reaching a peak of over 500 million tons in the mid 1990s, grain production has steadily declined. Several agencies have repeated warnings that China cannot afford to dip below 120 million hectors of farmland and currently stands at the brink with only 122 million.

One major problem is the aging of the nation’s farmers and their lack of training in new technologies. According to a nationwide survey conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture from 2004 to 2006, the average age of farmers had surpassed 50 as younger workers continue to flock to cities.

In response, the government aims to make-up for labor shortages by promoting the use of new strains of hybrid rice and high-yield wheat. For example, Zhang Qifa at the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently published his findings in Nature Genetics on cloned Ghd7, an important regulator in rice for both heading and yield. His team isolated Ghd7 from a high yield hybrid rice and encoded a CCT domain protein that has a major effect on a variety of traits including grains per panicle, plant height, heading date, and geographic adaptability. Tests resulted in crop increases by up to 50%.

Such research, unfortunately, is not likely to have any impact on China’s agricultural production in the near future. In March, 2006, the Ministry of Agriculture announced an initiative to train farmers in new technologies and assist with their scientific literacy. Although the government in 2007 invested 1.1 billion yuan into the program, many have complained that it is too little too late and that the program’s implementation faces challenges in reaching farmers as well as in corruption.

Signals

The Changing Profile of China’s Science and Technology Leadership

Philip Cho — Sun, 25 May 2008 09:06:29 -0700

Description

In April, 2007, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology created a stir by selecting the 55 year old Wan Gang 万钢 as its first director who was not a communist party member. Two months later, the Ministry of Health elected as director Chen Zhu 陈竺, also not a party member. These two appointments were the culmination of a trend since 2004 of a new generation of non-communist party leaders filling key positions in China’s research and higher-education community. In 2006 alone, 11 top universities such as Nanjing University, Dong Nan University, and Zhejiang University replaced their presidents. Many analysts heralded this trend as a sign of the party’s loosening grip on science and technology that might lead to greater academic freedom and international exchange.

This new generation shares a common profile. Coming of age after the Cultural Revolution and China’s restoration of its higher education system in 1978, they are nearly all in their mid 50’s and did their doctoral training abroad. For example, Wan Gang studied in Germany, Chen Zhu in France, Zhejiang University’s President Yang Wei in the US, and both Gong Ke龚克 president of Tianjin University and Rao Zihe饶子和 president of Nankai University studied in Australia.

These changes, however, may only be cosmetic. The directors, as the public face of China’s science and technology ministries and top universities, may be young with international savvy. Yet, many of the vice-directors such as Li Xueyong李学勇( age 58), who oversee the daily functioning of these organizations, remain party bureaucrats. The Chinese Academy of Science especially, with Lu Yongxiang 路甬祥 (age 66), Bai Chunli白春礼 (age 55), Zhan Wenlong 詹文龙（age 53）, and Fang Xin 方新（age 53）continues to combine science and politics as its top leadership are also all high party officials. Hence, while China’s science and technology community may be opening up to the rest of the world at the highest administrative levels, the political climate within the country may remain the same.

Signals

State Driven Innovation in China: Funding Challenges and Strategies

Philip Cho — Sun, 25 May 2008 09:02:25 -0700

Description

Innovation in Chinese science and technology continues to be driven by the state rather than by the grass roots. Government impetus has primarily involved building massive new research facilities such as two of the world’s largest radio-telescopes (LAMOST and FAST), a VLBI deep space network, the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, the North Star GPS satellite network, and the China Spallation Neutron Source, just to name of few.

To fund these Big Science projects, the Chinese government pledged in 2005 to boost R&D spending from 1.3% to 2.5% of GDP by 2020 (see Science, 17 March 2006, p. 1548). However, the danger is that the government failed to meet a similar pledge in its last five year plan. According to the “95 Plan” covering 1996 through 2000, the government pledge to raise R&D spending to 1.5% of GDP by the end of 2000, around 135 billion yuan at the time. Although China approximately met its GDP goal of 9 trillion yuan by 2000, R&D spending only grew by little more than half of what the government had pledge 5 years earlier (see below the official statistical charts published in 2006). This means that many of these projects may meet either construction or operating budget crunches long before any productive work can be done.

Moreover, little attention and funding has been given to how these showcase facilities will actually be used. In rare cases such as the China Spallation Neutron Source are users consulted as to their needs and the operating and maintenance budgets necessarily to make projects successful. Funding often comes as a lump sum and the design and location of the facilities are often subject to political jockying, as many of these projects represent the legacy of a political leader. The training of researchers to man these facilities also lags and the lack of communication and cooperation among competing labs continues to hamper progress.

Chinese enterprises have also failed to drive innovation as few invest in research and development. For example, a survey by China's top advisory body, the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), found that most do not employ a single person in R&D and in state-owned enterprises, performance is assessed based on increase of assets rather than innovation. Not surprisingly, in contrast to the heyday of Silicone Valley, China’s microprocessor technology suffers due to a lack of commercial R&D investment.

In a new twist, a recent Pentagon report finds that China has turned to forging closer ties between the military and businesses to try and kick-start research into cutting edge technology where the commercial sector has sagged. Companies such as Huawei, Datang,and Zhongxing collaborate closely with the PLA on dual-use information technologies. Borrowing a page from Vannevar Bush’s playbook, the military also plans to work more closely with universities in funding research in key areas such as aviation, information, new materials, energy (hydrogen energy and fuel cell technologies, alternative fuels), and marine (three-dimensional maritime environmental monitoring technologies, fast, multi-parameter ocean floor survey, and deep-sea operations) technologies.

(See attachment for charts)

Signals

China Launches Its First Telecommunications Relay Satellite for Future Shenzhou Missions

Philip Cho — Sun, 25 May 2008 03:44:45 -0700

Description

At 23:35 April 25, 2008, China launched the Tianlian 01 relay satellite from its Xichang launch center. In a geostationary transfer orbit, the satellite will serve as a telecommunications hub between the Shenzhou 7 capsule set for launch later this year and ground control. Coverage will be enhanced from 12% to 60%.

Source

Database on Traditional Chinese Medicine Impacts Large Market for TCM Drugs

Philip Cho — Sun, 25 May 2008 03:35:47 -0700

Description

With support from the National 973 Program and the National Natural Science Foundation, Zhejiang University School of Pharmacy, Tianjin University of Chinese Medicine, and the Tasly Group jointly launched on May 10th, 2008, a digital database on Traditional Chinese Medicine drug formulas and materia medica. Over the course of five years, a team of researchers led by Cheng Yiyu of Zhejian University, collected, analyzed and stored over 10, 661 Chinese medicines and 235 compounds. Their efforts aim at creating a national center for TCM research in Tianjin. As TCM extends its global reach, the market potential for new TCM drugs both within China and abroad is substantial and largely overlooked by western companies.

Source

Nuclear Facilities in the Aftermath of Sichuan's Earthquake

Philip Cho — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:45:36 -0700

Description

In the aftermath of the tragic earthquake in Sichuan, two issues loom in the regional science and technology landscape. The first, the fate of many hydroelectric dams, in particular the massive Three Gorges Dam, seems at least for now under control. The second, hinted at in several news reports is the possible danger from the nuclear facilities in the city of Mian Yang 绵阳, which was hard hit.

The exact nature of these facilities has been confused in the media. The China Nuclear Engineering Research Institute 中国工程物理研究所 has been since 1965 a main center for the development of China’s atomic and hydrogen bombs. As an important industrial city, Mian Yang is not a site for the manufacture of nuclear weapons (See error in NYT May 5th ). The non-military facility was moved to the city from the remote area of Qinghai to provide a more livable environment for the researchers.

The research institute sustained some damage and Russian and Japanese experts have been allowed in to assist. News reports that hint at a possible nuclear catastrophe are an attempt at sensationalism.