Scientific Innovation and Knowledge Creation Can Drive Social Development: A Chinese Perspective

Introduction

There is no doubt that the global economy, along with the world’s population, has grown very fast in the 20th century, and this is largely due to the accelerated development of scientific achievement and technology. As Prof. Pravin J. Patel has pointed out in his paper, disciplinary knowledge doubled during 1900–1950. Such speedy development has resulted in rapid economic growth and a social transition from traditional societies to modern industrial societies in many countries. Primary school and middle school students now have to learn much more than those students who attended similar grades fifty years ago, making school teaching at all levels a key task for any country on the path of modernisation.

Industrialisation and modern schools originally emerged in Western Europe and spread over the rest of the world during the period of imperialism and colonialism. Disciplinary knowledge structures—physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology and so on—and school systems—primary, middle, high school, university, Master and PhD programmes—initially created in Western Europe are accepted by all countries today. During the colonial and imperialist period, other countries with different cultural and knowledge traditions, even if they managed to retain a certain level of political independence, were forced to enter this transitional process under great hardship. Even after political independence, these new countries with their low standards in science and technological achievement were at a great disadvantage as they had to compete with advanced industrialised countries.

It is true that today’s world is led by the knowledge society. Countries which lead scientific and technological progress control knowledge, forms of production and the markets and therefore naturally control wealth as well. Therefore, as Prof. Patel points out,

[T]he knowledge society acquires enormous power and wealth by promoting [even more] scientific research … It also creates a hiatus between developed countries and developing countries. Since scientific knowledge enables the former to enhance their wealth … they become richer and the poor countries stagnate or, still worse, become poorer.

The gap between rich countries and poor countries has not narrowed but has become even wider aided by the development of new scientific and technological progress.

One often quoted fact that people usually are impressed by is the percentage growth in China’s manufacturing industry which increased from 7 per cent in 2000 to 22 per cent in 2012 but they seldom notice that the difference in labour productivity in manufacturing between China and the US increased from $71,000 (USD) in 2000 to $118,000 (USD) in 2012. (Chuanqi, 2015, p. 21). Scientific knowledge is truly the main source of power and wealth.

It was mainly due to ‘the system reform and opening up’ policies practised by Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s that enabled China to walk out the ‘class struggle’ framework of the ‘Cultural Revolution’. Economic development thus became the main focus of China, which made ‘modernisation’ its new goal for the rest of the 20th century. One of the major indicators of this historical turning point was that Chinese universities started to recruit new students in 1978. During 1966–1978, all universities in China were closed and teachers and professors were sent to countryside for ‘re-education’ by peasant and herdsmen. The reopening of universities became a symbol of a new period in Chinese history.

As Prof. Patel has pointed out, ‘ … A research university is the origin of knowledge society.’ The modern university system in China was established by Western commissioners in 1884 in Shandong. Peking University (1898) was considered the first one established by the Qing Government. After the 1911 revolution, China experienced a series of internal wars and the war against Japanese invasion (1931–1945). School education suffered immensely during these turbulent social and economic conditions. In India, universities and research institutes were established by the British colonial government and were fortunate enough to by pass the Second World War. In general, the modern university education in China lagged far behind the Indian which was a British colony till the first half of the 20th century. One example illustrating this comparison was when Sir C. V. Raman (1888–1970) was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1930 for physics, becoming the first Asian to win the prestigious award. In contrast, the first Chinese scholar won a Nobel Prize for science in 2015.

During 1949–1966, the university system in mainland China was reformed and followed the Soviet model. This meant that all comprehensive universities were transformed into disciplinary colleges. For example, all faculties and departments connected to the humanities, social science as well as science disciplines in Qinghua University were transferred to Peking University while all faculties and departments connected to technology in Peking University were transferred to Qinghai University. The medical school and agricultural school under Peking University were set up as independent universities. Discipline-oriented universities might train excellent engineers but not scholars with the spirit of original innovation and entrepreneurial talents. It was in the 1980s that the Soviet model of higher education was abandoned, leading the way for American universities to become models for Chinese research universities.

Research universities are indeed the foundation of a knowledge society. They train scholars in all fields, including scientists, engineers, social scientists, lawyers and politicians. The United States of America as the only super power in the world founded numerous research universities which proved a springboard for the social science and science elites to lead the social and economic development of the country. If we only refer to aspect of sciences, people will be impressed by the fact that American scientists have won 47 per cent of the Nobel Prizes in science up to 2014. I remember that several years ago, all the Nobel Prizes winners in the science field were from the US in that particular year. The advantage that American research universities have over other countries is so impressive; in 2015, there were 260 research universities in the US while China only had 36 research universities. As Prof. Patel points out, both China and India need to catch up with the development of the knowledge society, and research universities are the key to this process.

Prof. Patel discusses several issues regarding the improvement of Indian research universities. First, he emphasises, ‘The research university is the mother of a knowledge society since it plays a significant role both in the origin and sustenance of a knowledge society.’ Second, American universities present impressive scientific and academic achievements. Table 2 provides excellent examples in the fields of physical sciences, life sciences, medical sciences and the social sciences. Third, research universities have created great success and wealth for their faculties and alumni, and they in turn contribute large endowments to these universities. There is a positive circulation of knowledge and wealth between universities and their alumni. Table 3, focussing on the top ten US universities in terms of endowment funds, gives us figures for 2014 that are really impressive. Fourth, the advance of the industrial countries in scientific innovation and technology depends largely on national investment and expenditures in research universities and projects. Table 4 illustrates the percentage share of the developed and developing countries in research and development expenditure of the world in 2014.

Based on the above points, Prof. Patel comments on India’s development of research universities. As the two large developing countries of Asia, Prof. Patel compares China and India showing that India has contributed less in many disciplines when compared with China (Table 5). For instance, in 2011–2012, only 1 per cent of university students in India pursued research, and only 0.1 per cent obtained a PhD degree. In comparison, China recruited 3,630,000 undergraduate university students in 2014 and awarded 53, 653 PhD degree holders in the same year, that is, about 1.5 per cent of the total (Statistical Bureau of China, 2015, p. 203). Many indicators in Table 7 show that China has moved ahead as far as the number of top universities in the world, the number of researchers, the number of published research papers and citation impact of research papers in recent years is concerned.

Behind these statistics there are many systems followed by the Chinese government to encourage universities to expand their doctoral programmes. For example, the evaluation of a university’s achievement is directly related to the number of PhD programmes and the number of their doctoral students. This evaluation determines the level of financial inputs by the central and local governments to universities. University presidents as also provincial governors get promoted if universities under their leadership make significant progress. The varying levels of performances of India and China in higher education and research universities are directly related to their different political systems.

India has a federal framework and is a democracy. The federal government has a limited power and influence on state governments which are elected locally and might be lead by different political parties. The central government does not directly manage both public and private universities. In China, however, the leadership of universities is appointed by the government. Student recruitment quotas and the establishment of new departments are also regulated by the government. The impressive growth in higher education, as well as in the economy, is largely managed by the Chinese government. The government can steer all national human, financial resources, and all possible administrative support to developing research universities. This type of political and social system in China is called, ‘new authoritarianism’ by some scholars (Gongqian, 2012).

This type of political system in China has both advantages and disadvantages. When the top leader make right decisions, the whole country advances, develops fast and becomes efficient as was the case after the 1980s. When top leaders make wrong decisions, society as a whole becomes chaotic and disordered as was the case during the Great Leap Forward Movement in the late 1950s and the Cultural Revolution. India’s political system can avoid such social chaos but cannot work so efficiently as the Chinese government.

It can be said that as two great ancient civilisations, both China and India, have different histories, cultural and political traditions. They both face similar challenges in becoming knowledge societies and in developing research universities. India and China might choose different roads but they certainly can learn something from other’s experience of development.

The numbers provided by Prof. Patel show that in 2007, India spent $400 (USD) per student, whereas China spent $2,728 (USD), EU 21 countries spent $12,958 (USD) while the United States spent $29,910 (USD) in the same year. Besides, 80 per cent of the top ten universities in 2014 are located in the US. Clearly, both China and India lag far behind the European countries and the US as far as education in investment is concerned.

Meanwhile, India and China also face some similar problems in developing research universities. First, both countries have established many new universities in recent years in order to develop facilities for higher education. Due to limited financial and human resources, these new universities have not performed well. In India, financial support is a serious issue. According to Pravin J. Patel, ‘These newly established institutions are mostly understaffed and extremely deficient in infrastructure’ . Due to heavy investments, many universities in China even have their second or third campus with many new buildings. The most serious problem in China is a shortage of qualified faculties. India also faces a shortage of teachers. ‘Nearly 50 per cent of the faculty positions are vacant in most universities.’

As American research universities provide much better education and research conditions, many bright Chinese and Indian students keep going to the US for their masters and doctoral degrees, and a large proportion of them remain there after graduation. It is a serious, ‘human capital loss’ for both countries. Fortunately, the situation in China has improved. There were totally 459,000 Chinese students going to abroad (most went the US) for better education in 2014, and 364,800 graduates returned in the same year. In comparison, 38,973 Chinese students went abroad and only 9,121 students returned in 2000 (Statistical Bureau of China, 2015: 202).

Both China and India are also facing a similar problem in which a large section of senior academicians in many disciplines have retired. The question is whether the next generation can replace them. There were many ‘master’ professors in China in the 1950s who contributed greatly to all disciplines. Today, people in China try to answer, ‘the question of Qian Xuesen,’ well known as ‘a father of the nuclear bomb’ in China. When Primer Wen visited Qian in hospital in 2005, Prof. Qian asked, ‘Why can’t our universities train outstanding scholars.’ Qian said, ‘China is still a developing country, and one of the important reasons is that none of our universities can train students according to the mode for innovative and creative talents.’ ¹

There is insufficient institutionalisation of a scientific culture in academic institutions in both China and India, and this needs to be improved. A serious issue of debate in China relates to its school system; in that the whole educational system from primary school through to high school is an ‘exam-oriented machine’. All course structures and even homework assignments are designed to prepare students for the university entrance examination. School teachers are forced to familiarise themselves with previous exams and guide their teaching accordingly. In order to obtain high scores in these entrance exams, students try hard to remember ‘standard answers’ provided by textbooks but do not learn how to independently search for the right answers. This ‘exam-oriented’ approach has made the young generation take a completely opposite direction to any meaningful research culture even after they enter universities. If China cannot improve the present situation in its educational system, it will face serious problems in the future.

Prof. Patel mentioned, ‘Instances of extremely poor quality research, often involving plagiarism, are not infrequent.’ This is also a serious issue in China with even some university presidents having plagiarised. In fact, plagiarism by Chinese students in many American universities even became an intense issue in the US. ² If students cannot learn how to answer questions by themselves in school and consider high scores as their goal, plagiarism will continue.

Both China and India are developing countries and will be facing many similar challenges in the future. In order to join the ‘club of knowledge society,’ China and India not only need to learn from developed countries such as the US but they need to learn from each other as well. Buddhism was introduced into China from India, becoming an important part of the Chinese tradition. As neighbours facing many similar issues, China and India should have more exchanges and cooperation in all aspects in the future.