China needs a culture of creative innovation

Ethnic Chinese scientists have been successful at winning Nobel prizes and also the Asian-based Shaw Prize for science. However, only one scientist had ever won such a prize when pursuing career in post-1949 China. This suggests that there is nothing wrong with ethnic Chinese scientists but that there are institutional constraints within Chinese science that need attention.

Qian Xuesen, one of China's top scientists, told former premier Wen Jiabao that a major issue retarding science and technology was that "the country's universities were unable to produce innovative scientific and technical personnel". Many universities have been built during one recent eight-year period, one every three days. However, it is frequently remarked that graduates often fail to exhibit those characteristics employers require. This contributes to very high graduate unemployment.

The gaokao, or university entrance examination, encourages rote learning, not critical thinking. It has been criticized for filtering out the people with the highest analytical intelligence. Many parents reluctantly prefer maintaining the gaokao on the basis that it is at least objective, whereas a move to a more critical-thinking driven process might allow the children of some officials to circumvent the system.

Problems in the scientific culture include excessive deference to age and seniority and a pervasive culture of plagiarism where little criticism is made of wholesale copying of passages from other scientists.

Building innovation in China requires a radical reform of education, encouraging creativity and critical thinking. It is less a funding issue and more one of creating an environment. The academic community needs to firmly censure plagiarism amongst both professors and students. The cult of hierarchy in science needs to be replaced by a desire for truth. Quality must be recognized as more important than quantity. The priorities are a vibrant civil society and the cultivation of critical thought. We need China to become more innovative, and there is no reason whatsoever why China cannot develop a more substantial innovative culture.

The author is chairman of China-outlook.net and author of Stumbling Giant: The Threats to China's Future (Yale 2013), due to be published in Beijing in October. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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