The political background of a pattern transformation in the Chinese system of science and technology during the 20th century

Abstract

The development of modern science and technology in China involved three transformations: from a traditional mindset to a modern one through the enlightenment of scientific thought, from the Anglo-Saxon pattern to the Soviet pattern in the process of instituting the Chinese system of science and technology, and from national defence to economics due to an awakening of technical economics after the ‘Cultural Revolution’. This paper surveys the political background of the second transformation. The idea of ‘doing science for science’s sake’ never had a footing in China because the Chinese began to learn about modern science and technology only under the threat of colonists’ gunboats. Developing science and technology has always been one of the means for China to cast off national humiliation and regain its status as a major country in the world. Compared with science and technology in other countries, Chinese science and technology were more susceptible to the international political environment and domestic political situation. It took about two decades, between the establishment of the Academia Sinica in 1928 and the inauguration of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1949, for China to form its system of science and technology. The system had three successive configurations because of the international competition among Japan, the US and the Soviet Union over China, and the domestic political contest between the Chinese Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (founded by Sun Yat-sen in 1912) and the Communist Party of China. China’s science and technology system started by modelling itself on its counterparts in Europe and America. After undergoing a series of unconventional developments during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931–1945) and the War of Liberation (1946–1949), the system transformed to the Soviet pattern after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China.