Yuan Lanfeng, Special Writer of "China Economic Weekly"
(This article was published in the 1st issue of 2020 China Economic Weekly)
Can China's technology lead? Many years ago, this was almost unbelievable. But now people are beginning to think about "welcoming the era of China's leading technology", because today we not only have the opportunity, but also have the confidence. In the past few years, China has fully proven its ability to develop 1 to infinity, but whether it can create from 0 to 1 is a new challenge before us, and we need to make great efforts to act and change.
And change is happening. Technological innovation has become a strong driving force for China to promote economic transformation and upgrading and high-quality development. It promotes regional economic and industrial development, and guides investment directions and entrepreneurial opportunities. The future trend of technological innovation can clear the fog for us and see the most real vents and tracks.
2020 is the opening year of the next decade. As a New Year gift from China Economic Weekly to readers, we start from the trend and direction of technological innovation, and present a "Guide to the Future" for you who stand in front of the next decade.
The first public appearance of the J-20 aircraft in November 2016
Can China's technology lead? Many people do not believe it, including me 20 years ago. In 1999, 20 years ago, there was a popular saying, "The 21st century is the century of China." At that time, I even wrote a long article that was concerned about the country and the people, enumerating eight reasons for pessimism, and concluded that "in the 21st century, the most pressing question is not whether we can catch up with the United States, but whether we can guarantee that we will not Be wiped out" conclusion.
Twenty years have passed in a flash, and earth-shaking changes have taken place in many people and many countries. But some people may still say: Are we really qualified to talk about China's technological leadership now? For example, can we compare to Japan? Japan has won much more Nobel Prizes than China. Not long ago, Japan cut off the supply of several chemical products to South Korea and brought South Korea back to its original form. What about China? Wouldn't it be "stuck" everywhere? We are still far behind Japan, how can we compare with the United States?
Japan does have a lot of science and technology worth learning from China, such as automobiles, materials, electronics, and chemicals. However, Japanese technology is also inferior to China in many aspects, such as airplanes, communications, mobile phones, the Internet, and artificial intelligence. More importantly, China is a fairly comprehensive player, while Japan is a more partial player.
Take the representative aircraft of the high-end industry as an example. It involves almost all industrial sectors such as materials, electronics, machinery, energy, and construction, and is a concentrated expression of manufacturing capabilities. In terms of aircraft, Japan is clearly inferior to China.
In terms of the most high-end stealth fighter, China's J-20 has already been installed, but Japan's "Mind" ended in failure. In terms of regional airliners, China’s ARJ-21 has been in operation for 4 years, while Japan’s MRJ is still being tested. In the mainline airliner, the gap is even greater. China's C919 is intensively testing flight, and Japan has no plans to develop a trunk airliner at all.
In most areas, even if China is not the first, it is still one of the main players. The United Nations divides industry into 39 major categories, 191 medium categories and 525 subcategories. China is the only country in the world that has all industrial categories.
It’s like someone has participated in almost all events in the Olympics, running, swimming, gymnastics, shooting, etc., and most of them have won the top five, and a few events have won gold medals, then you think he is strong Still weak? The answer is obviously: this person is too strong!
In fact, China does not need to set all fields as a "championship" goal: the chip must be built by itself, the space station must be built by itself, and nuclear fusion must be built by itself, even the ballpoint pen. Including Japan, other powers outside of China and the United States are actually only making efforts in certain areas. The comparison object we really care about is not these countries, because the upper limit we can reach is much higher than them, and our real comparison object is only the United States.
To welcome the era of China’s leading technology, we are qualified
The world's longest sea-crossing bridge opened in December 2018
The "Nature index" proposed by the top international scientific journal "Nature" (Nature) is a globally recognized, relatively objective and comprehensive indicator of a country's scientific and technological strength. It selects the top 82 of the tens of thousands of scientific journals around the world, and the journal Nature will count the papers published in these journals to calculate the basic research output of each country.
The data can quantitatively characterize the status of Chinese technology in the world. Data in 2018 show that most of the world's basic research comes from three regions: North America, East Asia and Europe. The contributions of these three regions are similar, while the contributions of other regions are close to negligible.
Within these three regions, about 90% of North America comes from the United States, about 60% of East Asia comes from China, and Europe is relatively scattered, without a prominent power.
Therefore, the top six countries for basic research are the United States, China, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, and France. The United States is about 1.8 times that of China. The closest to us is Germany, which is about 40% of China. The aforementioned Japan is about 1/4 of China's.
Seeing this pattern, we can understand that in the eyes of the United States, only China is the real challenger.
What makes the United States "fear" even more is the rate of change in 2018. China is up 16.4%, the United States is down 2.9%, Britain, France, Germany and Japan are also falling. Apart from China, the only one growing in the top 10 is Australia.
Therefore, it is completely understandable that the United States has a sense of urgency to suppress China's development. If you don’t suppress it now, do you have to wait until you surpass me before suppressing it?
Now we should start thinking about "welcoming the era of China's leading technology", because today we not only have the opportunity, but also have the confidence.
To welcome the era of China’s leading technology, we have the confidence
In some areas, it is now a dual-headed pattern of China and the United States. For example, the Internet that everyone is familiar with, and the most popular strategic emerging industry in recent years-artificial intelligence. Whether it is the number of artificial intelligence companies, the amount of financing, or the papers and patents, China and the United States far exceed other countries.
artificial intelligence
According to the "Global Artificial Intelligence Development Report (2018)" released by the Wuzhen Think Tank, China has 68,467 patents on artificial intelligence and 30,200 in the United States in the past 10 years. China is 2.27 times that of the United States. The third is South Korea, whose number is equivalent to 1/10 of China. As for Japan, even the top five did not enter.
Looking at the global artificial intelligence papers in the past 10 years, China has 30,303 papers and the United States has 18,144 papers. China is 1.67 times that of the United States.
China's artificial intelligence has developed well, but it cannot be said to have surpassed the United States. It is more appropriate to say that the two countries have their own strengths and weaknesses.
There are already quite a few areas where China is clearly the most advanced. The most reported in recent years is obviously 5G communications.
In June 2016, "Shenwei·Light of Taihu Lake" won the world supercomputer championship
The official report of the United States can be used as evidence. In April 2019, the US Department of Defense released a report called "5G Ecosystem: Risks and Opportunities for the US Department of Defense", which clearly recognized China as the leader. The report made many suggestions to the United States, especially how to obstruct China.
The U.S. Department of Defense report recognized China's 5G leadership. So why does the US care about 5G so much? What is the use of 5G?
I have seen many people say that 5G is not very useful, the technology is immature, and there is no real demand. They said that even-numbered generations such as 2G and 4G are relatively successful, while odd-numbered generations such as 3G and 5G are relatively unsuccessful. This kind of theory, which sounds quite metaphysical, may be called the "law of even success." Therefore, they believe that China's 5G is a face-saving project, and it will end up being just a chicken feather. Is it really?
To be honest, I didn't know how useful 5G is. But recently, my friend and communications expert "Occam's Razor" Dr. Chi Zhang explained this issue to me in depth. It turns out that 5G will soon be possible or even changing society, not in the future when God knows.
For example, 5G can be combined with China's satellite navigation system Beidou to achieve ultra-low latency, ultra-high reliability of the Internet of Things and centimeter-level precise positioning. This means that if your child is lost, you can only know which area he is in before, but now you can know which tile in which area he is walking on.
In the past, when driving, navigation can only know which road you are on, but now you can know which road and which lane you are on. On the highway, you will never make the wrong exit again.
In the future, automatic driving will be like this: the traffic light in front gives the car an electrical signal, and it will automatically brake. Ma Luyazi will tell you that you have deviated from the lane by 1 cm. If a car wants to overtake, the car in front will give way. Therefore, the tragedy of a series of highway collisions will never happen again.
By the way, there are two technical routes for accessing the Internet of Things, which are called Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) and Long Range (LoRa). The leading company of the former is called Huawei. The latter's leading company is called ZTE. That's right, the most advanced technology for IoT access is in China's hands.
Autonomous driving may seem a bit sci-fi, but in fact 5G is already improving the lives of ordinary people.
For example, remote control of excavators. Not long ago, in the Huawei exhibition hall of the Shanghai Station of the Mobile World Congress, a worker manipulated an excavator in the Luoyang mine to dig out the ore and load it into an unmanned mine cart on the side. This eldest brother is called Wang Chaolei. In the past, Wang Chaolei's family of three discussed that the mine was landslide again, but now he often jokes that he is afraid that he may be digging out air-conditioning disease.
Why didn't this kind of operation work in the past? Because the previous time delay was too long, the order here passed slowly, and the ore over there had already fallen. And 5G can control the delay within tens of milliseconds and the position within a dozen centimeters.
Similarly, 5G allows the tractor to pull out a very straight ridge, allowing the tank to achieve 1 + N operation, that is, a manned tank leads N unmanned tanks to move and fire simultaneously.
China's 5G technology has changed living conditions, production methods and war patterns, and has penetrated into the destiny of every Chinese worker, Chinese soldier, and Chinese family.
In the 5G era, China has a great advantage, because the "infrastructure madman" is not a mere name. For example, looking at 4G base stations, there are currently about 6 million 4G base stations in the world, and China has 4.6 million, accounting for 3/4 of them all at once. There are about 300,000 in the United States, which is equivalent to 1/15 of China. Even if calculated per capita, China is nearly four times that of the United States.
In the future, we can bring this kind of life to the world.
Military heavy equipment
On December 17, 2019, my country’s first domestically-made aircraft carrier Shandong Ship was delivered to the Navy at a military port in Sanya, Hainan
In terms of military industry, the 2019 military parade featured hypersonic missiles such as Dongfeng-17. They can hit the world in one hour, and the United States cannot intercept them. Dongfeng-21D was unveiled at the military parade in 2015, which is a famous aircraft carrier killer.
Recall the 1996 Taiwanese naval exercise. At that time, two US aircraft carriers approached China’s coastline and flamboyantly. It was because we had no weapons to pose an effective threat to it. We could only kill teeth and swallow blood. After the birth of the Dongfeng-21D, the US aircraft carrier never entered China's offshore waters.
Not long ago, the famous international relations scholar Professor Jin Canrong said: US military bases around China will be destroyed by missiles as soon as they are opened. Many people do not believe this statement, but I consulted some relevant experts and the answer is: in terms of technical ability, this is correct!
Missile launch
On the morning of October 1, 2019, the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China was held at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. This is the Dongfeng-17 conventional missile team.
The Chinese know best what it feels like to be beaten if you are behind. In 2011, a large number of military fans and I burst into tears for the first flight of the J-20. A few years before this, the J-10 carried all our hopes. Around the new century, there are still a lot of posts about the J-8 vs. F-22 on the forum, which now seems to make people want to cry and laugh.
Chinese military science and technology workers endured the humiliation and rose up under pressure to provide our generation with silent and powerful protection.
Chinese technology brings peace and stability to the people.
Quantum communication
Quantum communication is another important field of science and technology.
In 2016, China launched the world's first quantum science experimental satellite "Mozi", which achieved three major scientific tasks: quantum secure communication between the satellite and the ground, quantum teleportation, and quantum entanglement distribution.
Quantum teleportation is the teleportation technique in science fiction works. Quantum secure communication is the safest secure communication method known to mankind.
Traditional security methods will be threatened by advances in computing power. For example, Google recently announced the realization of "quantum hegemony", which is an important development of quantum computers. Quantum computers can crack many codes in theory, just like the strongest spear. Quantum secure communication is the strongest shield.
Then, if you attack the shield of the son with the spear of the son, who wins? The answer is: Dun Sheng!
I myself have a very special connection with Quantum Communication. In 2015, my first popular science article introduced quantum teleportation. This article attracted a lot of attention, and then many friends recommended me to give lectures in relevant departments and institutions. In this way, I "entered" deeper and deeper, and finally became a science communication worker.
China's quantum technology has guaranteed the country's information security and opened up unlimited imagination.
In May 2017, the first self-developed large passenger aircraft C919 successfully flew for the first time
Lunar Exploration Project
In terms of aerospace, on January 3, 2019, Chang'e-4 landed on the back of the moon.
The key here is China's advanced relay satellite technology. Without a relay satellite, the earth and the back of the moon cannot be contacted.
On the far side of the moon is a land that humans have never set foot in. From there, China will bring back first-hand information about the origin of the earth and the evolution of the moon.
In 1978, when China and the United States established diplomatic relations, the United States presented China with a sample of 1 gram of moon rock. This 1 gram sample has to be divided into two, half for display and half for research. At that time, Ouyang Ziyuan, the "Father of Chang'e" who was still young, made a lot of results with this 0.5 gram sample.
After the perfect launch of Long March 5 at the end of 2019, Chang'e 5 has been included in China's space launch plan in 2020. The goal of Chang'e-5 is to take samples from the moon and send them back to earth. We finally have our own moon samples! The establishment of a lunar base and manned landing on the moon are also in progress.
On December 8, 2018, my country successfully launched the Chang'e-4 probe with the Long March-3B carrier rocket at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, starting a new journey of lunar exploration.
Speaking of moon exploration, India, as a world power, also has an attempt in 2019. On September 7, India’s Chandrayaan 2 originally wanted to make a soft landing on the lunar surface, but lost contact with the ground at the last moment, and the soft landing became a hard landing.
We don't want to laugh at India's failure. Any country that is interested in space exploration is commendable. The Indian lunar rover has a unique and ingenious design. What design?
Its wheels are engraved with the national emblem of India and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) logo, so that every time it turns, it will leave these marks on the moon. That's all right, they are really geniuses!
This is not the first time India has used such a witty sense of existence. In 2007, China's Chang'e-1 orbited the moon. A year later, India’s Chandrayaan 1 entered lunar orbit. Although it came late, it managed to get ahead of China in one thing. What's the matter? It released a lunar impactor affixed with the Indian flag and hit the moon. In this way, India left a mark on the moon before China!
It seems that China's method of doing things is one step at a time, while India's method of doing things is one circle after another. This is a basic difference between the two countries.
China's aerospace industry is advancing steadily, opening up the boundaries of mankind's understanding of the universe.
In our space journey, the moon is only the first stop.
In order to break out of the earth and emigrate to the universe, the most important technology for many people, including me, is controlled nuclear fusion.
Controlled nuclear fusion
On November 22, 2019, a child watched a model of the International Thermonuclear Fusion Experimental Reactor at the "Great Change-Large-scale Exhibition Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Reform and Opening-up".
The most important nuclear fusion device in China is called EAST, which is the world's first fully superconducting tokamak.
In 2017, EAST achieved a steady-state high-confinement mode discharge of 101 seconds and 50 million degrees, setting a world record for the steady-state long-pulse high-confinement plasma operation of tokamak. In 2018, EAST achieved a heating power of more than 10 megawatts, and the electron temperature of the plasma center reached 100 million degrees. If you have difficulty understanding what these results mean, you only need to remember one point: In these respects, EAST represents the highest level of fusion research in the world.
EAST is used to study the physics of nuclear fusion, and it cannot achieve nuclear fusion by itself. What device can achieve nuclear fusion? The answer is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). It is a larger all-superconducting tokamak under construction. It is located in France and is jointly built by the European Union and China, the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and India. Basically, all powerful countries and regions on our planet have participated.
However, with the efforts of so many countries for more than 30 years, ITER's progress is far behind expectations, almost one year later every year. According to the original plan, experiments should begin this year. But now there is no shadow, and the equipment hasn't been built yet!
Why is this happening? Because some parties are grinding foreign workers. Some of them are crying out for lack of money, and some probably don't want nuclear fusion to hinder their shale gas production-do you know which country this is? In fact, China is the most active of all the seven parties. The tasks China has undertaken have been delivered on schedule, but some pig teammates can't help it!
Therefore, China is determined to do it on its own. On December 5, 2017, the China Fusion Engineering Experimental Reactor (CFETR) officially launched the engineering design in Hefei and Chengdu. The design is expected to be completed by the end of 2020 and the construction will be completed in the 2040s. The goal of CFETR is to achieve tritium self-sustained long-term stable fusion energy output, laying the foundation for future fusion energy power stations.
China's fusion research has taken the initiative to shoulder the challenge of human survival in the universe.
To welcome the era of China’s leading technology, we still have a gap
In 2012, the "Jiaolong" set a record for manned deep diving.
Will China eventually achieve technological leadership? It's still far from reaching a conclusion.
Historically, there have been many examples of failures in good situations. For example, the Soviet Union back then. Children nowadays may find it hard to imagine that the Soviet Union’s military pressure on China in the 1970s and 1980s was as high as Mount Tai, and everyone was discussing how long it took for the Soviet steel torrent to penetrate Beijing. In contrast, the pressure of the current trade war is simply not worth mentioning. On the other hand, almost everyone in the world can sing a few lines of "Katyusha" or "Night outside Moscow." The outcome of such a powerful country is the disintegration of the country, and the wealth accumulated by the people for decades has been looted.
Another example is our Hong Kong, a very affluent society, which is often rated as the freest and most competitive economy, but what has happened recently has made everyone sigh.
Some Hong Kong youths also said that they hope that Hong Kong will have a happy ending like Ukraine. Please! Ukraine is called a "good ending"? It was originally able to build aircraft carriers, but later the aircraft carriers were sold to China, the shipyard went bankrupt, and the country became the front line of the civil war and the paradise of the oligarchs, and became synonymous with the red light district in many news. Is this a happy ending?
When we carefully observe the current situation in China with a vigilant mind, we will understand that now is definitely not the time to coast. We should think carefully about "how to meet the era of China's leading technology", because we still have many shortcomings.
To welcome the era of China's leading technology, we have flaws, and China's technology also has shortcomings.
The first shortcoming is the material basis of scientific research, which is the investment in research and development. This is actually a place where China has done more successfully. China’s R&D investment is now the second in the world, second only to the United States. But the problem is that this is not enough. Let us look at the ratio of R&D investment to GDP, which is the intensity of R&D investment.
According to data from the World Bank in 2017, China’s R&D investment intensity is 2.13%, lower than the US’s 2.80%, and even lower than Japan’s 3.20% and South Korea’s 4.55%.
In fact, we have set a goal in the 13th Five-Year Plan: by 2020, the intensity of R&D investment will reach 2.5%. But according to the current situation, this goal may not be achieved. Even if it is achieved, it is still lower than the United States, Japan and South Korea.
The second shortcoming is the scientific research management system. In this regard, at least two categories of problems can be cited.
One type of problem is that the supervision regulations are out of practice in some places. For example, reimbursement is very inconvenient. When you finish the process, the mice will die. This forces some researchers to risk violations if they want to do something.
Another type of problem is "no innovation allowed." What is "no innovation"?
It is said that the team of Chinese scientist Yang Rongxidai has developed breast cancer blood screening technology in Germany, which has increased the accuracy of breast cancer screening to 95%. After returning to China, Yang Rongxi has been looking for cooperation, hoping to achieve industrial transformation, but has been unsuccessful. The reason is that there is no similar benchmarking product in foreign countries and has been questioned.
The logic is that only if a certain product is first available in foreign countries, China will be recognized for making similar products. If China creates something completely new, it won't be recognized!
Similar stories happened to other researchers.
For example, a friend of mine participated in the invention of a high-speed ship. A few years ago, they participated in a pre-research tender for a high-speed ship. In fact, domestic projects of this kind generally follow similar research after foreign countries have established precedents. But their ship is truly original, a breakthrough in principle, and its performance is much higher than that of foreign ships. But because there was no target product, the air suddenly became quiet after they had finished introducing them.
There are many similar things and they are very common. Some researchers said with emotion: Innovation is absolutely politically correct in China, but in the actual process, originality is often unpopular.
This shows that the way of thinking of many people is to always place China as a follower rather than an original creator. Some parts of our system and culture have played an active role in the catch-up period, but the negative role has become more and more prominent in the original period.
What if we cannot solve these problems?
What else shall we do to welcome the era of China's leading technology?
In October 2018, a large amphibious aircraft-"Kunlong" successfully flew for the first time
In the competition between China and the United States, there is a view that China will definitely win in the short-term, but not necessarily in the long-term.
This is very interesting. Why does China win in the short term? Because China has a strong ability to act. As soon as China's leading companies enter into which field, the international giants in which field are frightened.
Why is it not necessarily long-term? Because the advantage of the American pressure box bottom is innovation, it is to change something that has not been there before. For example, when Chinese mobile phones caught up with the United States, artificial intelligence appeared in the United States. When China's artificial intelligence catches up with the United States, the United States does not know what new things will come out. China has fully proven its ability to develop 1 to infinity, but can it do a good job in creating from 0 to 1? This is a new challenge before us. It takes great effort to change and act!
A large part of America’s cultural attraction comes from popular science masters like Gamow, Asimov, and Carl Sagan. When we love science fiction works like "Star Trek" and "Interstellar Crossing", we will naturally admire the country behind the screen. In these areas, the gap between us and the United States is much larger than the gap in hard technology.
In recent years, works such as "Three Body" and "The Wandering Earth" have also appeared in China. This is gratifying, but it is far from enough.
While we are discussing how to welcome the era of China's leading technology, there will also be many farce such as quantum wave speed reading and water-hydrogen engine cars, as well as rumors in the circle of friends that will never be cleared up.
Therefore, an important question points to each of us: In the torrent of the times, what else can we do besides carrying ups and downs, enjoying, waiting or worrying?
On December 9, 2016, the "Mozi" quantum science experimental satellite and the Ali quantum teleportation experimental platform established a world-to-earth link.
I share a personally experienced story.
In 2001, when I first arrived at Cornell University, there was a controversy in the mail group of Chinese international students. A female doctor sent an e-mail to promote a certain cult, which aroused the resentment of many people. After a few conversations between the two parties, they agreed to go to a buffet shop together and chat while eating. But no matter how eloquent we are, we cannot convince her.
When we were almost finished, a waitress walked over to us and said that she had smuggled to the United States. She felt very confused here. She was very interested to hear us talk so enthusiastically. Then, guess what? The female doctoral believer immediately took out a book of their mission, gave it to the waiter, and enthusiastically promoted it. The waiter took the book and left after expressing his gratitude.
After coming out of the hotel, I felt very frustrated in my heart: we all found countless loopholes in this female doctor's remarks, but none of us were as active as her. Just under the nose of our group of people who pretend to be scientific and educated, she once again spread a certain cult, and we sat like fools.
This incident often reminded me later. As a famous saying goes: "The evil triumphs, it only takes good people to do nothing." It is always easy to sit and talk about the Tao, but it is difficult to really do it. The most important thing is to break the psychological barriers and do valuable things bravely.
This experience has since buried my original intention to engage in science communication. Writing popular science articles and shooting popular science videos is a direct contribution to the cause of science. In this sense, my ideal has been realized.
The top stream in China's science and technology field!
33 winners of the highest honor in the national science and technology industry
On January 10, 2020, the 2019 National Science and Technology Awards Conference was held in the Great Hall of the People. Huang Xuhua, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a famous nuclear submarine expert, and Zeng Qingcun, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a famous atmospheric scientist, jointly won the highest national science and technology award.
The National Science and Technology Award is to reward citizens and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the progress of science and technology. Among them, the National Highest Science and Technology Award is the highest honor in China's scientific and technological circles, and no more than 2 people are awarded each year. According to a reporter from China Economic Weekly, since its establishment, a total of 33 scientists have won this honor. These 33 top domestic scientists are my country’s meteorology, national defense and military industry, medicine, chemistry, genetic engineering, human settlements, etc., which are related to the national economy and people’s livelihood. Has made outstanding contributions to his career.
Editor in charge | Sun Bing, Lu Jiangtao
Reprinted from China Economic Weekly