How Science Saved China

Home , Feng Youlan, Four Great Inventions, Hua (state), Tan Jiazhen

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How science saved China Shellen Wu traces the rise of the dominant force in science, in the second of a series of essays on the ways in which the past 150 years have shaped today’s research system.

he opening ceremony of the 2008 Science’1. The scholar — trained at Columbia and since, urged that science was the only Olympic Games in Beijing featured University in New York City — argued that salvation for a nation in precipitous decline. ancient China’s four great inventions: from antiquity, the nation’s philosophical Placing the efforts to change the perceived Tthe compass, printing press, paper and gun- traditions and unique understanding of the lack of science in the context of China’s powder. The lesson on display, as taught in human relationship to nature had prevented turbulent modern history is key to under- classrooms across the country that today the spirit of scientific inquiry from taking standing how the nation arrived at its cur- publishes the most research papers, is that root. Feng, like many others at the time rent superpower state. The red thread that Chinese innovation in science and technol- runs through China’s past 150 years is its ogy changed the world. 50 YEARS OF NATURE unwavering belief in science as the path to Yet less than a hundred years before, the Anniversary collection wealth and power. The entangled relation- Chinese philosopher Feng Youlan wrote go.nature.com/nature50 ship between research and nationalism in the provocative essay ‘Why China Has No China has obscured how this belief grew

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from a combination of foreign influence rich and powerful was science and technol- helped geology to become the most cohesive and Chinese adaptation2,3. Particularly in the ogy. Thousands of students ventured abroad and internationally respected Chinese sci- 1960s and 1970s, the Chinese government to study, many to Japan. Seeing science as the ence in the first half of the twentieth century. tried to focus on home-grown science, and way to alleviate their country’s woes, they Meanwhile, Xu Chongqing and Li Fangbai, succeeded in areas such as agriculture and returned home eager to establish their fields. two Chinese physicists educated in Japan, medicine. But in the longer view, the periods As the dynasty collapsed in slow motion, introduced Einstein’s theory of relativity6. of greatest advancement were those when missionaries and other representatives of Rockefeller fellows Li Ruqi and Tan Jiazhen China opened to outside influence. foreign powers became increasingly asser- returned from the United States to head lead- It’s a salutary lesson as we brace for the tive in the interior. In the hot, dry summer ing biology and genetics departments. The challenges of the next 150 years, including of 1900, simmering tensions burst into the biologists Hu Xiansu and Bing Zhi advocated climate change, resource depletion and space open. Rebels, aiming their ire at foreign- for taxonomic study of Chinese flora and exploration. These require a broad engage- ers, laid siege to the diplomatic quarters fauna7,8. In the decades that followed, these ment with the world. in Beijing. In the scientists grew increasingly wary of basing first international “The country’s their research agenda on foreign models, BESET BY DISASTERS news sensation of biggest seeking instead to build a specifically Chinese Catastrophes created the conditions for the new century, challenges science. the development of science and technol- troops from eight were to feed Around this time, the phrase ‘saving ogy in China. The last imperial era, the countries, includ- and improve the China through science’ (‘kexue jiuguo’) Qing dynasty (1644–1912), faced a series of ing Britain, the living standards appeared frequently in popular writings. humiliating defeats to foreign powers in the United States and of a vast and Poverty and political turmoil haunted the nineteenth century, starting with the First Japan, rescued the growing overseas students. Learning plant physiology Opium War in 1839. These, and the subse- trapped diplomats. population.” and genetics at Cornell, Jin Shanbao was sent quent opium crisis, led to one of the largest In the frenzy of spoilt food as a prank by US students, who ever domestic uprisings. The Taiping Rebel- destruction and looting that followed, French teased him that it was for his starving coun- lion (1850–64) laid waste to the wealthiest and German soldiers claimed the observatory trymen. Deeply upset and eager to alleviate region in the middle of the country, and on the outskirts of the old city that contained China’s suffering, Jin returned home before resulted in as many as 50 million deaths. astronomical instruments made for the court finishing his graduate degree. He went on to In 1868, the year before Nature was by Jesuit priests in the seventeenth and eight- develop high-yield varieties of wheat, writ- founded, the first textbook of Western sci- eenth centuries. The Germans shipped home ing “food is the first necessity of people, agri- ence was published in Chinese, Introduction a haul of astrolabes and sextants, elaborately culture is the foundation of the country”9. to Natural Philosophy (Gewu Rumen). It was decorated with dragons and other royal The belief that science would save the intended for students at the Interpreters’ motifs. (These were displayed in the grounds nation reached its height during the Japa- College, a school opened by reformers who of a palace at Potsdam outside Berlin until nese invasion, starting in 1937. Facing vastly sought to adapt the empire for a changing 1919, when the Treaty of Versailles stipulated superior forces, the Nationalist government world by teaching aspiring officials foreign their return). Worse, the eight invading coun- retreated far west to the mountainous prov- languages and knowledge from the West. The tries imposed sizeable indemnity payments. ince of Sichuan. Many scientists willingly American who translated the book, William These bankrupted the Qing state and has- followed. Geologists, for example, contin- Martin, had no background in science, but tened its demise. ued their work from a farm house outside understood its importance for improving the With part of their spoils, the Americans the wartime capital of Chongqing. fortunes of a country beset by disasters. The established a scholarship fund — money that Photos taken by the British biologist book contained illustrations of microscopes a generation of the best Chinese students Joseph Needham when he visited in 1943 and trains, and basic explanations of an idi- used to study in the United States. In January capture the meagre facilities and the spirit of osyncratic assortment of concepts in chem- 1914, a group of them established the Sci- patriotism among the scientists he encoun- istry, electricity and physics. ence Society of China at Cornell University tered. Entranced, he started to study the Martin and other Protestant missionaries in Ithaca, New York. history of science in China. (Needham went who headed to China in the nineteenth cen- on to publish a monumental book series tury saw the country as the next frontier in NATION BUILDING called Science and Civilisation in China spiritual salvation. The introduction of sci- So it was that the flagship organization of that helped to popularize the idea of the four ence through Martin’s textbook and other Chinese science in the first half of the twenti- great ancient inventions inside the country, translated works provided an opening and eth century came to be abroad. The founders as well as around the world.) a way to improve the material well-being and subsequent students mostly returned to In sum, an eagerness to solve national of the vast population of an impoverished China and became leaders of their fields, at a problems through science prevailed even country. The Chinese people who worked on time when political instability and lack of cen- before 1949, when Marxist ideology pri- the translations were less interested in spirit- tralized funding made research a herculean oritized the applied over the theoretical. ual salvation, but recognized the importance task. Trained in disciplines that many viewed Throughout the twentieth century, the of science as the foundation of the West’s as essential for the building of a modern country’s biggest challenges were to feed and growing military and economic might. They country, they set to work on agricultural sci- improve the living standards of a vast and saw its lack as the reason for China’s state of ence, genetics, biology, chemistry and more4. growing population. Whatever their politi- backwardness. For example, a group of mostly foreign- cal affiliations, most of the leading Chinese By 1863, mathematicians Xu Shou and Hua trained geologists persistently called on the scientists of each era devoted themselves to Hengfang built China’s first steamship, using government to sponsor a national resource meeting these challenges. illustrations from a missionary magazine as a survey. One, Ding Wenjiang, who co- guide. They then helped to establish a trans- founded the China Geological Survey in SCIENCE FOR ALL lation bureau that introduced numerous Beijing in 1915, became a prominent public This year — 2019 — is a year of anniversaries. scientific works to China. By the end of the intellectual, engaging in widely publicized The May Fourth Movement of 1919, a nineteenth century, many more Chinese peo- debates and calling for increased state fund- response to the allies’ betrayal of China at ple were convinced that what made the West ing for the sciences5. His tireless promotion Versailles, defined a generation of Chinese

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Liu Yang became China’s first female astronaut in 2012.

intellectuals. Student protests in Tiananmen after those in the Soviet Union. Academia China’s own green revolution. Yuan is said to Square in 1989 built on this tradition, and Sinica, China’s premier research institution, have learnt from his interactions with farmers became a turning point in China’s era of established by the Republican government in the fields11. ‘Reform and Opening’. This month marks in 1928, was reorganized into the Chinese The Maoist era also diversified the scien- the seventieth anniversary of the founding Academy of Sciences (CAS). Soviet special- tific workforce. Women, peasants and young of the People’s Republic. ists helped to set the first five-year agenda people were encouraged to challenge the In hagiographic accounts of an era replete of CAS to focus on resource extraction and social hierarchy in their villages and work- with horrors, 1949 was the beginning of a other practical applications. places and extolled for their contributions ‘New’ China. Such misleading histories gloss In fact, this agenda did not differ radically to science. For women, in particular, the over the continuities in the sciences across from the war-time research focus of many 1950s and 1960s dramatically opened up the regime change. When the Communists Chinese scientists10. Nor did the Chinese horizons and allowed them to participate crushed the Nationalists in the civil war that scientific community capitulate entirely to in science to an unprecedented degree. Tu followed Japan’s defeat in 1945, most scien- Soviet influence. For example, the pseudo- Youyou, for example, who won a Nobel Prize tists stayed to help rebuild. The new regime genetics of Lysenkoism, so disastrous for in Medicine, did the bulk of her research on continued efforts to develop science that had agriculture elsewhere, never became the the antimalarial qualities of artemisinin dur- begun in the previous era. official position owing to strong resistance ing these years. (The transformation was tem- Although the ranks of Chinese researchers from prominent Chinese biologists, despite porary. In the past four decades, gender biases remained largely the same, in the first dec- intense political pressure. have returned along with market reforms.) ade of the Communist regime, the rhetoric The material constraints of conducting sci- But scientists who had longed for a robust changed dramatically. Science was now ence in a poor country shaped this generation state and support for research were quickly explicitly defined as an endeavour of and for of Chinese researchers. Those who continued disappointed. The Cultural Revolution the people. Einstein and relativity were out, to make significant progress downplayed starting in 1966 shut down the CAS and all surveys and mass-health campaigns were their Western training and expertise, empha- universities. Overseas educations became a (even more) in. At the peak of Sino–Soviet sizing instead their empathy for the masses. liability, and the same researchers who had cooperation in the 1950s, 10,000 Soviet After receiving his PhD at the University of stayed in China out of patriotism in earlier advisers worked across China to provide Minnesota in Minneapolis in 1949, entomol- decades found themselves the targets of technical and scientific aid to the country’s ogist Pu Zhelong returned to mainland China attacks against elitism. Revolutionary cre- industrial development. and called for the use of insects over expensive dentials were seen as more important than The Communist Party oversaw a com- chemical pesticides (which turned out to be specialist knowledge. The engineering of plete restructuring of the country’s univer- the more environmentally sustainable route). dams and other large-scale projects to build sities and research institutions to remove US In the 1970s, agricultural scientist Yuan Long- socialism by overcoming nature sometimes and European influence and model them ping and others created hybrid rice, leading to proceeded against expert advice12,13.

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painted on walls and posters from cities to the countryside. Unacknowledged in these displays is the connection between science and an openness to influences and ideas from abroad. To walk around Beijing today is to see traces of the history of science everywhere. On the east side, on the Second Ring Road, are the Jesuit astronomical instruments,

which rode the turbulent geopolitical tides ADRIAN BRADSHAW/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK of the twentieth century. On the other side of town, in a quiet corner of Beijing Zoo, a small sign indicates the place where, in the waning days of the Qing dynasty in 1906, the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce opened the first station for agricultural experiments on 70 hectares of land. In the northwest corner of the city, the Interpreters’ College has become the elite Peking University; down the road, another college with historical ties to the United States is today’s Tsinghua University, the lead- Yuan Longping helped to create hybrid rice that gave rise to China’s green revolution. ing science and technology school in China. Posters and public displays celebrate scien- Projects important to national defence, spent years in remote fieldwork sites without tific development. In book shops, science including nuclear, rocket and satellite seeing their families. fiction is the trendiest genre. In well-funded research, designated the ‘Two Bombs and After the death of Chairman Mao in laboratories and state of the art field stations, One Satellite’ programme, continued to 1976, the emphasis on science and technol- China is rushing forwards with a firm belief receive much state support and were pro- ogy bounced back. In 1978, Deng Xiaoping in its status as a scientific superpower. tected from political intervention. Led by formally launched a policy known as ‘Four There is another story along this route, Chinese scientists, most of whom had trained Modernizations’, which placed a renewed that of the engagements with the outside in Europe and the United States, China focus on agriculture, industry, national world that transformed the country. In the became a nuclear power in 1964, and had its defence, and science and technology. By then, peaks and valleys of that story is a message — first successful satellite launch in 1970. the universities and CAS had reopened, and the future requires the internationalism that Fifty years ago, the outlook for science in their leaderships were eager to get cracking. propelled China’s rise in the past 150 years. ■ China more generally was bleak. Many fields In the decades since, the Chinese econ- ground to a halt as the very institutional omy has outwardly come to resemble that Shellen Wu is an associate professor of structure supporting the advancement of of a capitalist country. But the top-down history at the University of Tennessee, science shut down during the decade of the approach forged in the Mao years is still clear. Knoxville, USA. Cultural Revolution. Elders of science spent It created a centralized educational and insti- e-mail: [email protected] years labouring on remote farms and in tutional infrastructure for science, which has reform camps. In the personal diaries of CAS made it easy to direct strategic investment 1. Feng, Y.-l. Int. J. Ethics 32, 237–263 (1922). 2. Meng, Y. East Asian Sci. Technol. Med. 16 13–52 vice-president Zhu Kezhen, a meteorologist quickly. The robotics industry, for example, (1999). trained at Harvard University in Cambridge, one of the key components of China’s plan 3. Huters, T. Bringing the World Home: Appropriating Massachusetts, stretches of days in the 1960s to move into high-tech manufacturing by the West in Late Qing and Early Republican China (Univ. Hawaii Press, 2005). featured little but “sweeping”. Many fared 2025, is based in the northeast of the country 4. Wang, Z. Osiris 17, 291–322 (2002). much worse, some even died. But the idea because of the proximity to the CAS robot- 5. Kwok, D. W. Y. Scientism in Chinese Thought that science and technology formed the ics research centre in Shenyang. Other areas 1900–1950 (Yale Univ. Press, 1965). 6. Hu, D. China and Albert Einstein: The Reception of bedrock of modern society never completely of strength, such as materials science and the Physicist and his Theory in China 1917–1979 disappeared. engineering, also built on the previous era’s (Harvard Univ. Press, 2005). When the United States and China re- interests in overcoming resource shortages 7. Schneider, L. in Biology and Revolution in established relations in 1972, US scientists and environmental challenges. Twentieth-Century China 72 (Rowman & 14 Littlefield, 2003). were quick to visit . Most did not realize During this period of reform and opening, 8. Jiang, L. Hist. Stud. Nat. Sci. 46, 154–206 (2016). the extent of the political suppression their scientists who had trained abroad in the 1930s 9. Cited in Geng, X. in Serving China Through colleagues had faced and were excited by and 1940s and had survived the turmoil of the Agricultural Science: American-Trained Chinese Scholars and ‘Scientific Nationalism’ in the prospect of exploring socialist science. previous decades found their international Decentralized China (1911–1945) 220 (Univ. They noted the stagnant state of theoretical networks had value again. A second wave of Minnesota dissertation, 2015). research; fields such as particle physics were Chinese students embarked on overseas stud- 10. Wu, S. & Fan, F.-t. ‘Modern China’ The Cambridge History of Science Vol. 8 (eds Slotten, H. R., decades behind the West. ies — 5.86 million between 1978 and 2018. Numbers, R. L. & Livingstone, D. N.) (Cambridge The visitors were impressed by some Big government investments in the past few Univ. Press, in the press). advances made given the straitened circum- years have attracted that talent to return. 13. Schmalzer, S. in Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China stances. In addition to its green revolution, 92–93 (Univ. Chicago Press, 2016). the nation had made significant progress OPEN TO IDEAS 12. Fan, F.-t. Sci. Context 25, 127–154 (2012). in public health: mass campaigns helped to Over the past century and a half, the belief 13. Shapiro, J. Mao’s War Against Nature: Politics and Environment in Revolutionary China (Cambridge wipe out schistosomiasis, an infectious dis- that science and technology can improve Univ. Press, 2001). eases that was killing around 400,000 people the nation has become deeply embed- 14. Wang, Z. Hist. Stud. Phys. Biol. Sci. 30, 249–277 per year. Many of the scientists involved had ded in Chinese culture, visible in slogans (1999).