Chinese President Xi Jinping, also General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, has called on the nation to strengthen its basic research to consolidate self-reliance and strength in science and technology. Diverse funding sources, international collaboration and talent training are crucial to achieve this goal, Xi emphasized. At a meeting of the Politburo, Gong Qihuang, President of Peking University and an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), introduced the development of basic research, and made suggestions on related work. President Xi said that strengthening basic research is the only way to build China into a global scientific and technological powerhouse. Planning on basic research should be strengthened in a forward-looking, strategic and systemic manner, he added. He called for giving full play to the role of national laboratories, research institutions, high-level research universities and leading scientific and technological enterprises. Xi urged coordinated efforts to build research centers for basic disciplines and deploy a new basic platform for scientific research based on information technology in order to form a strong basic research network. Redoubled efforts should be made to enhance the domestic development of scientific and technological apparatus and equipment, operating systems and basic software, he said. Financial investment in basic research should be expanded steadily, and enterprises should increase their investment by making use of tax incentives, scientific funds and donations.
Xi also called for building a platform for international cooperation in basic research, setting up a global fund for scientific research, and developing joint research with international institutions on global problems in the fields of climate change, energy security, biosecurity and the utilization of outer space. Tang Benzhong, a noted chemist and Academician at CAS, said that “the spring for scientists in basic research” would come if the ideas highlighted in Xi’s speech were effectively implemented. “The source for innovations lies in basic sciences. Only by increasing our capabilities in basic research can we seize new opportunities in technological development,” Tang said.
China’s total expenditure on research and development (R&D) reached CNY3.09 trillion last year, surpassing CNY3 trillion for the first time. China is the world’s second-largest R&D spender. Last year, China spent CNY195.1 billion on basic research, which was 3.9 times the figure in 2012, accounting for 6.32% of the total annual R&D expenditure. While China's spending on basic research is growing steadily, its proportion in total R&D expenditure is lower than that of the U.S., whose basic research spending makes up about 15% of the total R&D expenditure despite a declining trend. At the end of 2021, there were 330,000 high-tech companies in China, up from 49,000 in 2012, latest official data showed. More than 680 companies listed among the world's top 2,500 R&D spenders in 2021.
“What this signals is that the nation will improve its science and technology independence from the aspect of basic science and technology,” Sun Yuzhong, Researcher at the Institute of Computing Technology at CAS said. Sun further noted that the U.S.' technological blockade has become almost “crazy,” and external political pressure has brought great challenges to China's basic research. “So we have to build more completely independent basic scientific research capabilities and facilities,” Sun said. The China Daily, Global Times and South China Morning Post all reported on China's push in basic research.
