
China: The Rapid Rise of a Research Nation - hownottowrite
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v528/n7582_supp_ni/full/528S170a.html
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Htsthbjig
I believe the Chinese culture is the antithesis of innovation, they are
masters at following procedures, not at breaking the mold.

I had to train Chinese people myself in China, and I don't know if you can
innovate in the sciences without first innovating in the political arena. You
have to change the mind of most Chinese and this takes generations.

I mean, if someone is intelligent enough to solve very hard problems, it is
intelligent enough to know they first have to remove the chumps in power who
makes bad decisions. There are lots of chumps in power in China.

Chinese educated in Canada, Europe or USA could improve the research done in
China, but this people is equally dangerous to people in power.

When I was there, it was the beginning of the Chinese bubble, everybody was
happy because everything, while bad, was improving. When times get tough, we
will see.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
There are always some free thinkers that make it through any repressive
system, if just by accident. China has a lot of talent, so we just need a bit
of chance that someone creative can get through.

You will find pockets of creativity everywhere in China.

Chinese culture does emphasize group innovation more than individual
innovation/invention. This leads to very different results, taking the
edge/risk off many ideas (as any consensus driving process would). But it
isn't really limited by that, you can always get away with more as long as no
one is watching closely.

~~~
vorg
> you can always get away with more as long as no one is watching closely

In China everyone's being watched and listened to. Foreigners like me are
being watched closely, and locals are watching each other far more than occurs
in Western countries (like Australia). Even just the general awareness that
people are likely to be watching tends to modify behavior.

And of course it's easy for people to watch and listen nowadays. Modern
phone/internet technology is being actively used. Bugs don't even need to be
inside someone's apartment nowadays for others to listen in. Cameras can be so
small it's virtually impossible to find them.

But some people in the West are just as involved in surveillance as occurs in
China, particular people in business who protect their cash flows and power
structures.

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frozenport
We had visiting scholars from some of China's best institutions, they didn't
know what a Fourier transform was. They couldn't write MATLAB because they
always had somebody else do it for them.

I would like to see these claims motivated by statistics from the Nature
Publishing Group's journals.

~~~
Captain_Usher
This makes no sense.

I have an American degree and I've heard the phrase "Fourier transform"
before, but I couldn't have possibly told you anything about it until I
googled it just now. I wouldn't have expected any random Chinese academic to
know either, no matter how good their institution was. I write software in a
variety of languages every day at my full-time job, and while I've seen MATLAB
code and could certainly teach myself to write it, I wouldn't bother if I
could just have somebody else do it. Why would you expect some arbitrary group
of Chinese scholars to share very specific skills and knowledge? If you
gathered up a gaggle of researchers from anywhere else, you'd have to get
pretty lucky to land a group where everybody was familiar with both one
specific area of mathematics and one specific programming language.

~~~
67726e
Maybe take the charitable view that these visiting academics were in a field
where this is surprising and expected knowledge. I don't get the feeling these
were English majors.

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anonymousDan
Good news for humanity as having more of China's resources devoted to research
can only increase the pace of innovation worldwide.

~~~
pzone
Yeah, this "us-vs-them" tribal nonsense is seriously pointless in the realm of
scientific research. I want to have stuff made of futuristic new materials due
to innovation in chemistry and live to 120 due to innovation in biology and
medicine. I couldn't give two shits whether the papers leading to these
advancements were published by Chinese or US scientists.

~~~
tw04
Then we probably need to find a better method than trademarks and copyrights
to allow companies to make money so the entire world can actually enjoy the
new discoveries.

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hhhrrr
The Chinese paper mills take a shotgun approach. Publish as many papers as
possible, with little care for quality.

I saw one Chinese professor who published more papers in a year than the
number of days. When you spend that much time submitting papers, nothing is
getting a second look.

