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China's Secret Scientific Megaprojects
An anonymous reader writes "The Diplomat reports on the 2006 National Medium to Long-term Plan (MLP) for the Development of Science and Technology, China's most ambitious national science and technology plan to date. The MLP consists of sixteen megaprojects — both civilian and military — that serve as 'S&T vanguard programs designed to transform China's science & technology capabilities in areas such as electronics, semiconductors, [and] telecommunications.' Thirteen of the megaprojects are listed in the MLP, while three are classified for national security reasons. The three classified megaprojects are likely the military components of the Shenguang Laser Project (used for thermonuclear weapons), the Beidou 2 Satellite Navigation System, and the Hypersonic Vehicle Technology Project."
is not for thermonuclear weapon but for laser weapon.
From the article:
the “Two Weapons, and One Satellite” science and technology development plan
Nothing good came from that project...
They haven't started on the project framework factory project.
When that one completes, the Eschaton shall surely be immanentized.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Are they sure they translated everything properly, and China isn't actually going to weaponize My Little Pony?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
You know when you're playing Civ and another player builds a wonder you wanted. Thats what this feels like and I expect more to follow.
I am tired of seeing old white men who have a sense of entitlement acting like
they run the world.
The west has had a good run, but it is time for the next wave.
Bring it on.
Since WW2, the US has had a huge lead in science and tech, in part due to the lack of competition from countries that were severely damaged by the war. China is the second largest economy in the world and is the first "command economy" to actually offer competition in innovation to the US. US companies have long argued that the free market was the best way to produce cutting edge innovation. Aside from the defense arena, that is how most tech has been developed.... without an overarching central plan. Now US tech faces a concerted, planned, and nationally funded challenge from China. If the MLP innitiatives are successful in moving China ahead of the US in the targeted areas of research, it will be the end of the hands-off approach of the US government.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
All that great technology and wealth is meaningless if you live in a toxic environment.
You so funny. Let's jot down a quick list of things that will likely cripple China within the next 20 years.
- Slowing economy
- Massive population
- The food shortage of the century
- Fresh water
- Municipal incompetence
- Gross amounts of industrial pollution
And those are just broad points. China's government is so corrupt that it's highly unlikely it will actually serve the people in any measurable manner.
Is what happens if china funds and develops fusion technology in the next two decades, and using it's plethora of foreign owned companies, patents/trade secrets the technology, thus giving them 30 years of control over cheap ubiquitous energy, while the rest of us fight over the ever dwindling scraps of fossil fuel?
Hell, they might be able to keep it all in-country and just provide energy services from their borders at just cheap enough to bankrupt the competition rates.
Hope one of those megaprojects is to clean the air
Nope, but one of them is a Ringworld. They have figured that at this points its gonna be cheaper to just buy a new one instead of fixing the old one.
The Chinese have already succeeded in their main mega-project: Chinese restaurants. While mostly salt, fat, and MSG, Americans gobble it down and feel they are eating healthy because there is a piece of broccoli in there somewhere.
Sharktopus!
China does not really need to invent anything to clean up its air. They need to absorb technology and regulation from the west.
Scrubbing exhaust from all coal fired plants and enforcing that all cars must have functioning catalytic converters would probably solve a lot of the air quality problems that they have.
They should focus their energy on the "Lift 900 Million people out of $2/day" megaproject, or the "move away from an export and build a consumer economy" megaproject, although I guess they wanted to go for something that's achievable.
Although to be honest, these projects do fit within China's key areas of concern. Their economy is on shaky ground; they're too reliant on the rest of the world buying their products for cheap; the global recession proved the danger of that. They also have a populace clamoring for more goods and better wages, so they need to move out of cheap manufacturing and instead move to higher quality, more complex goods; thus the advanced CNC and integrated circuit manufacturing technologies. They also have terrible domestic energy resources (their coal is highly sulfuric leading to their terrible air pollution in the cities), hence the nuclear power expansion (they have the world's first AP-1000's online and want to build 70 more) and the expanded natural gas exploration. They have to feed and care for a lot of people and have an aging population, thus the GMO and pharmaceutical research. Basically China grew very quickly without establishing a stable foundation of quality, reliable food sources, energy, and organic natural economic growth; most of these projects are geared towards filling in the gaps they left in their economy and society over the past 30 years.
it's another day, another China bashing article
Please explain how it's China bashing to point out the large scientific and technological projects in China. Also, if it's China bashing, why does the Chinese government proudly advertise these projects?
which is why China is investing a lot of money in fusion energy
Well probably the Russians.
For its bluster, the PLA is better thought of as a large, poorly manged investment company that happens to also have (poorly trained) soldiers and fighter jets. It hasn't really fought a war since 1949, and has very little anti-missile capability. The Russians would not give two chits about launching all the ICBMs at China if the PLA ever invaded.
Soneone's been reading his Tom Clancy, hasn't he....
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
The NIF is 95% a weapons project, and likely this is as well.
The complex parts of high-technology nuclear weapons are not nuclear physics, that part is firmly established. The complexity is in the radiative transfer, fluid mechanics and equations of state in extreme conditions.
These kinds of fusion projects (NIF) simulate the multi-stage (indirect drive) radiation driven compression of nuclear fuel. The goal is to get clean calibration data for the simulation software used to make weapons without full nuclear testing, which is banned by treaty.
There isn't much energy generation possibility in these.
But while Western governments twiddle their thumbs in their respective senates or congress figuring out how to recover from a devastating decline in the economy with a mounting ecological deficit and can't do anything without gauging public opinion from the largely idiot masses when it comes to any kind of "super-project", China will most likely solve most of the world's problems in energy and climate change.
Surprisingly the country with past human right violations may actually save humanity, while countries that promote the idea they protect human rights sit and let the world rot while their ineffective politicians quibble in their grand ballrooms of democracy.
Of course if China's economy collapses under the weight and pressure of these super-projects, the world is fucked.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
If one of them is fusion energy, as it appears to be...then yes it is. They'll be able to stop polluting, actively clean their atmosphere and then they'll be all gung-ho about environmental initiatives like carbon trading when they're holding the clean and abundant energy.
Fusion race tiem?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
24% of China's population will be over 60 in 20 years while just 17% of the US. The US has both a higher birth rate and immigration rate than most other developed or semi-developed countries. Each "only child" in China may be supporting two living parents and up to four living grandparents.
The 13 published Megaprojects.
Core electronic components, high-end general use chips and basic software products
Large-scale integrated circuit manufacturing equipment and techniques
New generation broadband wireless mobile communication networks
Advanced numeric-controlled machinery and basic manufacturing technology
Large-scale oil and gas exploration
Large advanced nuclear reactors
Water pollution control and treatment
Breeding new varieties of genetically modified organisms
Pharmaceutical innovation and development
Control and treatment of AIDS, hepatitis, and other major diseases
Large aircraft
High-definition earth observation system
Manned spaceflight and lunar probe programs
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Clean energy might help a bit with the "toxic environment" angle of things. At least it would help reduce further pollution.
Well, I hope China at least is investing in fusion technology that is expected to work inside of a few human lifetimes.
And on top of that it really wasn't that long ago that Western nations were doing just the same as China is currently. It wasn't really until the 60s-70s that the US friends started passing serious environmental protection laws.
But that was already built in Los Angeles last turn, so the great project was converted to 300 shields instead and promptly lost to corruption because Beijing had neglected to build a courthouse earlier in the game.
I will tell you what would happen in that admittedly unlikely scenario of China discovering cheap fusion power.
Prices for oil, gas and other energy sources would decrease as China decreased its non-fusion consumption. Neighbors of China may also decrease their non-fusion energy consumption as China could sell them energy over any existing grids.
So, in the short term things actually improve for non-China economies as if they are still on fossil fuels at this point, they just got cheaper and if they are not then they are unaffected.
In the long term the technology leaks or is gained via espionage and the rest of the world gets it too. That also assumes China would not just license the tech in the first place and if they do that things work out fine too.
Sounds win-win to me.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
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