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China Expands Research Funding, Luring US Scientists and Students (npr.org)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: In the past decade or so, China has been expanding its commitment to scientific research, and it shows. Chinese researchers now produce more scientific publications than U.S. scientists do, and the global ratings of Chinese universities are rising. Five years ago [professor of chemistry at the University of California, San Diego, JaySiegel] became dean of the school of pharmaceutical science and technology at Tianjin University. He says the university president recruited him to build an undergraduate program that would attract students from all over -- not just China. Siegel says the program is taught entirely in English. There's another aspect of getting a pharmaceutical science degree at Tianjin that Siegel expects students from throughout the world to find particularly attractive: The Chinese government plans to offer scholarships to cover the cost for students who enroll. Siegel says this is all part of China's effort to attract international scientists. Of course, there are some drawbacks with working in China. There are internet restrictions, making it difficult to reach certain websites; English isn't spoken throughout most of the country, posing a problem for many foreign visitors; and free speech isn't the same concept as it is in the United States. With that said, "There's no interference politically on the science," says Greg Herczeg, an astronomer at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University.

"We've had no political restrictions," says Siegel. "I know that people talk about them being out there, and I've heard rumors of things. But, for us personally, I would have to say no, I've not had that experience."

47 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. "You too can make astounding discovery claims" by DalM · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Want to make astounding and unsubstantiated claims about scientific discoveries? Move your research to beautiful China, where you can get a government grant to publish basically whatever you want with almost no peer-review."

    1. Re:"You too can make astounding discovery claims" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "Want to make astounding and unsubstantiated claims about scientific discoveries? Move your research to beautiful China, where you can get a government grant to publish basically whatever you want with almost no peer-review."

      Citation needed

    2. Re:"You too can make astounding discovery claims" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      To spy on / steal from. Can't forget that part, it's the whole point of it.

    3. Re:"You too can make astounding discovery claims" by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Want to make astounding and unsubstantiated claims about scientific discoveries? Move your research to beautiful China, where you can get a government grant to publish basically whatever you want with almost no peer-review."

      Citation needed

      No need. He published his comment from China.

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      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    4. Re:"You too can make astounding discovery claims" by mapkinase · · Score: 1

      "Want to make astounding and unsubstantiated claims about scientific discoveries? Move your research to beautiful China, where you can get a government grant to publish basically whatever you want with almost no peer-review."

      In leading Impact Factor 1.05 journals.

      --
      I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
    5. Re:"You too can make astounding discovery claims" by DalM · · Score: 1

      "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

      I guess we are at stage #2....

      Moving rapidly toward #3.

  2. Of course, there are some drawbacks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    "Of course, there are some drawbacks with working in China." Yeah being disappeared is a drawback.

    1. Re:Of course, there are some drawbacks by Tablizer · · Score: 1, Interesting

      being disappeared is a drawback.

      I bet the chances are lower than being shot in the US by some whacko. If you are measuring risk for risk's sake, one cannot say China is less safe.

    2. Re:Of course, there are some drawbacks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You prefer beaten to death over bullets, that's understandable I guess.

    3. Re:Of course, there are some drawbacks by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      What, you have the Operations Manual of Big Brother?

    4. Re: Of course, there are some drawbacks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I should take that bet, and then your money. On a related note China still can't staff their telescope because academics (i.e. people more intelligent than you) know better than to go work there.

    5. Re:Of course, there are some drawbacks by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      I read recently about somebody who a Mexican gang stabbed to death with a phillips screwdriver. Apparently to send a message to everybody else in that community. If you're going to kill me, please make it fast with a bullet.

    6. Re:Of course, there are some drawbacks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "There's a much lower imprisonment rate in China too." If you're ethnic Han, perhaps.

    7. Re:Of course, there are some drawbacks by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      It would be interesting to compare the ethnic imbalance in prison populations between China, about midlevel in incarceration rates in the world, and the USA, the unchallenged world leader in the field. The issue is well studied in the US, where there is very significant ethnic imbalance. I couldn't find data for China.

    8. Re:Of course, there are some drawbacks by balbeir · · Score: 2
      Well the "official" imprisonment rate is lower.

      Given that people are disappearing left and right in China the real imprisonment rate is probably much higher. Like with all totalitarian regimes.

      Or maybe it's just "re-education". Like the nice tourist camps the USSR used to have in Siberia.

  3. GOOD by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The more money gets spent on science, the better. Some of it will be wasted, of course, but that's reality. If they even invent one great thing, make one great discovery, then all of humanity benefits.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:GOOD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      China is a totalitarian hold-over. If they control the fruits of that research it's undetermined that's a net positive for the world. So far not so great.

    2. Re:GOOD by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Reality though, want to attract more students to Universities in China, well obvious answer focus on universities for foreigners in Hainan, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and make sure the surrounding towns are clean, the water is drinkable from the tap without boiling. Aside from that, Hainan province due to it's inherent nature (the Chinese Hawaii) will be an excellent place for branches of other Chinese universities to attract foreign students. In essence copy other popular university towns around the world, the local environment counts a lot, as does community acceptance of the students and access to the community social services for the students, dependent upon how many you actually want too attract, hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands, then you have post high school students and of course mature age students with regard to masters and doctorates.

      Then of course you can have study and work programmes with part time jobs being available for economically viable students and ensuring they are protected and safe. So you promote studying in Hainan not in China persay and promote the leisure activities of Hainan, you probably wont have much problem getting educators to move there either.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    3. Re:GOOD by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      If they even invent one great thing, make one great discovery, then the Chinese government benefits.

      FTFY.

  4. China is doing it right by BringsApples · · Score: 1

    They're seeing how divided other countries are, and offering the same thing to the world's scientists that the USA offered, just after the 1st world war. Now, if only they had the freedoms that we used to have...

    --
    Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
    1. Re:China is doing it right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      China has never, in it's entire history, had the freedoms Americans, and most of the rest of the world, have.

    2. Re:China is doing it right by Nethemas+the+Great · · Score: 1

      Yes, like the freedom to become buried in debt from educational costs run amok.

      --
      Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
    3. Re:China is doing it right by Shotgun · · Score: 1

      Yes. You have the freedom to be stupid, if you so choose.

      Trying to save someone from their stupidity requires that you make the decisions for them. They are no longer free at that point.

      I graduated with a 4yr degree with $15k in debt. I worked full time to support a wife and two children while doing it.

      --
      Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
      Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
  5. The long term view. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    He says the university president recruited him to build an undergraduate program that would attract students from all over -- not just China.

    That's how, in the long term, you gain an economic advantage. The US operates like that (even now), being a place the best and brightest wanted to go to attend uni. Many of those minds stayed in the US, and set up companies and contributed in major ways to the economy. Some of the world's biggest success stories came up via that route.

    China is Orwellian and dystopian, but they are taking a very long term view in almost every domain. They're working hard to lock up as many natural resources as possible so that 500 years from now, they'll have industrial advantages and others will be dependent on them. Remains to be seen whether their long term view will be enough to offset the disadvantages of being a dystopian society, but once your population gets used to things like "social credit scores and don't you dare criticize the Party or we'll lock you out of society and round up your relatives", they don't seem to mind too much. People can get used to almost anything. The ones who mind, like the Tibetans or the Uyghurs are being culturally destroyed and assimilated into mainstream China. The ones who won't assimilate are being sent to "re-education" camps by the millions.

    Come back in 100, maybe 200 years. My bet's on a Chinese Hegemony. This situation is nothing at all like what people were claiming about Japan in the 80's. China has the population Japan doesn't, it has the natural resources Japan doesn't, it's not shy about throwing its weight around and using every trick or corruption it can to get what it sees as its rightful place in the world. They'll have ups and downs like anybody, but their trend is really, really up.

  6. The real story here: by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    Scientists gonna science. Fund 'em or loose 'em.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  7. What is Winter Sunlight? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Does it cause Seasonal Affective Disorder?

    For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion(operation of wandering)(planet) so that they will believe the lie.
    Working of Error

  8. No political interference on the science? by fredrated · · Score: 2

    We could learn from the Chinese.

    1. Re:No political interference on the science? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

      We could learn from the Chinese.

      We could learn Chinese.

      Just a wild thought . . . but maybe some English speaking folks could learn a lot by exchanging ideas with Chinese speakers. And then we could quit with China bashing.

      But Chinese seems very impenetrable to Anglophile folks like me, although I did manage to learn to speak German fluently. Maybe the government of China could come up with a BASIC-like version of Chinese . . . or, like a version of Python, called "Chithon". And then get other folks in the world talking Chinese.

      Post a link for me . . . I'll sign up for a link for "Learning Chinese for folks who can't get their heads or elbows out of their asses and don't know the difference".

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    2. Re:No political interference on the science? by balbeir · · Score: 1
      Chinese is even hard to learn for the Chinese. All based on rote memorization. It's not a very structured language.

      There is not a chance that Chinese is ever going to be mastered by the rest of the world.

    3. Re:No political interference on the science? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Most asian languages are super easy.

      The perceived problem with Chinese and Thai is that the languages are tonal, which is an initial challenge as we are not used to pick up the tones. However professional language schools use learning tapes that emphasize the tones, that means a low tone is much lower than a Chinese would speak it, a high tone much higher and rising and falling tones are emphasized, too.

      As soon as you over that hurdle, 90% of Chinese is just learning vocabulary. The grammar, no offense, of most asian languages is "baby speak", in other words: no male/female, no elaborated past or future tenses, no singular or plural etc.

      German is somewhat easy for an English speaker, because the grammar is similar and many words overlap in meaning, often just slight spelling changes make an english word int a german one. Spanish is considered to be an easy language: Chinese is 10 times more easy! Try Japanese first, it has no tones, but otherwise same concepts! AFAIK the grammar of Chinese is less "complex" than the Japanese one, but Japanese is similar easy as it uses marker words to point out subject, object etc.

      Obviously to read and write Chinese you have to put in more effort. Then again: if you start with Japanese and reach high school level (which takes about 3 - 4 years), you already know about 1200 "chinese characters", that is about one character per day. And before the nitpickers start: yes, a few of them have not the _exact_same_ meaning in Chinese, but usually they are close enough like: hot water in Chinese and soap in Japanese.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  9. Re:There's no interference politically on the scie by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 1

    What on earth gave you any of those ideas? China is a bullshitocracy in which "science" all but can't exist due to the culture of complete dishonesty and corruption in academia and research.

    --
    A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
  10. Potentials by JBMcB · · Score: 1

    It could be that they are truly hands off in the research. It could also be that they simply don't fund research that might have political connotations.

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
  11. No political restrictions my ass by the_skywise · · Score: 1

    When their research leads to new weapons development and they balk, ala Google, watch what happens.
    He and the Chinese just want the same thing... for now...

    1. Re:No political restrictions my ass by hackingbear · · Score: 1

      When their research leads to new weapons development

      Maybe you can do a fact check on which country produces and sells more advanced weapons than the rest of the world combined. Hint: this country's name contains the letters U, S. and A.

      and they balk, ala Google, watch what happens.

      Technically, Google pulled itself out of China over the issue of "free speech" and yet it is trying, as of now, to re-enter back into China while the same issue has arguable gotten worse than when they left. Go figure why. And that the only things stop Google from re-entering into China isn't Chinese government (in fact, China would welcome them,) but American politicians and anti-China public sentiment.

  12. English isn't spoken by magarity · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Chinese pronunciation is the only weird thing about the language. Otherwise, there are no irregular verbs mainly because verbs aren't conjugated in the first place. There's no gender assignment to any words like in French or Spanish. The sentence order is like basic English structure: subject - verb - object.

    If you go live there full time it's fairly easy to learn to speak.

    1. Re:English isn't spoken by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You speak Mandarin? Orange you special.

    2. Re:English isn't spoken by Nethemas+the+Great · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Absolutely, just need to make sure you pronounce "shi" correctly.

      --
      Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
    3. Re:English isn't spoken by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Chinese pronunciation is the only weird thing about the language.

      The heavy overloading of words could be considered a weird thing. Though Western languages do some of this, it's a lot worse in Chinese.

      Take 'chi' for example. It's used for a lots of different things (as in Tai Chi), and that throws a lot of Westerners, because they assume that a word with so many different meanings can't have any meaning at all. Others jump to erroneous conclusions about the meaning of the word, and you end up with lots of "new age" idiots who completely misunderstand what is really being said (I see the same problem in Yoga, which isn't Chinese, so this isn't just a problem with how the Chinese communicate).

      But it each context it probably does have a well understood meaning - certainly it does in the ones I've studied - even if you have to have a lot of background knowledge to figure that meaning out (or just be born in the society and accept it uncritically).

      Having to wrestle so-much with overloaded words probably has some interesting effects on the cognitive learning capabilities of people who grow up in a Chinese household. They're probably a lot better at learning many things, but perhaps worse at others.

  13. Re:There's no interference politically on the scie by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is corruption in China, for sure, though there have been attempts to rein it in in recent years. Also, I agree there is plenty of questionable science coming from Chinese institutions, though I suspect there is at least as much coming from Western start-ups looking for funding.

    With all the issues, China should not be underestimated. A country does not achieve sustained rapid growth and improvement in living standards over 30 years without doing a lot right. Those at the highest levels of government have made good decisions more often than in most of its competitors.

    China actually scares me, partly because of its success. They believe they should again be the dominant force in Asia as they were centuries ago. Increasingly, they are going to be in a position to seize what they believe they are entitled to. That is not good for other countries in the region.

  14. There's a conflict between open and closed. by Truth_Quark · · Score: 1

    What happens when one of these pharmacy students mentions the Tiananmen square massacre on their social media?

  15. Re:There's no interference politically on the scie by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    "science" all but can't exist due to the culture of complete dishonesty and corruption in academia and research.
    Any citations or proof for that?

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  16. ..said the spider to the fly. by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    'Nuff said?

  17. "We've had no political restrictions," by fish_in_the_c · · Score: 1

    As long as your research agrees with the politics of bejing. Any speech or resource that disagrees and you can expect to quietly disappear for using your freedom poorly.

    --
    âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
  18. Correct solution by IsabelleLazarev · · Score: 1

    I think China will become one of the most developed countries in the world in the future, they have chosen the right strategy, many students dream of working there, because there are good salaries and a high standard of living, I can help students with writing an essay for college, you can go to the site Paperial.com where You will find all the necessary information on this issue.

  19. Social Credit System by gx5000 · · Score: 1

    After watching the reports on their Social Credit System no way....
    Between that and their human genetic research they are heading for a world of hurt.

    --
    End of Line.
  20. Looser ethics, privacy could also be attractive by Koreantoast · · Score: 1
  21. your mission by sad_ · · Score: 1

    your mission if you decide to accept it is to
    if you, or any of your team, is caught we will deny any acknowledgement.

    say you want to gene-doctor babies before they are born, go for it, but remember that we will not support you (publicly).

    --
    On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.