China: the next world science center?

Jianguo Gao

South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510650, PR China

A British scientometrician Bernal had predicted that the next world science center would be Soviet Union about 60 years ago, but he could not predict the collapse of the Soviet Union. When the glamor of the world science center gradually receded from North America, where will be the next active technological and cultural center? The world science center has transferred from ancient Greek, Italian city-states, United Kingdom, then to France, Germany and United States of America. Each turnaround time is about 80 years based on empirical data analyzed by Yuasa and Zhao (Table 1).^1,2 And each transferation of the world science center to a new country is directly linked to theideological condition of its own nationals. Throughout the general pattern of world science centers, that the social revolution and values shift are always the prerequisites, and education, science and technology reform are the major means.³ After World War II, the United States had more incomparable advantages in military, technology, economy and talent pool than other countries. However, as the world's economic, cultural and political re-shuffle, the dawn of the world science center is coming to China.
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    However, there are indications that China has been catching up with the advanced level of the world at an unprecedented rate. The research platform and aptitude of Chinese top-notch Institutes are not worse than the advanced level of oversea countries, and some may be even better. China is leading the international level in particular aspect of research, even being the international benchmarking. China is reforming the science and technology system step-by-step, and some elite scientists returned from abroad try to improve the ecological environment of the Chinese science within the system.¹⁰ As the popularization of Chinese University education, National Science Literacy is the best level in history. China senior government officials focus on the reform of the political system to change or abandon the old model of development. These are foundations that the Chinese science catches up with and surpass the world advanced level. This article will expound the possibility of world science center transferring to China from these main aspects, such as the input of science and education, the output of research, and the attitude to the talents and the regulation on scientific research behavior or ethics construction and so on.

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