The political background of a pattern transformation in the Chinese system of science and technology during the 20th century

Abstract

The development of modern science and technology in China involved three transformations: from a traditional mindset to a modern one through the enlightenment of scientific thought, from the Anglo-Saxon pattern to the Soviet pattern in the process of instituting the Chinese system of science and technology, and from national defence to economics due to an awakening of technical economics after the ‘Cultural Revolution’. This paper surveys the political background of the second transformation. The idea of ‘doing science for science’s sake’ never had a footing in China because the Chinese began to learn about modern science and technology only under the threat of colonists’ gunboats. Developing science and technology has always been one of the means for China to cast off national humiliation and regain its status as a major country in the world. Compared with science and technology in other countries, Chinese science and technology were more susceptible to the international political environment and domestic political situation. It took about two decades, between the establishment of the Academia Sinica in 1928 and the inauguration of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1949, for China to form its system of science and technology. The system had three successive configurations because of the international competition among Japan, the US and the Soviet Union over China, and the domestic political contest between the Chinese Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (founded by Sun Yat-sen in 1912) and the Communist Party of China. China’s science and technology system started by modelling itself on its counterparts in Europe and America. After undergoing a series of unconventional developments during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931–1945) and the War of Liberation (1946–1949), the system transformed to the Soviet pattern after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China.

1. Introduction

The struggle between colonialism and anti-colonialism constituted the history of China’s international relations between the mid-19th century and the mid-20th century. The Treaty of Nanjing in 1842, as a result of China’s defeat in the First Opium War, represented the beginning of the country’s semi-colonization. The status that China acquired in 1945 as one of five permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations, after its victory in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, symbolized the end of that semi-colonization.

The Self-Strengthening Movement (1861–1894) was the first effort on the part of the Qing government to resist colonization and was of great historical significance. However, the movement was considered a failure because of the government’s defeat in the first Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). The Hundred-Day Reforms in 1898 and the failed Boxer Uprising in 1900 followed. Both demonstrated the determination and power of the Chinese people against colonization, which changed China’s situation. On the one hand, international imperialists had to relinquish their desire to conquer China with force and adopted a colonial policy that ceremonially preserved China’s administrative integrity; on the other hand, the Qing government was forced to follow a policy that encouraged and promoted industry and commerce. The establishment of the republican political system, the victory in the War against Japanese Aggression and the establishment of the socialist system were three significant and historic events that set China free from colonialist shackles. Modern science and technology in China were always important parts of the Chinese struggle against colonialism.

Although Xu Guangqi (1562–1633) had led calendric reforms as early as the 17th century (using Western astronomy and mathematics), modern science and technology purposely promoted by the government began only with the development of industries in the Self-Strengthening Movement in the late 19th century. During that period, with the support of the officials who promoted the movement, more than 50 modern industrial and mining enterprises were set up. They were either administered directly by the government or privately managed under the government’s supervision. The total capital amounted to about 28,000,000 taels of silver, which was roughly equal to the investment of more than 100 foreign factories in China at that time. These self-strengthening industries gave priority to military production and were monopolized by bureaucratic capitalists. Some industrial and mining enterprises funded solely by private entities and Chinese capital also emerged. These two kinds of enterprises were different, but both represented China’s effort to resist colonization.

The self-strengthening industries were significant in China’s history because they set an example for the development of modern science and technology. Because of the establishment of those modern industries, the Chinese were able to reproduce the first steam engine in China in 1862, the first steam-powered boat in 1865 and the first steam locomotive in 1881. Along with the development of the modern industries, there was also education in modern science and technology as well as modern publishing endeavors. During the Self-Strengthening Movement, the Qing government founded more than 10 industrial schools specializing in machinery, electricity, railways and surveys, in addition to the foreign-language schools needed for handling foreign affairs and modern military schools for strengthening the military forces. Furthermore, the government sent nearly 200 students and interns abroad to learn from the West. The publishing efforts based on Tongwen Guan (a newly established governmental school specializing in foreign languages) and the translation bureau of Jiangnan Arsenal replaced the missionaries’ work in this field. Native Chinese experts in science and technology also began to emerge.

After the beginning of the first Sino-Japanese War in 1894, capital exports became a means to take money from the Chinese. Foreign capitalists successively set up their factories in China. Because of attrition and indemnities caused by the war, the Qing government could no longer monopolize industries. Hence, it promoted and rewarded private investment in industries by promulgating the Regulations of Rewarding Technology Promotion in 1898 and the Regulations to Reward Companies in 1903. As a result, there were two upsurges (1895–1898 and 1904–1908) in factory development. By 1911, total Chinese capital in modern industries reached about 1.3 billion silver dollars, and more than 90% of Chinese industries used machines, demonstrating a nationwide trend towards changing the country’s traditional economic structure. Nearly 10,000 kilometres of railways were constructed in China during this period. Although over 90% of the railways were controlled by foreigners due to foreign loans and joint management, these ‘industrial arteries’ laid a foundation for the development of China’s industrial economy. It was during this period that the Peking–Kalgan Railway (Beijing to Zhangjiakou) and the Luanhe River Railway Bridge, the first of their type designed and constructed by Chinese engineers, were completed.

Educational reforms through the new school systems promulgated in 1902 and 1903 and the abolition of the civil service examinations in 1905 legitimized Western learning, prompting the rapid development of modern education. By 1911, there were more than 100 institutions of higher learning with more than 40,000 students; tens of thousands of students went overseas. The imperially endorsed Constitutional Outline promulgated in 1908 by Emperor Guangxu (1871–1908) gave the Chinese people freedom of assembly and association, promoting the rapid development of associations, which numbered as many as 600 by 1911. Although the majority of the associations were trade unions, secret societies and political parties, there were a few scientific and technological associations, such as an arithmetic society, an agriculture society, a survey society, a medicine society and a geography society. Non-government publishers also emerged. The Commercial Press and Zhonghua Book Company were founded during this period (in 1897 and 1911, respectively).

2. The nationalist government and the establishment of the scientific system based on the patterns of Europe and the US

After 10 failed attempts, the bourgeois-democratic revolution led by Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) succeeded after the Wuchang Uprising on 10 October 1911, leading to the founding of the Republic of China (ROC). After the 1911 Revolution, the provisional government in Nanjing issued a series of policies and laws to protect industry and commerce, prompting the appearance of industrial and commercial organizations, such as the ROC Industrial Construction Association (1912), the Chinese Organization of Industries and Commerce (1912) and provincial associations of industry and commerce. However, because the Chinese bourgeoisie was powerless, successive warlords seized power. Although the fighting among the warlords was harmful to the development of national industry, governments controlled by the Beiyang warlords still announced the Regulations on Rewarding Industrial and Technological Products in 1912, the Rules on Guaranteed Dividend for Industrial Companies’ Stock in 1914, the Law of Chamber of Commerce in 1915 and various other regulations.

During the First World War, European imperialist powers loosened their grip on China and Chinese national industry was able to develop. The imperialist powers returned to China during 1921–1928 and once again put the newly developed Chinese national industries in a difficult situation. It was during this period that the Chinese national bourgeoisie took the place of the comprador bourgeoisie, millions of workers formed a politically conscious class, and intellectuals dissociated from Confucian scholars developed professional groups. In the development of modern science and technology between the 1911 Revolution and the establishment of the nationalist government in Nanjing on 18 April 1927, the most important advances were the establishment of scientific and technological associations and research institutions. The associations included the Chinese Institute of Engineers (1912), the Science Society of China (1915) and the Bingchen (later renamed as Xueyi) Society (1916). Important research institutions included the Geological Survey of China (1913), the Biological Institute of Science Society of China (1922) and the Yellow Sea Institute of Industrial Chemistry (1922). These developments showed that modern science was being institutionalized in China, although that owed little to the government.

The deep institutionalization of science and technology in China began with the establishment of the Academia Sinica—the highest national academic institution. Its establishment followed the end of the warlords’ fighting and the stabilization of the country. When Sun Yat-sen resigned his provisional presidency in 1912, Song Jiaoren (1882–1913) organized a public party—the Chinese Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT)—by merging five different political organizations, including the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance, the Unified Republican Party and the Nationalist Common Progress Association. In the following year, Song Jiaoren was assassinated by his political rivals, resulting in the disbanding of the KMT, which was not restored until 1919. In 1921, the Communist Party of China (CPC) was founded, and the party joined the Third International (or Comintern) in the following year. The Comintern regarded the revolution led by Sun Yat-sen as an ‘auxiliary force’ and thought that Sun needed assistance from the Soviet Union. On 26 January 1923, Sun Yat-sen and Adolph Joffe, a representative of the Soviet government, signed the Joint Manifesto of Sun and Joffe.

In June 1923, the third congress of the CPC decided to cooperate with the KMT. At the end of that year, Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) visited the Soviet Union and stayed there for three months. In January 1924, the first congress of the KMT adopted the three policies of allying with the Soviet Union, cooperating with the CPC, and assisting workers and farmers. The CPC members joined the KMT as individuals, beginning the first period of KMT–CPC cooperation. That cooperation created the political context for the victory of the Northern Expedition against the warlords. In March 1926, the Comintern accepted the KMT as an allied party, and Chiang Kai-shek became an honorary member of the presidium of the Comintern. On 20 March 1926, Chiang fabricated the Zhongshan Warship Incident and began to act against the communists, putting the CPC cadres in the Whampoa Military Academy under surveillance or house arrest. Chen Duxiu (1879–1942) proposed to withdraw from the KMT but was sternly condemned by the Comintern and Joseph Stalin (1878–1953). In April 1927, Chiang established an autocratic KMT government in Nanjing and the CPC was rendered illegal. In June 1928, Chiang captured Beijing and renamed it Beiping. In November of that year, Zhang Xueliang (1901–2001) and his army pledged their allegiance to the Nanjing government, thus accomplishing the nominal unification of the entirety of China.

The nominal unification, the unstable peace and understanding from the governments of the UK and the US improved the environment in which China was striving for national independence. The nationalist government began to revoke extraterritoriality, restore customs autonomy and rescind unequal treaties. By 1930, the extraterritoriality of all foreign countries, except the UK, the US, France and Japan, had been revoked, and customs autonomy had been restored. By 1937, the 33 foreign concessions had been cut to 13, most of them being returned to Chinese sovereignty. In the decade before the full-scale Japanese invasion of China, there were many proposals for developing the Chinese economy and culture.

In 1919, Sun Yat-sen wrote The Industry Project, in which he advocated developing industry and introducing foreign capital and technologies. After the establishment of the Nanjing government, the State Committee of Construction, which was founded in 1928, issued the Provisional Regulations on Rewarding Industrial Products. In 1929, the Central Committee of Agriculture Promotion was created. The Provisional Regulations on Rewarding Industrial Technology was promulgated in 1932. The National Economic Committee was set up in 1933 as a consultative body to coordinate economic development projects. In 1935, the National Defence Design Committee was reorganized as the Resource Committee, which concentrated on planning heavy industry and drafted the Five-Year Plan for Heavy Industry Construction in the following year. There were also various efforts to develop education and culture. Research institutions were founded: for example, the Academia Sinica was founded in 1928, the Peiping Research Institute in 1929, the Central Industrial Test Station in 1930 and the Central Agricultural Experiment Station in 1931. Through measures listed in the University Organization Law (1929), the Regulations for Universities (1929) and the Degrees Granting Act (1935), and especially because of the government’s policy of promoting the teaching of science and technology and restraining studies in the humanities and administrative management, education in science and technology progressed.

Because of the return of students who had studied abroad in the early years of the ROC, Chinese colleges did not have to employ unqualified foreign teachers. The earliest universities, such as Peking University, National Central University (which was founded by reorganizing Southeast University) and Tsinghua University (which was upgraded from a school preparing students for studying in the US), outperformed most mission colleges in their scholarship, infrastructure, student enrolments and many other metrics. Of the 877 most prominent Chinese scientists, one-third of them graduated from those three universities (Li, 1989).

The evolution of Peking University could be considered an exemplary case of the progress in teaching during this period (Xiao et al., 1981). As part of the One-Hundred-Day Reforms, Jingshi Daxuetang (the Imperial University of Peking), the predecessor of Peking University, was approved by Emperor Guangxu and founded on 4 July 1898. On 21 September, Dowager Empress Cixi suppressed the reform movement and began practising her ‘political tutelage’. As a result, almost all reform measures were abolished except for the Imperial University of Peking. In 1902, Zhang Baixi was appointed as the Minister of Education, and he presided over the drafting of the Imperial Approved Regulations for Schools in August that year. This was the first Chinese school system from elementary school to university. In this system, the university’s mission was to arouse loyalty and love, develop intelligence and promote industries and commerce. Higher education was divided into three stages: pre-college, college and postgraduate. There were seven kinds of colleges: politics and law, literature, Gezhi (natural sciences), agriculture, engineering and technology, business, and medicine. In the college of Gezhi, there were six disciplines: astronomy, geology, advanced mathematics, chemistry, physics, and zoology and biology. Those classifications of knowledge have remained essentially the same since then.

In June 1903, minor modifications were made in the revised Authorized Regulations for Schools. The colleges did not start until March 1910, and the College of Gezhi had only two disciplines: geology and chemistry. In February 1912, Yan Fu (1854–1921) was appointed as the superintendent of the Imperial University of Peking, which was renamed in May as Peking University. As for the quality of the university, Yan Fu, now the president of the university, did not think that it could be compared with the universities in Europe and the US. Yet, he stated that ‘The quality [of a university] is not fixed. If we keep improving it, it will one day become an advanced one.’

In October 1912, as the Decree of University was promulgated, the College of Gezhi was renamed the College of Sciences. There were 58 students in science and engineering disciplines before 1911. Threatened by the 1911 Revolution, most of them fled and never returned, leaving only four students in science and 14 in engineering. During the summer vacation of 1913, the College of Sciences admitted one class each in physics and chemistry, while the College of Engineering had one class each in civil engineering, mining and metallurgy.

On 26 December 1916, Cai Yuanpei (1868–1940) was appointed as the president of Peking University. He implemented an all-inclusive policy and reformed and revived the university, making it a foundation of the New Culture Movement and the May Fourth Movement. Founders of the CPC, including Chen Duxiu (1879–1942), Li Dazhao (1889–1927), Liu Renjing (1902–1987), Zhang Guotao (1897–1979) and Luo Zhanglong (1896–1995), studied at Peking University. Under Cai Yuanpei’s leadership, Peking University closed down its School of Business, expanded its colleges of Arts and Sciences and added institutes for research. In the College of Sciences, there were five departments—mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology and biology—and one research institute of geology. The faculty members newly appointed by Cai were young and promising. About one-fifth of members in the first council of the Academia Sinica (1935) were professors of Peking University.

When Jiang Menglin (1886–1964) was the president of the university, he reformed its systems of teaching and research according to its US counterparts, reorganizing teaching staff and promoting a policy requiring that professors focus on their scholarly work, students mind their college studies, staff members manage business matters, and the president take care of the university administration. The university’s teaching quality and scientific research were improved after it enacted a series of measures, such as hiring scholars who had studied in the US, setting up research professorships together with the China Foundation for the Promotion of Education and Culture, naming scholars who had previously taught at Peking University as honorary professors, admitting graduate students (1931) and establishing research institutes (1932). Peking University’s full-time professors, research professors or honorary professors occupied one-third of the seats in both the first (1935) and the second (1940) councils of the Academia Sinica.

The establishment of the Academia Sinica in June 1928 marked the institutionalization of China’s modern science and technology. In 1912, Ma Xiangbo (1840–1939), as a senior adviser to the president of the government, submitted a joint letter with Zhang Taiyan (1869–1936) and Liang Qichao (1873–1929) to President Yuan Shih-kai (1859–1916) (Fan, 1989) proposing to establish a Han Xia Kao Wen Yuan (National Academy of Letters) modelled on the Institut de France. Although the proposal was approved and recorded, the government provided no practical support, and the project failed to materialize. In the winter of 1924, Feng Yuxiang (1882–1948) staged a coup in Beijing and sent a telegram to Sun Yat-sen, inviting him to Beijing to discuss matters of vital importance. When Sun left Guangzhou for Beijing, he proposed to convene a national congress and planned to set up a central academy as the highest national academic institution. He appointed Wang Zhaoming (1883–1944), Yang Quan (1893–1933) and Huang Changgu (1889–1959) to draw up an academic plan, but it was not implemented because of Sun’s death in March 1925 and the subsequent preparation for the Northern Expedition (Lin, 1988). After more than a decade’s preparation, the Chinese government had failed to establish a central academic institution. By contrast, Japan set up the Central Experiment Station (1907), the Institute of Geological Research (1910), the Institute of Railway Technology (1922) and the Institute of Health (1925) within the system of the South Manchuria Railway Company (SMR) in Manchuria (the north-east of China).

Chinese scholars had established more than 40 societies or associations and had instituted departments of various sciences in universities within the first dozen years of the ROC, but they founded only a few research institutes. The Academia Sinica, founded in 1928, and the National Beiping Academy, founded in 1929, set up a total of 20 specialized research institutes. The institutes under the Academia Sinica included the Institute of Physics (1928), the Institute of Chemistry (1928), the Institute of Industry (1928), the Institute of Astronomy (1928), the Institute of Meteorology (1928), the Institute of Geology (1928), the Institute of History and Philology (1928), the Institute of Sociology (1928), the Institute of Psychology (1929), the Institute of Zoology and Botany (1934), the Institute of Mathematics (1941), the Institute of Zoology (1944) and the Institute of Botany (1944). The institutes belonging to the National Beiping Academy included the Institute of Physics (1929), the Institute of Chemistry (1929), the Institute of Zoology (1929), the Institute of Botany (1929), the Institute of History (1929), the Institute of Radium (1932), the Institute of Biology (1932) and the Institute of Pharmacology (1932). Being an institution for scientific research and an organization to guide, communicate and reward academic research, the Academia Sinica greatly advanced Chinese science. Various universities, industries and departments of health also began to set up research institutes. Before the establishment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 1949, there had been more than 190 research institutions in China, covering every basic discipline in modern sciences. Through their development in the 1930s, modern science had found a foothold in China.

However, that development was uneven across disciplines. China’s development in geology, biology and anthropological archaeology took place earlier, so there were more significant achievements in those fields. However, in mathematics, physics and chemistry—the basic disciplines of modern science—China accomplished very little because those endeavors required the support of industry. Chinese industries during the period of the Nanjing nationalist government were mainly textile and light industries, concentrated in Shanghai, Tianjin and a few ports along the Yangtze River. The Five-Year Plan for Heavy Industry Construction established by the Nanjing government in 1935 could not be carried out because of the full-scale Japanese invasion in 1937. The 10-year industry plan proposed in Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Economic Theory in 1943 remained only a utopian ideal because of the lack of social reforms. Although the textile industry had been distributed across about 75% of China in 1936, there was little machine-building industry, and the regionalization process was slow. As late as 1949, there had not been a system of regional industry distribution and a proper redistribution of industries. In that sense, China’s industrialization was rather underdeveloped during the 1930s—a period that has been lauded as the first pinnacle of modern Chinese industry (Dong and Wang, 1991). Even John King Fairbank (1907–1991), an American historian, believed that the Chinese economy during this period remained a commercial economy with semi-colonial characteristics (Fairbank, 1958). Xu Teli (1877–1968), a contemporary communist in Yan’an and the director of the Research Institute of Natural Sciences (RINS), pointed out that, because national industries were underdeveloped, China’s development in sciences such as mechanics, physics, chemistry and mathematics lagged behind its development in biology, geology and archaeology, which did not directly rely on industrial development (Xu, 1940). The industrial foundation for the development of sciences was constructed only after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and through the First Five-Year Plan (1953–1957).

However, that did not mean that China’s achievements in geology, biology and archaeology were insignificant. The ‘domestic’ sciences, which were developed according to real situations, were beneficial not only for China but also for the world. Studying China’s geology, resources and types and distributions of animals and plants, as well as its climate, was indispensable for learning about the entire world. The achievements of Chinese scientists, such as Chinese geological maps, the Chinese botanical atlas, the discovery of Metasequoia and Peking Man, and records of Chinese scientific heritage, were all of worldwide significance. Moreover, using foreign experimental equipment, Chinese scientists studying abroad completed, independently or in collaboration, several important works. In physics, Ye Qisun (1898–1977) accurately determined Planck’s constant in 1921; Wu Youxun (1897–1977) experimentally confirmed Compton’s scattering theory in 1924; Zhao Zhongyao (1902–1998) discovered the phenomenon equivalent to the creation and annihilation of electron–positron pairs in 1930; Qian Sanqiang (1913–1992) and He Zehui (1914–2011) discovered ternary nuclear fission in 1946; Zhang Wenyu (1910–1992) discovered the μ atom in 1949. There were also some important achievements in theoretical studies: Wu Dayou (1907–2000) made a quantum mechanics calculation that predicted the transuranic elements in 1933; Wang Ganchang (1907–1998) proposed an experimental plan to detect neutrinos in 1941; Huang Kun (1919–2005) advanced the Huang scattering theory of solids in 1947.

3. Setbacks and distorted developments in the scientific culture

The period of the War of Resistance against the Japanese Aggression was a time when the Chinese people suffered. Japanese militarists attempted to extinguish the Chinese nation. At the beginning of the war, the US publicly claimed to be neutral but, in private, the US government supplied arms and other materials to both China and Japan, undoubtedly attempting to profit from the war. At the beginning of the war, the Soviet Union aided China in fighting against the Japanese invaders. In 1941, however, it signed a non-aggression treaty with Japan. American loans to China after the outbreak of the Pacific War and the Soviet attack on the Japanese Kwantung Army in 1945 helped China to win the war, but both the US and the Soviet Union intended to control China after the war. If the Chinese people had not fought back, China would have been conquered by Japanese imperialists while the US and the Soviet Union were weighing their national interests. The final victory in this decisive battle for the independence of the Chinese nation was won primarily because of the Chinese sacrifice of 21 million lives and a direct economic loss of 60 billion yuan.

The impact of the war on the development of science and technology in China was twofold. On the one hand, the Japanese invasion inflicted serious damage. On the other hand, the war produced some outcomes that could not have been accomplished in peacetime. First, during the war, the nationalist government moved to Chongqing (in the remote south-west of China) along with many industrial facilities and cultural institutions. That quickly transformed the distribution of industries and cultural facilities in China. Second, the anti-Japanese democratic government established by the CPC in the north of Shaanxi Province implemented preliminary Marxist policies on science and technology. Third, to meet the demands of the war and for permanent occupation, the Japanese invaders set up a relatively complete industrial system, as well as scientific and cultural facilities, in Manchuria.

The Japanese had occupied Manchuria since 1931. On 7 July 1937, they instigated the Marco Polo Bridge Incident and launched a full-scale invasion of China. By the end of July, Beiping and Tianjin were occupied, and Shanghai was lost in November. Extending from those cities, the Japanese Army pushed forward along railways. By 27 October 1938, when the city of Wuhan on Yangtze River fell, the Japanese Army occupied more than half of China, including most parts of the northern, eastern and central regions. Before the full-scale invasion, 70% of Chinese industries were located in littoral cities and provinces, including 70% of textile industries, 62% of flour mills, 53% of match factories and 100% of chemical industries. Within the first few months of the war, those coastal cities and provinces were occupied by the Japanese Army. The industries there were either destroyed by shellfire or seized by the Japanese. In Shanghai alone, 2270 industrial enterprises with a value of 800 million yuan were destroyed. The factories in the Yangtze delta area lost 50% of their facilities, and those in the three towns of Wuhan (Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang) lost 12%.

After the full-scale Japanese invasion began, the nationalist government announced on 20 October 1937 that it would temporarily relocate the capital to Chongqing and transfer important factories and scientific and cultural facilities inland. According to records, a total of 447 factories were transferred inland, including one smelting plant, 181 machine factories, 25 electrical appliance factories, 60 chemical engineering factories, 98 textile factories and 12 other factories; 245 of those factories were moved to Sichuan Province, 121 to Hunan, 25 to Guangxi, 42 to Shaanxi and 14 to Guizhou, Yunnan and other provinces. Through the National Resource Committee under the Military Committee and the Industrial and Mining Adjustment Committee of the Ministry of Economy, the nationalist government reorganized and created many industrial and mining enterprises based on the war’s demands. The Regulations of Agriculture, Mining and Business Administration in the Time of Emergency issued on 6 October 1938 stipulated that mining enterprises, factories producing military products and electric industries, which were all wartime necessities, would be taken over or jointly run by the government. The regulations also stipulated that the Ministry of Economy could decide at any time, if necessary, to take over and directly run factories producing daily necessities. In this way, private industries were rapidly nationalized. By the end of 1945, the National Resource Committee directly administered 125 enterprises, among which more than 30 factories belonging to the Ordnance Department and more than 40 belonging to the Highway Administration of the Ministry of Transportation. Thus, the number of state-owned enterprises was greater than that of private enterprises. Because of the migration of enterprises and the creation of new ones, the south-western region became the contemporary industrial center. Before the war, in the provinces of Sichuan, Hunan, Guangxi, Shaanxi, Guizhou, Yunnan and Gansu, the total number of factories was only 6.3% of those in China, the total capital only 4.4%, and the total number of workers only 7.3%. During the war, however, the proportion of the three categories in the KMT-controlled regions increased to 88.6%, 93.5% and 85.6%, respectively.

Because of the migration of scientific and cultural facilities, Chongqing, Kunming and Chengdu became wartime centers of science and culture. In Chongqing, besides the local Chongqing University, there were the relocated Academia Sinica, Central Industrial Test Station, Central Agricultural Experiment Station, Central Medicine Research Institute, Geological Survey of China, National Central University, Central Vocational School of Industry, Central Hospital, Science Society of China and Shanghai College of Medicine. In Kunming, in addition to the local Yunnan University, others were added, including the National Southwestern Associated University (SAU), which comprised Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nankai University; some institutes of the Academia Sinica and Beiping Academy; the Drug Research Institute of the Ministry of Education; and the Central Machinery Works. In Chengdu, besides West China Union University and Sichuan University, there were the relocated Yenching University, Cheeloo University, Ginling College, Nanking University, Wuhan University, Tongji University and the Yellow Sea Institute of Industrial Chemistry. In the north-west, there was the National Northwestern Associated University, which consisted of Beiping University, Beiyang College of Engineering and Beiping Normal University. In Guizhou, there was the migrated Zhejiang University.

Chinese scientists and professors developed applied studies, improved power machines such as the steam engine and internal combustion engine, enhanced the precision of machine tools, and prospected and discovered the Yumen oilfield. They also conducted some basic research, submitting more than 100 scientific papers through the Sino-British Scientific Cooperation Office led by Joseph Needham (1900–1995). Despite great financial difficulties, higher education was still expanding and advancing towards a uniform quality. The SAU nurtured high-quality students such as Yang Zhenning (Chen-Ning Yang, 1922–) and Li Zhengdao (Tsung-Dao Lee, 1926–), the co-winners of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics. Chinese scientists and engineers also founded several academic societies, among which the most influential one was the Association of Chinese Scientific Workers set up in July 1945.

In the north-west, there was the Government of Shaanxi–Gansu–Ningxia Border Region led by the CPC. The CPC leaders and the Central Red Army broke through the fifth encirclement and suppression by Chiang Kai-shek’s forces in 1934, marching north from Jiangxi Province to resist the Japanese aggression. After covering about 12,500 kilometers they arrived in north Shaanxi in October 1935 and founded a government centered in Yan’an. The peaceful settlement of the Xi’an Incident ¹ in December 1936 prompted CPC–KMT cooperation against Japanese aggression. In August 1937, the Nanjing Defence Conference divided the country into five combat zones to fight the prolonged war against the Japanese aggressors. The Red Army in the north-west was reorganized as the Eighth Route Army and was placed in the second combat zone. The Red Army in eight southern provinces was incorporated as the New Fourth Army and was placed in the third combat zone. In September 1937, the Eighth Route Army successfully ambushed Seishiro Itagaki’s division at Pingxing Pass. In October, the Xinkou Battle lasted 20 days but the Chinese forces failed to stop the Japanese Army. In the spring of 1938, the bloody Tai’erzhuang Battle lasted for 10 days but, eventually, Xuzhou was lost. The main force of the Chinese national army could not stop the Japanese Army and it retreated in defeat, whereas the Eighth Route Army gradually penetrated the enemy’s rear and flanks. In 1940, the victories in the Hundred Regiments Offensive organized by the Eighth Route Army strengthened people’s confidence to continue the fight against the Japanese aggressors. Yan’an, where the CPC was headquartered, became a base in North China against the aggressors.

During those trying years of war, hundreds of scientists, engineers and doctors moved to Yan’an to serve the war effort with their own scientific and technological knowledge. Also coming to Yan’an were some international allies, such as Ma Haide (Shafick George Hatem, 1910–1988) from America, Hans Müller (1915–1994) from Germany, Richard Frey (1920–2004) from Austria and Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Alov (1923–1983) from the Soviet Union, who worked in the Yan’an Hospital. To support the war effort and assist in the economic construction in the Border Region, the RINS was founded in Yan’an, and Li Fuchun (1900–1975) was appointed as its first director. In February 1940, the Shaanxi–Gansu–Ningxia Border Region’s Research Society of Natural Sciences (RSNS) was founded, headed by Wu Yuzhang (1878–1966). In addition, more than 20 other learned organizations were set up, including the National Defence Science Society and the Border Region Research Society of Chinese Medicine, as well as the branches of the RSNS in agriculture, biology, geology and mining, machinery and electric motors, chemistry, civil engineering, medicine, aviation, and mathematics and physics.

The RINS was initially a research organization. In January 1941, the CPC Central Committee decided to convert it into an institution that would primarily provide education in natural sciences but also carry out research. As an educational organization, the RINS set up four departments (physics, chemistry, biology, and geology and mining), which were transformed in 1943 into three departments (mechanical engineering, chemical engineering and agriculture). The RINS nurtured students and explored natural resources and studied their exploitation. It had a Division of Biology, which compiled a flora index of economic plants in the border region and organized working groups for living organism collection, forest surveys and geological prospecting.

The RSNS and its branches contributed to economic construction in the border region. They started or renovated many industrial and mining enterprises, such as those producing coal, edible salt, petroleum, steel and iron, textiles, paper, medicines, printed works, leather, matches, glass, ceramics, chemicals for daily necessities, and weapons and ammunition. All those enterprises played an important role in supporting the war effort and improving people’s lives.

Although the work during the Yan’an period did not provide a basis for the development of science and technology, it had great influence on the guiding ideas and the system of science and technology. On the one hand, Marxist views on science and technology were firmly established in the minds of senior and mid-level CPC cadres, and those Marxist ideas were put into initial practice by the border region’s government. After the establishment of the PRC, the cadres who had had some practical experience in Yan’an took over various leadership positions in science and technology. For example, Yun Ziqiang (1899–1963), who was the deputy director of the RINS, served as a deputy director of the general office of CAS, the deputy commissioner of the Compilation and Translation Bureau and the deputy commissioner of the north-eastern branch of CAS. Li Qiang (1905–1996), who was the third director of the RINS, served as a vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and concurrently as the counsellor for commerce in the PRC Embassy in the Soviet Union, overseeing 156 Soviet-aided construction projects. Wu Heng (1914–1999), one of the initiators of the RSNS, was the deputy director of the State Scientific and Technological Commission. Yu Guangyuan (1915–2013), the secretary of the RSNS, served as the director of the science division under the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, ² the deputy director of the State Scientific and Technological Commission and the vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Yun, Li and Wu were elected as the first group of academicians of CAS.

The influence of the Yan’an experience on the development of China requires a separate analysis. Here it suffices to quote a paragraph from a speech by Mao Zedong (1893–1976) at the founding ceremony for the RSNS. This paragraph was short but explicitly demonstrated Mao’s view concerning the objectives of natural science study, the relationship between natural sciences and social sciences, and the development of natural sciences and the social system:

Natural science is a kind of weapon for people seeking freedom. In order to acquire freedom in society, people have to learn about the society through social sciences, transforming society and carrying out social revolutions. In order to acquire freedom in the natural world, people have to understand nature using natural sciences, overcoming nature and transforming nature, and obtaining freedom from nature. Natural sciences are going to transform the natural world under the direction of social sciences, but the development of natural sciences is hindered in capitalist societies. Hence, it is necessary to transform this irrational social system. (Mao, 1940)

As mentioned above, the Japanese built many industries and scientific and cultural facilities in Manchuria before 1945. The role of those industries and facilities in China’s development is an important topic in the historical study of modern Chinese science and technology. A discourse on this issue requires an analysis of not only the motivations of the Japanese and the outcomes of their activities but also the consequences of US and Soviet actions.

Since the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), Japan had always coveted China. The Japanese were the main force of the Eight-Nation Alliance that attacked Beijing in 1900. Taking advantage of that opportunity, the Japanese began to seek hegemony in East Asia. To their surprise, however, Russia captured Manchuria first. That bothered Japan because of its territorial ambition in the region and also because of the menace posed by the Russians to Japan itself. Supported by the UK and the US, Japan waged a war against Russia on Chinese territory in February 1904. Having defeated Russia in the war and signed the Treaty of Portsmouth (1905), Japan inherited southern Manchuria. Later, Japan gradually expanded its control in the area and built up myriad colonial organizations. Japan not only attempted to occupy Manchuria indefinitely but also planned to turn it into a base for conquering the whole of China and fighting against Russia. There were five main colonial organizations: the headquarters of the Kwantung Army, the Manchurian Governor’s Office, the SMR, the Manchurian Heavy Industry Development Corporation (MHID) and the puppet government of the so-called Imperial State of Manchuria.

The SMR was founded on 7 June 1906. US President Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) took an interest in this matter. Edward Henry Harriman (1848–1909), an American railway magnate, travelled to Japan on 31 August 1905, looking for an opportunity to invest in the SMR and realize his ambition to travel around the globe within one week by land and sea transport. Komura Jutarō (1855–1911), the Japanese Foreign Minister, was strongly against this. To compete with Harriman’s consortium, President Roosevelt, who was sponsored mainly by a consortium organized by John Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913), was willing to give Japan a loan of US$300,000–400,000 on the condition that Japan would buy products from Morgan’s companies in addition to paying the loan’s interest. Thus, Japan established the jointly owned state–private SMR based on both the conditional loan from Morgan’s consortium and private capital raised in China and Japan. Gotō Shimpei (1857–1929), the former Japanese governor of Taiwan Province, was appointed the first director of the SMR. Modelling the entity on the East India Company, Gotō built the SMR as a colonial organization with the functions of a state. In the beginning, there were 4000 employees in the SMR. Through years of administration under 17 terms of directorship, the SMR expanded into a corporation that had as many as 400,000 employees by the time Japan surrendered in 1945, making it the largest Japanese company.

In name, the Kwantung Army, the Manchurian Governor’s Office and the SMR seemed like the three legs of a tripod, but they were one unified unit. In 1932, to legitimize their colonial rule in Manchuria, the Japanese set up the puppet Imperial State of Manchuria, which was headed by Aisin Gioro Puyi (1906–1967), the dethroned last emperor of the Qing dynasty. The Japanese directly manipulated the puppet regime to serve their expanded invasion of China. To meet the demands of the war, the Japanese government reorganized the industries in Manchuria, following the recommendation of Yoshisuke Aikawa (1880–1967), the president of the Nissan business group. Nissan moved its headquarters to Manchuria in November 1937 and in December was reorganized under the new name of ‘Manchurian Heavy Industry Development Corporation’, which was jointly sponsored by the puppet Manchurian government and private investors, but primarily by the former. Headed by Yoshisuke Aikawa, the MHID controlled nearly all heavy industries in Manchuria, including coal, steel, iron, petroleum refining, light metals, heavy-duty machines, automobiles and aeroplanes.

Through the SMR and the MHID, the Japanese industrialized Manchuria. By the time Japan surrendered, the gross product of industry had surpassed that of agriculture; the total amount of heavy industry products in Manchuria had exceeded the combined total of those in the remaining areas of China; the annual output of coal was 26.5 million tons; the annual output of pig iron was 1.18 million tons; the annual output of steel was 470,000 tons (the highest annual output once reached 2.9 million tons); and the annual output of cement was 1.14 million tons. Manchuria contained 10,000 kilometers of railways, which was one-third of the total railway length in China. The installed capacity of electric power was about 1.8 million kilowatts, which was two-thirds of that in the whole country.

Furthermore, the SMR built advanced research institutes, such as the Central Experiment Station and the Institute of Railway Technology, as well as colleges with good facilities, such as the Railway Institute, the Medical University and the Institute of Industry. The puppet Manchurian government also founded the Continental Academy of Sciences, which included one branch academy and four research institutes or offices and factories, as well as more than 20 research laboratories. Some vocational schools were also upgraded to universities, such as Lushun Industrial University, Harbin Industrial University, Fengtian Agricultural University, Manchuria Medical University and Xinjing Medical University.

The Japanese made some advanced technological achievements while they were occupying Manchuria. For instance, the test refining of shale oil was successful and shale oil was in production; soda was successfully manufactured out of salt; the test of coal liquefaction succeeded; there was an aerodynamically shaped train with air-conditioning running on the Changchun–Dalian line at 120 kilometers per hour; and the Fengman Dam, though unable to match the Hoover Dam and the Grand Coulee Dam in the US, surpassed the Dnieper Dam in the Soviet Union in capacity.

Japan boasted of its enormous investment in Manchuria, but most of it was not exported capital from Japan but rather resources taken in Manchuria. For example, more than 70% of the total capital in the MHID system came from the puppet Manchurian government. The Japanese also claimed that they moved 300,000 Japanese into Manchuria to develop the region. However, those Japanese came to rule the local Chinese people, while the main labor force for developing Manchuria comprised millions of Chinese captured from other regions. Using Chinese resources and wealth, and Chinese labor, the Japanese constructed more than 100 large industrial and mining enterprises. More than one-third of those enterprises’ products were shipped to Japan; Japan relied on Manchuria to provide 24 of 38 kinds of ordnance. The products not being shipped back to Japan did not benefit the Chinese people, as they were used to expand the aggressive war in the other parts of China. The Japanese even experimented on captured Chinese to develop biological weapons.

One could say that the industrial facilities left by the Japanese would have provided a foundation for China to develop its industries after the war. However, the reality was not so. Little remained after: 1) American B-29 bombers based in Chengdu bombed Anshan and Benxi; 2) the Soviet Red Army’s artillery fire targeting the Japanese Kwantung Army obliterated many of those facilities; 3) the Japanese Army in retreat brought about more destruction; and 4) the Soviet Army dismantled whatever was left in those industries and shipped it back to the Soviet Union. In the end, 40% of the industries in Manchuria were destroyed in the war, and another 40% of them were dismantled and taken away by the Soviet Army.

Kojima Noboru (1927–2001), a Japanese historian, exposed some details about the Soviet dismantlement (Kojima, 1976). According to Kojima, in Fengtian, more than 50 factories were dismantled, and machine tools, generators, chemical machinery, transformers and the like were taken away. In Anshan, the facilities of 25 factories were taken apart, and 2890 railway cars and more than 600,000 people were employed to ship equipment, such as mining and mineral dressing equipment and smelters. In Fushun, coalmining and petroleum-refining facilities were disassembled, and only the walls and electric furnaces of a light metal plant were left; 90% of equipment in the Dalian Machine Building Shop was taken away. Industrial facilities for petroleum, chemical engineering, electrical work and woodwork were completely removed. According to the estimate of an American committee dispatched to Manchuria in June 1946, the facilities dismantled and taken by the Soviet troops were worth US$900 million, and it would cost US$2 billion to rebuild them. The committee also provided estimated percentage losses of various industrial facilities: 71% in electric power, 90% in coalmining, 50–100% in steel and iron making, 80% in the railway industry, 75% in machinery, 50% in liquid fuels, 100% in chemical engineering, 50% in cement production, 75% in nonferrous metals, 75% in fiber making, 30% in paper mills, and 20–100% in telecommunications.

4. The formation of China’s science and technology system modelled on the Soviet Union’s

The constitution of China’s scientific and technological system depended on the people’s government. Chiang Kai-shek had always attempted to restrict the development of the CPC. When the Northern Expedition was approaching its triumph and the country was nearly reunified, he tried to annihilate the CPC. Through the Nanchang Uprising (1 August 1927), the Autumn Harvest Uprising (9 September 1927) and the Guangzhou Uprising (11 December 1927), the CPC founded its armed force and established some revolutionary bases in mountainous areas of Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Fujian and Anhui. Chiang Kai-shek mobilized 2.1 million soldiers to encircle and annihilate the CPC but failed. The CPC’s policy of forming a national united front against Japanese aggression helped the communist forces expand quickly, forcing Chiang to grant the CPC a legitimate status. However, in Chiang’s opinion, the Japanese invasion was like a skin ailment, whereas the CPC was a disease of heart.

The US supported Chiang’s government. When the Pacific War broke out, the Americans attempted to make China a base for the fight against Japan and schemed to use China as the main force to stabilize Asia and counterbalance the Soviet Union after World War II. Therefore, they provided US$1.6 billion in aid to the nationalist government during the War against Japanese Aggression. Out of their political and strategic concern to counterbalance the Soviet Union, the Americans began to prepare for Chiang’s unification of China in October 1944, when victory in the war against fascism was in sight. At the Yalta Conference in 1945, the US and the Soviet Union made a deal at the cost of Chinese rights and interests in Manchuria. The Soviet Union agreed to attack the Kwantung Army and promised to support the KMT on the condition of regaining the privileges Russia used to have in Manchuria. As a result of that deal, the US no longer needed to rely on the CPC’s forces to fight the Japanese, and thus could restrain the CPC and force it to yield to the KMT. After Japan declared its surrender, the US airlifted 500,000 of Chiang’s troops to seize North and East China and sent 50,000 American marines to help Chiang fight for the CPC-controlled areas in North China. After World War II, the US helped the KMT government control China by providing military aid worth more than US$5 billion and by mediating between the CPC and the KMT to avoid a civil war, but neither endeavor was successful.

Once KMT troops had lost the three major military campaigns of Liaoshen, Pingjin and Huaihai, and the KMT government was collapsing, the US State Department attempted to start a relationship with the CPC. However, unable to trust America because of its pro-Chiang Kai-shek and anti-communist history, the CPC decided to lean towards the Soviet Union. Since the CPC had defeated the KMT, the Soviet Union naturally wanted to accept socialist China as one of its allies. On 14 February 1950, the two governments signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance. The Korean War exposed the true colors of the US government. By sending the Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait, the US interfered with Chinese internal affairs.

The historical conditions determined that the PRC founded under the leadership of the CPC joined the socialist camp. Socialist China, which could receive aid only from the socialist camp, was bound to model itself on the Soviet Union in areas such as politics, economics, science, culture and so on. That began the transformation in China’s system of science and technology from the Anglo-Saxon model to the Soviet model. Because of the postwar antagonism between the socialist world and the capitalist world, the international environment faced by the PRC was more hostile than that faced by the early Nanjing KMT government. Domestically, however, Chiang Kai-shek’s government had never truly reunified China, not only because the CPC had 15 revolutionary bases and 19 liberated areas, but also because the Japanese controlled Manchuria—approximately one-quarter of the Chinese territory—through the puppet Manchurian government.

By contrast, the CPC reunified the Chinese mainland, which was unprecedented in the previous century of Chinese history. The domestic unification, the socialist planned economy and the determination of the Chinese communists to consolidate their power enabled China to recover rapidly from the aftermath of the wars and to develop its economy and scientific culture in a planned manner. The successful completion of the First Five-Year Plan allowed China to acquire a foundation for modern industries. It was because of that industrial base that Chinese scientific education and research developed. Although most scientists in China’s science and technology field received their education in European or American schools, the socialist political system in China determined that the Chinese system of science and technology would follow the Soviet model.

Such a transformation of the Chinese system of science and technology was realized through three primary measures: the constitution of CAS according to the blueprint of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, the reorganization of Chinese colleges and universities by modelling their Soviet counterparts, and the construction of 156 leading projects assisted by the Soviet Union. Soviet assistance played an important role. According to the loan agreement, the Soviet government gave China a loan of US$300 million. In comparison to the US$3 billion needed by China, that loan was rather small: it was worth only one-third of the total value of the facilities that the Soviets took away from Manchuria in 1945 and was about the same size as the loan they granted to Poland. Although the Soviet loan was far from enough to meet Chinese needs, it was still quite valuable because the Soviet Union was almost the sole benefactor of China at that time. While providing loans and economic aid, the Soviet government also furnished China with technological assistance. It not only sent more than 10,000 experts to China but also accepted about 1000 Chinese scientists and thousands of Chinese technicians and students to study in the Soviet Union. Soviet experts ingrained the Soviet development pattern of science and technology and incorporated it into various Chinese scientific research institutions, higher education institutions and technical divisions of industries.

CAS was founded on 1 November 1949. Guo Moruo (1892–1978), a Chinese archaeologist, historian and writer, was appointed as president of the organization. CAS was both a national scientific research center and an administrative organization to promote science and technology under the leadership of the State Council. By taking over previously existing research organizations, such as the Academia Sinica and the National Beiping Academy, CAS established 20 research departments, including the institutes of modern history, archaeology, languages, sociology, modern physics, applied physics, physical chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, experimental biology, hydrobiology, systematic botany, geophysics, geology, mathematics, psychology, geography and engineering science, as well as the Purple Hills Observatory and the Industrial Experiment Laboratory. Most of those institutes’ directors were former academicians or councillors of the Academia Sinica. Most of CAS’s more than 200 researchers had studied abroad.

Through the Thought Reform Campaign in 1952, Chinese scientists’ ideas were turned towards socialism, leading to a cult of learning from the Soviet Union in 1953. A CAS delegation headed by Qian Sanqiang visited the Soviet Union in March 1953. They spent three months visiting 98 research organizations, 11 universities and industrial and mining enterprises, and attending seven comprehensive lectures specially organized by the Presidium of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The delegation introduced into China the Soviet experience of developing the sciences. Many Soviet approaches to leading and organizing scientific studies were mirrored in China, such as the leading position of the academic divisions in the Academy of Sciences, the procedures for formulating research plans, the division of and cooperation on research works among research organizations, and the methods of communication between research institutes, universities and industrial ministries.

After a Sino-Soviet agreement on scientific and technical cooperation was signed in Beijing on 12 October 1954, Soviet experts came to China. In June 1955, CAS’s academic division membership system was formally set up. The congress of four constituent academic divisions (the Division of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry; the Division of Biology and Geology; the Division of Technological Sciences; and the Division of Philosophy and Social Sciences) took charge of specific academic activities. By the start of 1956, the number of research organizations in CAS had increased to 44, and CAS’s academic personnel totalled 2,500, among whom 400 were senior researchers. As the highest academic research center in the country, CAS had far surpassed the Academia Sinica in scale and the scientific disciplines that it encompassed.

The Ministry of Education convened a national conference concerning education in Beijing in December 1949, which determined the policies for educational reforms and development. Between June and September 1952, to speed up the training of professional personnel for the PRC’s industrial construction, the ministry reorganized schools and departments in universities according to the Soviet model of specialized education. Hitherto, following the patterns of European countries and the US, Chinese universities were constituted only by schools and departments but not by specialities. Practising the policy of training students in specialities, the reorganization merged similar departments and schools in some universities to constitute specialized colleges. The two great regional cultural centers, North and East China, were the main foci of the reorganization.

Forty-one universities and institutes emerged from the reorganization in North China, concentrated in Beijing and Tianjin. Among them, Peking University and Nankai University were comprehensive universities; Tsinghua University and Tianjin University were converted into advanced multidisciplinary industrial institutes. Fu Jen University and Yenching University (the two former Christian mission colleges in Beijing) were abolished; the former was merged into Beijing Normal University; the latter’s schools of liberal arts and sciences were combined into Peking University, and its engineering school was absorbed by Tsinghua University. In addition, many specialized institutes were built, such as the Beijing Institute of Geology, the Beijing Industrial Institute of Steel and Iron, the Beijing Institute of Aeronautics, the Beijing Institute of Forestry, the Beijing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, the Central Institute of Taxation and the Beijing College of Political Science and Law.

In East China, there were 54 post-reorganization universities and institutes, concentrated in Nanjing and Shanghai. Among them, Nanjing University, Fudan University and Shandong University were designed as comprehensive universities. Zhejiang University and Nanjing Institute of Technology were transformed into advanced multidisciplinary industrial institutes. Newly created institutes included the Institute of Military Engineering of the PLA (restructured as the Artillery Engineering College of the PLA in 1960 and renamed as the East China Institute of Engineering in 1966), the East China Technical University of Water Resources, the Eastern China Aeronautics Institute, the East China University of Sports, and Nanjing Forestry College. The University of Nanking, St. John’s University, the University of Shanghai and Aurora University (all previously foreign mission colleges) were abolished, and their departments and programs were merged into other universities or institutes.

After the 1952 reorganization, a total of 215 specialities were established in universities and institutes nationwide, mainly according to the demands of national construction. In 1955, in order to correct the unbalanced distribution of higher learning institutes, some institutes in coastal areas were relocated inland and new colleges were founded, increasing the number of institutes of higher learning to 229 on the Chinese mainland. Among Soviet experts coming to China, nearly 1000 taught at Chinese universities and institutes, where they helped China establish 150 specialities, offered over 900 courses and built more than 500 laboratories. After the 1952 and 1955 reorganizations and under the influence of the Soviet experts’ instructions, the Anglo-Saxon-style liberal education in the period of the nationalist government was completely transformed into the Soviet-style specialized education. Although the reorganizations imitated the Soviet system mechanically, designed the disciplinary specialities narrowly and improperly cancelled some academic disciplines and programs, the changes generally met the demand of industrial construction for a large group of specialists.

Scientific research institutes are the sources of new knowledge, and universities are the cradles of scientists. However, if there had been no industrial foundation, there would have been no creative motivation born from industrial demand, and the development of technology would have been undermined. The industrial requirements of the First Five-Year Plan (1953–1957) greatly advanced the development of modern technology in China. The total investment of the First Five-Year Plan was 42.7 billion yuan, of which 7.6% was invested in the primary industry, including agriculture, forestry, stock raising and fisheries, 58.2% in the secondary industry, including manufacturing and processing industries, and 34.2% in the tertiary industry or the service industry, including transportation, commerce, finance, culture, education and health. Of the secondary industry investment, the heavy industries accounted for 85%. In the First Five-Year Plan, 211 of more than 600 principal projects were constructed with Soviet aid. The 156 core projects under Soviet aid included the Anshan Steel and Iron Mill, the Baotou Steel Mill, the Changchun First Automotive Works, the Jilin Chemical Factory and the Lanzhou Petroleum Refining Plant. This unbalanced investment demonstrated both Chinese determination to speed up industrialization and China’s imitation of the Soviet pattern of industrialization.

Historically, the first group of countries to achieve industrialization mostly followed the UK pattern by prioritizing the production of consumer goods, which was dominated by the free capitalist economy. Another kind of industrialization was first experienced by Germany and Japan. In contrast to the economy-dominated industrialization in the UK, the US and France, industrialization in Germany and Japan was power-dominated and directed by the government, and developing the production of productive goods took priority. Soviet industrialization was also power-dominated but was preconditioned by the public ownership of productive goods and the planned economy, which became the model for developing countries, especially socialist countries after World War II.

The PRC’s First Five-Year Plan was successful, and its main targets were accomplished in 1956, one year ahead of schedule. The fulfilment of the plan changed the structure of the Chinese national economy. The gross value of industrial output in 1956 was 54.7% of the total value of industrial and agricultural output; the value of productive goods produced was 45.5% of the gross value of industrial output; and the value of modern industry output was 71.6% of the gross value of industrial output. Since the Chinese government included science and technology development in the First Five-Year Plan, scientific studies, science and technology education and industry developed as planned, providing unprecedented advantages for China.

By 1955, there were more than 380 research organizations and 9000 researchers in China, and the number of high-level intellectuals in the three systems of scientific research, engineering technology, and culture, education and health care amounted to 100,000. The 34 achievements that won the CAS Natural Science Awards reflected Chinese scientists’ capability to conduct independent research. In technological fields, the industrial divisions of material, energy and manufacturing could coordinate with each other, and the ability of Chinese engineers to design, manufacture and construct products greatly improved. China was able to manufacture more than 3500 kinds of mechanical products and to smelt more than 240 types of superior and alloy steel. All of those factors demonstrate that the modern system of science and technology had begun to take form in China.

5. Conclusion

The establishment of the Chinese system of science and technology was largely determined by external factors. The pattern transformation of the system in the mid-20th century also resulted from changes in the international political environment and domestic political situation.

The Chinese system of science and technology did not continue to be based on the Soviet model. In 1956, China began to explore how to end the Soviet pattern because of the incongruity of the Soviet socialist model. Furthermore, some adverse effects of blindly following the Soviet Union had emerged in China. Mao Zedong, as the Chairman of the CPC Central Committee and the President of the PRC, contemplated a socialist pattern that would suit China. His thoughts were presented in his essay ‘On the ten essential relationships’ (1956) and were established as the political line at the Eighth National Congress of the CPC. The resolution concerning the political report of the congress confirmed that the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie had been resolved in China, and that the primary contradiction had shifted to that between people’s increasing demand for the rapid development of the economy and culture and lagging social productivity. In the areas of science and culture, the breaking away from the Soviet pattern was exhibited in advancing the policy of ‘letting a hundred kinds of flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend’, in making a 12-year plan for the development of science and technology, and in establishing a strategy of ‘keeping the initiative in our own hands and doing our utmost to catch up’.

In 1978, having experienced the setbacks and failures in the Anti-Rightist Campaign, the Great Leap Forward and the ‘Cultural Revolution’, the CPC, now at a new starting point, returned to the political line of the Party’s Eighth National Congress and generated a new state of affairs through ‘reform and opening up’. Having transformed its mindset through the enlightenment of scientific thought and transformed the development pattern of science and technology, China shifted the driving force of developing science and technology from national defence to economics.