Why are China's key technologies frequently stuck in the neck?
Nowadays, with the intensification of international competition, war has long ceased to be an armed struggle in the traditional sense of the past, and its concept has been widely extended to economic war, scientific and technological war, and cultural war. All industries and fields are in danger of being challenged by foreign regions at any time.
The topic of the Sino-US trade war has brushed everyone's circle of friends, and the Sino-US trade war is a multi-faceted war related to economy and politics. It not only exposes the ambition of the United States to be a scientific and technological power, but also verifies the weak problems of research in basic science, including theory, in various industries in China.
The truth of the Sino-US trade war is that if a country does not have solid basic science, including theoretical research, it is difficult to have core technologies, and it is difficult to firmly control the industrial initiative by controlling core technologies and key materials or key components.
Including the Huawei Meng Wanzhou incident, the US ban policy, the chip card neck phenomenon, etc. have all verified this truth - basic science research plays a key role in the process of national development.
Basic scientific research should be at the center of the national stage
American engineer Van Neva Bush mentioned in "Science: Endless Frontiers" of American science policy that the United States quickly got rid of its dependence on basic research and scientific research talents in Europe, achieved the status of the United States as a scientific and technological power today, and permanently changed the pattern of human scientific development.
This year, Fannevar Bush republished Science: Endless Frontiers after World War II, Xiaoice CEO Li Di foreworded it. The prologue reads: "For more than 70 years, the discussion, revisiting, and revision of Science: Endless Frontiers has never stopped. It was not so much an important factor that led to the rapid development of Science in the United States in the 20th century, but rather that its significance extended far beyond the Scope of the United States—it made a promise for science in a highly developing secular world. ”
Basic science is a science that explores the laws of development in nature with natural phenomena and forms of material movement as the research object. It includes seven basic disciplines of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, earth sciences and logic, as well as their sub-disciplines and marginal disciplines. The research results are the theoretical basis of the entire science and technology, and play a guiding role in technical science and production technology.
In Li Di's view, science is the cornerstone and origin of many things, technology is more easily observed its instrumental properties, and science is often a series of laws and discoveries.
In fact, basic scientific research has lasted for more than a hundred years, and the opportunity period for the development of basic scientific research in the United States was during World War II, which also confirmed the importance of basic scientific research for national development, and then laid the determination of the US government in basic scientific research.
The brutal war caused serious damage to the body and mind of the soldiers, and the mortality rate of various diseases during the Second World War dropped from 14.1% in the First World War to 0.6% in the Second World War; serious diseases such as yellow fever, dysentery, tetanus and other serious diseases were overcome by penicillin, sulfonamides and pesticides such as DDT, in addition, in the military aspect, radar, high-performance aircraft, atomic bombs, etc. have increased the weight of the victory of the war;
During peacetime, the life expectancy of the U.S. population increased from 49 to 65 years, and the significant increase in life expectancy was mainly due to the decline in infant and young child mortality, which was based on scientific talent through a large number of basic research in medicine and preclinical science and the dissemination of new scientific knowledge by health care institutions;
Between 1900 and 1940, the population of the United States increased from 75 million to 130 million, and in other countries, explosive population growth was bound to lead to famine, but it brought the United States an abundant food supply, more leisure, longer lifespan, and healthier health.
Whether it is the decline in mortality during World War II, the extension of the life expectancy of the peaceful population or the arrival of a better life under the rapid growth of the population, it all stems from the fact that the United States has accumulated a large amount of scientific data in basic research in many scientific fields, and basic scientific research has played its key role in the face of international crisis, people's suffering, and employment suffering.
The Science and Society Committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science declares that "scientific research policy, like foreign policy and defense policy, is necessary for the survival of the nation," and that science is "no less important in modern government than the law and the courts."
Li Di commented on basic science in the United States: "In fact, the reason why basic scientific research in the United States has been well studied and developed is because World War II provided fertile soil for its development, created a good development condition, and was an opportunity."
Basic scientific research in China has always been on the road
In contrast, China's basic scientific research seems to have started a little later than the United States.
Taking the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020 as an example, it is essentially a public health emergency, which belongs to the research scope of risk management in the public sector, but it is also a contest related to science.
According to relevant data, as of May 13, Beijing time, the number of confirmed cases of new crown pneumonia in the world rose to 160 million, and the number of deaths reached 3.32 million. Although the epidemic has shown good momentum under the influence of vaccination, the number of single-day confirmed cases in countries such as the United States, India, the United Kingdom and France is still fluctuating at tens of thousands of levels.
At present, the cumulative number of confirmed cases of new crown pneumonia in China is about 100,000, and the cure rate is also greatly improved.
From the perspective of the development of the global epidemic, the epidemic in China has been better controlled than in other countries. This is mainly based on the fact that after the outbreak of the epidemic, China's scientific research institutions have focused on pathogen identification, virus traceability, effective drugs and vaccine research and development, etc., providing important scientific and technological support for front-line prevention and control and treatment.
In terms of pathogen isolation, four units, including the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, independently carried out pathogen isolation and reported it to the Department of Science and Education of the National Health Commission. Then four scientific discoveries were made, including isolating the virus, deciphering the gene sequence, determining the incubation period and determining the transmission route, which provided an important scientific basis for the formulation of the prevention and control of new crown pneumonia;
In terms of virus traceability, the World Health Organization released the Chinese part of the WORLD Health Organization's global new crown virus traceability survey, including the basic conclusions of the traceability survey, the research methods and conclusions in epidemiology, molecular epidemiology, animal and environmental research, and the hypothetical analysis of the four transmission routes of the new crown virus;
In terms of drug treatment, the "three medicines and three parties" ("three drugs" refers to Jinhua Qinggan granules, Lianhua Qing plague granules and capsules, and Hebijing injection; "three parties" refers to lung detoxification soup, wet septic poison formula, Xuan lung septic poison formula) and other traditional Chinese medicine treatment methods have achieved remarkable results;
In terms of vaccine research and development, at present, China has 5 vaccines in the second phase of clinical trials, donated Chinese vaccines to more than 80 countries, exported Chinese vaccines to more than 50 countries, and Chinese vaccines have now been approved by the World Health Organization to facilitate medical assistance for more countries.
In addition, scientists have summarized and analyzed many studies and published articles. As of May 10, the world has published a total of 2151 articles on COVID-19 in more famous magazines, and China has published 650 articles, accounting for almost 1/3, which provide very good experience in guiding the world on how to prevent and control the epidemic.
It can be seen that China has laid a solid foundation and played a key role in the global epidemic prevention and control, which is mainly due to the experience accumulated by researchers in biology, physics, medicine and other disciplines to promote the important research results of basic science, and also makes many people gradually realize the great significance of strengthening basic scientific research for national development.
This also fully validates Vannewa Bush's view in Science, Endless Frontiers that "basic research is a well, and this well is the source of all practical knowledge, and basic research is the driving force of the entire research and innovation process".
The fertile land of basic scientific research must continue to be reclaimed
In Li Di's view, basic scientific research needs an important opportunity to promote, just as World War II was an opportunity for basic scientific research in the United States. When this opportunity came, China did not blindly replicate, but on the basis of learning from the successful experience of the United States, it conducted targeted analysis and made effective scientific research according to the actual situation facing China.
Li Di frankly said that basic scientific research is not done for the benefits it can bring, but the emergence and development of many new things occur on the basis of basic scientific research.
For example, when the current METUan buys vegetables, we can easily find that it is a new form spawned by new technologies, and the basic scientific research behind him is worth thinking about by each of us;
For example, the success of the atomic bomb explosion is not naturally formed at once, but relies on the research of basic science to form a standardized system to promote it;
For example, China's iron ore, printing and other industrial fields are doing better, in fact, this is related to the research of physics, fossils, materials science and other disciplines behind it, which are the strength of basic discipline research.
Li Di believes that whether it is for the United States, China or other countries, if there is a better development in basic scientific research, it is inseparable from the support of the state, society, enterprises and talents.
Van Neva Bush also introduced in Science, The Endless Frontier that scientific progress is a necessity, and without scientific progress, no amount of achievement in other areas can ensure our health, prosperity and security. Basic scientific research requires the government to introduce a series of policies to advocate, support and coordinate, and at the same time pay attention to the innovation of scientific talents.
Although China started a little late in basic scientific research compared with the United States, the Chinese government has become more and more aware of the importance of basic scientific research as some basic scientific research brings important value to society.
In the "Several Opinions on Comprehensively Strengthening Basic Scientific Research" issued by the State Council in 2018, it is mentioned that the three-step development goal of basic scientific research is:
By 2020, the overall level and international influence of basic scientific research in China will be significantly improved, a number of major original scientific achievements will be achieved in the important direction of scientific frontiers, a number of forward-looking major scientific problems facing the national strategic needs will be solved, and strong support will be provided for building a well-off society in an all-round way and entering the ranks of innovative countries.
By 2035, the overall level of basic scientific research and international influence in China will leap forward significantly, leading global development in more important fields, and producing a number of original scientific achievements that have an important impact on the development of world science and technology and the progress of human civilization, laying a solid foundation for the basic realization of socialist modernization and the forefront of innovative countries.
By the middle of this century, We will build our country into a major scientific center and innovation highland in the world, and a number of major original scientific achievements and scientific masters of the international top level will emerge, providing strong scientific support for building a prosperous, strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious, and beautiful socialist modern power and a world scientific and technological power.
Speaking of the development of basic scientific research in China, Li Di said that the development of basic scientific research must have certain resolute conditions: First, the state must have a certain accumulation of wealth, because basic scientific research consumes resources; second, enterprises are willing to set up special scientific research institutions as investors to provide good hardware conditions for scientific research industries; finally, it is a solid reserve of scientific research talents.
It is not that there are no scientific research talents in China, but scientific research talents do not stay in scientific research positions, Li Di added, the biggest problem in basic scientific research in China at present is the problem of talents, which requires the government and enterprises to work together to increase government guidance and financial support to expand the team of scientific research talents in china.
The competition in basic science is also a competition in the comprehensive national strength of the country. Today, we no longer need to expand our territory, but the frontiers of science still need to be explored. (Lei Feng Network Lei Feng Network Lei Feng Network)