Scientific and Technological Innovation Is an
Inevitable Way to Sustainable Development
Speech by H.E. Ambassador Shen Zhifei at Ruder Boskovic Institute
23rd November, 2011
Dear Doctor Danica Ramljak, Director General of the Institute,
Friends,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It gives me much pleasure to come here and discuss with you
China’s innovation policies, achievements and challenges as well as
China-EU cooperation. The project entitled Embassy Series
sponsored by Ruder Boskovic Institute provides an excellent
platform for the Croatian experts and the public to learn more about
other countries’ scientific and technological innovation and
development and draw upon their experience and lessons to promote
Croatia’s scientific and technological innovation. It also creates
opportunities for us to present our own country’s innovation
development and forge closer ties and cooperation in various fields
between our two countries.
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I have taken the mandate of Chinese ambassador to Croatia for over
a year by now, every time I present Croatia to my Chinese friends,
without exceptions, I would mention Croatia’s beautiful scenery and
the kind and diligent people. But more importantly, I would focus on
Croatia’s contribution to the human civilization. For example, I
would present Croatia’s great scientist Nikola Tesla and the great
inventor Slavoljub Penkala. They are not only the pride of Croatia
but also the impetus of mankind’s development. As we are enjoying
a convenient and comfortable life, we cannot forget these people’s
great innovation achievements; neither can we neglect the fact that
scientific and technological innovation is the eternal driving force of
mankind’s development.
China is an ancient Oriental country with over 5000 years
civilization. Its 5000 years history is also a history of scientific and
technological
innovation.
The
ancient
China’s
four
great
inventions— papermaking, printing, the compass and gunpowder,
had greatly contributed to the development of human civilization. In
late 13th century, Croatia’s great traveler Marco Polo arrived in
China and stayed there for 17 years. In his eyes, China was a strong
empire with highly developed science and technologies and
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prosperous economy. He opened the door for exchanges between
China and the West.
Today’s world and China are totally different from the time when
Marco Polo lived. As globalization deepens, the exchange and
cooperation between countries increases and the idea of peace and
development is widely accepted by the public. To learn more about
China’s scientific and technological innovation and its development
will help you to have a better picture of the world’s scientific and
technological innovation and its development with an European
perspective and see the direction of the world’s innovation
development. Next, I will give my views on China’s achievements
and challenges, China’s scientific and technological innovation
policies and targets, China-EU and China-Croatia cooperation.
I. Achievements of China’s economy, science and technology and
their challenges
China is the world’s largest developing country and the second
largest economy. Since China carried out the reform and opening-up
policies 30 years ago, China’s economy has been growing fast with
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an annual average growth rate of 10% and its GDP reaching 6
trillion US dollars in 2010. Its comprehensive national strength is
rising continuously and people’s living standards are improving
rapidly. China accelerates industrial restructuring and innovation. It
carries out knowledge-based innovation projects and technological
innovation projects and has made breakthroughs in urgently needed
frontier technologies, core technologies and key equipment
technologies. A large number of research results have been applied
in industrial production. In the past 5 years, China’s three main
industries maintained speedy growth. The primary industry
maintained an annual average growth rate of 4.5%, the secondary
industry 12.1% and the proportion of the tertiary industry rose from
40.5% to 43%, which resulted in better restructuring of investment
industries. By the end of 2010, China’s high-speed railway in
operation reached 6552 kilometers, the longest in the world with
3676 kilometers running at 250 to 350 km/h and 2876 kilometers at
200 to 250 km/h. Right now, 10,000 kilometers of high-speed
railway is currently under construction. In 2006, the 1000 kilometers
long railway connecting China’s Qinghai Province and Tibet started
running with its highest altitude at 5000 meters. The railway project
overcame three world class construction difficulties, that is, frozen
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earth, low oxygen and fragile ecological environment and finally
made a miracle in the world’s railway construction work on the
plateau. In manned space flight, China’s Shenzhou VII spaceship
made historic success in September 2008. Chinese astronauts for the
first time conducted extravehicular activities and scientific
experiments and made China the third country in the world to
independently master key extravehicular technologies. On 29th
September, 2011, China successfully launched its first target orbiter
Tiangong 1 space module. On 1st November, China’s Shenzhou VIII
spaceship was launched and docked with Tiangong 1 space module
two days later. On 19th November, Shenzhou VIII returned to Earth.
This marks that China has made a great step forward in space
docking technologies. In September 2009, the prototype of China’s
self-developed commercial jet C919, a passenger jet designed for
short and medium distance trips and competing with Boeing's 737
and Airbus's A320, was unveiled in Asia International Aviation
Exhibition. It can take a maximum of 150 passengers and is
scheduled to be put into the market in 2016. As of October 2011, it
has received orders of 165 units from 8 Chinese and foreign clients,
including America’s GE Capital Aviation Services. In July 2011,
China’s self-developed manned deep-sea submarine Jiaolong dived
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to 5188 meters below the sea. Following America, France, Russia
and Japan, China became the fifth member of the deep-sea club and
the deep- sea submarine enables Chinese oceanic scientific research
teams to conduct more precise exploration of deep-sea resources.
Since 2003, China’s installed capacity of wind driving power
maintained an annual average growth rate of 70% and reached 42
million kilowatts, the biggest in the world. Since 2004, China’s
photovoltaic industry developed rapidly. In 2010, the total output of
solar batteries reached 8000 megawatts, taking up half of the global
output. China’s latest supercomputer Tianhe 1A was unveiled in the
end of 2010 and its computing speed was recognized as the fastest in
the world, 1.425 times faster than the previously fastest
supercomputer. From 1998 to 2008, China’s scientific researchers
published over 112 thousand copies of academic essays, 4 times
more than the previous 20 thousand copies. Right now the number of
published academic essays in China is the second largest in the
world, just behind America. In 2010, China invested more than 100
billion US dollars in scientific research, which took up 1.76% of its
GDP, just behind the US and Japan.
As we see China’s remarkable economic and scientific achievements,
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we are well aware that China, with a huge population, still faces lots
of structural and mechanism problems. Its development still has
imbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable problems. Its character
as a developing country will remain over a long term. China’s effort
to build an innovative nation still faces various challenges.
First, China has a high reliance on foreign technologies. More than
50% of its technologies are imported while America and Japan only
import 5%. Its key technologies also much depend on import. In
equipment investment, which takes up 40% of fixed assets
investment, 60% of the equipment is imported. Almost all of
high-tech key equipment has to be imported.
Second,
self-developed
products
lack
recognition.
Many
self-developed products and technologies don’t have good sales
results due to low recognition. In addition, they also lack support of
the national policies, which has become a major obstacle in
implementing innovative nation strategies.
Third, high-level manpower is in need. Although China has 60
million scientific researchers, it still needs more high-level
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manpower. Few of its strategic scientists are at the leading level of
the world and can compete in global competition.
Last, it is difficult for the domestic enterprises to master key
technologies. Most of the enterprises focus on importing new
technologies while paying little attention on absorbing the
technologies and creating their own ones. China still needs a lot of
Nobel Prize winners and Steve Jobs.
China’s innovation capabilities are still weak and its products are
low value-added. China is a big power in manufacturing but stands
in the end of international industrial chain. China’s enterprises are
mainly labor intensive. They are still in the phase of producing low
end and low profit products. In export, less than 20% of enterprises
and 10% of products have its own intellectual property right. 90% of
China’s exported commodities are made through OEM. The majority
of profits are taken by transnational companies. 20% of cell phone
sales price, 30% of computer sales price and 40% of digital control
machine sales price are paid to foreign IPR owners. The assembly
lines of America’s Apple company are in China. If you happen to
have an iphone, you probably can find the words Assembled in
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China on its back, but surely you will also see the words Designed
by Apple in California. Some economist says, China has to sell 800
million shirts to buy one Airbus A380 plane. The energy
consumption per GDP unit of China is 4 to 6 times of that of the
world. China consumes 46% of the global steel, 16% of the global
energy and 52% of the global cement while it just creates 9% of the
global GDP.
China’s economic growth overly relies on energy consumption,
which causes heavy pollution. Its economic structure is imbalanced,
the foundation of the agricultural industry is weak and high-tech and
modern service industries are underdeveloped. China’s innovation
capabilities are still weak, the core competitiveness of its enterprises
is not strong enough and economic benefits need to be increased.
China still faces a lot of problems and challenges in increasing
employment, keeping a fair and reasonable distribution system,
providing health security and ensuring national security. Viewed
with a global perspective, China will lag behind the developed
countries in economic development, science and technology in a
considerably long time.
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In the face of the above mentioned problems and challenges for
sustainable development, in order to seize opportunities and meet
challenges, China closely depends on scientific development and
innovation
to
boost
productive
forces
and
enhance
the
comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development of the
economy and society. The Chinese communist party has put forward
the scientific outlook on development. Its purpose is to solve the
imbalanced and uncoordinated problems in the nation’s development
and take a sustainable development path with Chinese characteristics.
To realize this goal, scientific and technological innovation is an
inevitable way.
II. Policies and short-term goals of China’s scientific and
technological innovation
Science and technology are the primary productive forces. They also
represent the advanced productive forces. In the 21st century, the
revolution of new science and technology is growing fast and
brewing up new significant breakthroughs, which will greatly affect
the economic and social development. Information science and
technology are booming and remain as the leading impetus of
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continuous
economic
growth.
Life
science
and
biological
technologies are developing fast, which will play a key role in
improving
people’s
living
standards.
Energy
science
and
technologies are being rediscovered, which will create new ways to
solve the world’s energy and environmental problems. Nano
technology and engineering are making continuous breakthroughs,
which will bring about deep technological revolution. The
breakthrough of basic research presents a new prospect of
technological and economic development. The speed of putting
scientific and technological achievements into application is
accelerating, which creates opportunities for the developing
countries to catch up with and overtake the developed countries.
China must stay in the forefront of the times and meet the
opportunities and challenges created by the new revolution of
science and technology with a global perspective. Looking at the
whole world, lots of countries have made scientific and
technological innovation their national strategies. They consider
investment in science and technology as strategic investment and
have greatly increased investment in science and technology. They
also in advance plan and develop frontier technologies and strategic
industries, implement significant plans of science and technology
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and make every effort to strengthen the nation’s innovation
capabilities and international competitiveness. In the face of new
international circumstances, China must improve its sense of
responsibility and urgency and hold on to the development of
science and technology as the main driving force of its economic and
social development. China must improve its indigenous innovation
capabilities to restructure its economy, transform its growth patterns
and strengthen its national competitiveness and consider building up
an innovative nation as a strategic choice to meet future challenges.
The first 20 years of this century is an important period of strategic
opportunities for both China’s economic and social development and
science and technology development. The Chinese government had
issued the Guidelines on National Medium- and Long-term Program
for Science and Technology Development (2006-2020) and the 12th
Five Year Plan for the Development of Science and Innovation
(2010-2015). Up to 2020, the guidelines for China’s science and
technology tasks can be summarized with four points, that is,
indigenous innovation, making key point breakthroughs, maintaining
development and guiding the future development. China will create
better conditions, cultivate talents in science and technology and
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make efforts to create an environment where people of talent come
out in large numbers, every person can fully perform his talent and
every person can find his own proper place. China will work to build
a large scale and structurally reasonable team of talent, which
conforms to the development of economic and social development
and national defense construction and ensure sufficient manpower
for the development of the country’s science and technology. The
country will attach great importance to increasing indigenous
innovation capabilities, master a series of key technologies in
important areas, own a wide range of self intellectual property rights
and build up a large number of competitive companies in the world.
By 2020, the overall goals of China’s scientific and technological
development are as follows: improving remarkably indigenous
innovation
capabilities,
increasing
significantly
science
and
technology’s role in promoting economic and social development to
provide strong support for building up a moderately prosperous
society, strengthening the comprehensive capabilities of basic
research and frontier technologies, making a large number of
important scientific and technological achievements recognized by
the world, making the country an innovative country and laying a
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solid foundation for the nation to become a strong global power in
science and technology by the middle of this century. The country
also sets a few specific goals in different areas of science and
technology. First, manufacturing and information industries are
expected to master a number of core technologies that have a bearing
on the country's national competitiveness, with its technological
level of manufacturing and information sectors reaching world class.
Second, agricultural science and technology sector as a whole
becomes one of the most advanced in the world, so as to promote the
comprehensive productive capabilities of agriculture and ensure food
safety for the country efficiently. Third, there will be breakthroughs
in energy exploration, energy-saving technology and clean energy
technology, which may promote the structural optimization of energy,
with energy consumption of major industrial products reaching or
approaching world level. Fourth, major industries and key cities will
set up a technological development mode of recycled economy,
providing scientific and technological support to the building of a
resource-efficient
and
environment-friendly
society.
Fifth,
remarkable improvement will be achieved in the prevention and
control of major diseases and epidemics, with serious diseases like
AIDS and hepatitis well under control, while there will be
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breakthroughs in the development and manufacturing of new
pharmacy and medical equipment and apparatus, with sufficient
technological
capabilities
for
industrialization.
Sixth,
the
development of defense technology will be able to meet the
fundamental demands of self-reliant research and development of
modern weapons and informationization of the Army, to provide
assurance for the safeguarding of national security. Seventh, a large
number of world-class scientists and research teams will emerge in
the country, who will be able to make a number of innovative
achievements of great importance in the mainstream academic
research, when China reaches world level in edge-cutting
technologies in the fields of information, biology, materials and
space. Last, there will emerge a couple of world-class research
institutions and universities as well as internationally-competitive
research and development centers owned by companies, which will
form a relatively complete innovation system with China's own
characteristics. By 2020, China's entire investment in research and
development is expected to top 2.5 percent of the GDP, while
progress of science and technology will contribute 60 percent and
above to the country's development. Meanwhile, the country's
reliance on foreign technology will decline to 30 percent and below.
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The number of patents granted to Chinese nationals and the
introduction of their academic essays are expected to rank among the
first five in the world.
It can be predicted that China’s economy and society, with the
support of scientific and technological innovation and sufficient
manpower, will realize comprehensive, sustainable and coordinated
development in the future and take a path of sound and healthy
development. It will make more contributions to mankind’s progress
and the global development and prosperity.
III. There is a great potential for China-EU and China- Croatia
cooperation
Since 1975, Sino-European relations have undergone rapid
development from Constructive Partnership to Comprehensive
Partnership and further to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
China and Europe rely on each other strategically, inter-complement
each other economically on a win-win basis. Both parties must
cooperate with each other on a large number of global issues. A
sound and stable relationship between China and Europe meets both
parties' expectations and is in the interest of each other. The EU is
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the largest source of China’s technologies. In 1998, the two parties
signed a protocol on scientific and technological cooperation.
According to statistics of China’s Ministry of Commerce, the EU
took up 30% of China’s imported technologies in 2009. Nowadays,
European products are taking a bigger proportion in the Chinese
market. European brand cars can be seen anywhere in the streets of
China. Through setting up joint ventures, Europe has also mobilized
and accelerated the progress of China’s automobile industry. In
addition, Europe’s high-tech products have also entered China like
Airbus planes, Siemens magnetic suspension trains. Croatia's Koncar
also successfully established a joint venture with China's Shenyang
TBEA company to manufacture electric transformers. Likewise
Chinese products have also entered the European market in large
amounts. Bilateral trade reached a record high of 400 billion US
dollars last year with European export to China up 37.2%. The
Eurepean Union remains China's No.1 trade partner and the biggest
buyer of Chinese commodities as well as the largest source of
China's imports. As EU's second largest trade partner, China's
growing enormous market provides huge business opportunities for
Eurepean enterprises. Especially in the context of post crisis period,
China and Europe should further expand and upgrade their
cooperation in such fields as new energies, energy saving and
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environmentally friendly technology and low carbon economy. 2011
is the first year of China’s 12th Five Year Development Plan and the
sixth year of China’s National Medium- and Long-term Program for
Science and Technology Development (2006-2020). It is also the
first year of Europe’s 2020 Strategy. China’s 12th Five Year
Development Plan, National Medium- and Long-term Program for
Science and Technology Development (2006-2020) and Europe’s
2020 Strategy are results of in-depth review over their own
economic and social development model or patterns and guidelines
for their future development. The two programs have much in
common in development orientation and create new fields and room
for expansion of China-Europe cooperation.
China and Croatia are traditionally friendly nations. Ever since the
two countries established comprehensive partnership of cooperation
in 2005, China and Croatia have continuously enriched and
deepened bilateral cooperation in various fields. The two countries
always understand and support each other on their key interests.
China understands Croatia's bid to join in the European integration
process and sincerely anticipates Croatia's full EU membership. We
are confident that after Croatia's entry into the EU, the content of
cooperation between our two countries will be enriched and Croatia
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will play an active role within the EU in promoting Sino-European
relations. Our only regret is that our two nations have directly
invested little in each other. Chinese enterprises are quite interested
in investing in Croatia and the Chinese government's going-global
strategy supports Chinese companies to go abroad and seek
cooperation and development. Croatia is a major player in Southeast
Europe and we expect breakthroughs in China-Croatia trade in the
future. Meantime, we hope Croatia can provide facilitation measures
and assistance to Chinese companies investing in Croatia. I have
confidence that along with the recovery process of Croatia's
economy and Croatia's entry in the EU, our bilateral cooperation in
the area of economy and trade will reach a new height.
Ladies and gentlemen,
At the moment, the world economy is in complicated difficulties and
its recovery remains volatile and uncertain. The international
financial market is taking a roller coaster ride and more and more
trade protectionism in various forms is on the rise. Some major
economies are experiencing economic slowdown and some countries
are facing acute sovereign debt problems. Unemployment rate
remains high. As a result, the emerging economies are seriously
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affected, with their export declining and infalationary pressure
climbing. The whole world needs to unify and overcome the current
difficulties. History has proven that scientific and technological
innovation is not only the key to realize mankind's sustainable
development, but also the impetus of mankind's progress. It has
become the whole world's consensus to enhance economic
development with scientific and technological innovation. President
Ivo Josipovic said in a televised address to the public on 2nd
September that Croatia can be a fair society only if it is an active and
innovative society. The G20 summit held in Cannes in early
November put forward a positive signal of maintaining growth and
promoting stability. I would like to quote Chinese president Hu
Jintao's five-point proposals at the summit to conclude my speech,
that is, first, the countries should ensure growth while paying
attention to balance; Second, the G20 nations should strengthen
unity and send a strong signal to the world as there is widespread
panic and acute lack of confidence in the markets; Third, global
economic governance should be improved through reform. Fourth;
the countries should strive for progress through innovation. Fifth; the
G20 countries should help developing economies to grow.
Thank you.
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Now if you have any questions, I am more than happy to take them.
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