A Future to Expect: International S&T Community Expresses High Hope in Cooperation with Peers in China

BEIJING, Dec. 5, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- 2019 marks the 70^th anniversary of the founding of the People Republic of China. Science and Technology Daily took the chance to interview a group of international leaders in the scientific arena and reviewed China's development history in the area and their personal stories. They also expressed high expectations for future cooperation with China.

Scientific and technological development is driving China's growth momentum

Kazuki Okimura, the principal fellow of JST, spoke highly of the significant improvements of China in his bylined article: "China has built a highly developed transportation network of high-speed railways and highways, whose mileages are ten times than that of Japan today. New airports and ports are springing up everywhere, equipped with the most innovative and smart technologies. China's communications networks and grid system is also among the world's top tier. China is becoming a largest yet most efficient economy in the world's history."

Wang Lin, analyst of Clarivate in Asia-Pacific, sorted out the progress of China's basic scientific research from the perspective of global literature data. "Since the 1980s, China has made remarkable achievements in a large number of disciplines. China ranks first in the world in papers in materials science, second in agricultural sciences, chemistry, computer science, engineering, environment and ecology, geosciences, mathematics, and physics. In 2006, China overtook the UK for the first time in the output of scientific papers, ranking second in the world, just behind the U.S."

However, China's contribution to the global community through scientific papers is only a tip of the iceberg. How does the global science community see China's development and the source of such momentum?

Phil Coates, director of the Polymer Interdisciplinary Research Center at the University of Bradford and professor of the Royal Academy of Engineering, shared his viewpoint in an interview with Science and Technology Daily reporter: that currently, the efforts of supporting scientific research from the Chinese government are there for all to see.

"Chinese governments, from Beijing to local authorities, all attach great importance to and strongly support scientific and technological development, especially basic discipline research," said Ali Mohammad, an Iranian mathematician at Anhui University who agreed with Professor Coates. "When I talk to different mathematicians around the world, including American mathematicians, they are saying, 'If you wish to do research now, go to China.'"

"Highly anticipated" -- the common word academia comment on the future cooperation with China (second subtitle)

Sir Paul Nurse, distinguished British biologist, Nobel Prize laureate, and a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the reporter that science is the common language for the whole human being; international S&T cooperation is not only important to science and technology development but also an essential way to promote friendship between countries.

Vialatte Philippe, the head of the science and technology section of the EU Delegation to China, commented, "China is developing at an unprecedented speed in technology innovation." He expects to see more China-Europe cooperation in S&T innovation under the "Horizon Europe" framework in the future.

"China and France have been highly open and excellent partners in the pharmaceutical industry," said Alain Mérieux, President of Fondation Mérieux. "It is simply wrong for countries to block scientific and technological exchanges for political reasons. France will always play a major role in exchanging with China (in the western community). The two countries will continue to forge win-win cooperation in many key areas, including civil nuclear energy, biology, etc."

"The win-win cooperation between Ukraine and China in science and technology is benefiting the whole world," said Stanislav Prokopchuk, the reporter from the Uryadovy Kuryer. He added, "Ukraine and China have profound cooperation potentials in basic science and applied technology; we are looking with great expectation for a combined effort in building research and innovation center in the future."

Aleksandar Titkov, Head of Science and Education Projects Group at Sputnik News Agency and Radio, commented that the increasing number of jointed projects between higher educational institutions in the two countries would "create more common interests and mutual benefits." Moris Topaz, the renowned Israeli medical expert and recipient of the "China Friendship Award," said, "The medical field is unique in its diversity, which has the great potential for cooperation between Chinese and Israeli counterparts."