Susan Greenhalgh | Sci/Tech China
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Sci/Tech China

Sci/Tech China

For over a century, China’s leaders have heralded modern science and technology as all-purpose remedies that can save the nation from backwardness and propel it into the ranks of global powers. Today China aspires to be a great scientific and technological power by mid-century. As President Xi Jinping pours vast sums into big-science and high-tech projects aimed at spreading robotics, networking, and artificial intelligence among existing industrial sectors, around the world China is increasingly seen as a formidable scientific and technological force.

 

The story of China as a rapidly rising sci/tech power is based on growing numbers – of researchers, articles, investment dollars, and so on. Left out is how science is actually made in this one-party state. The story also emphasizes cutting-edge fields, ignoring the everyday sciences of health and the environment that are needed to address the damage done by decades of pursuing economic growth at any cost. Can modern science and technology save China from these threats?

 

 

China’s Plan to Become a Tech Superpower

Finding out More

Based on a workshop held at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Can Science and Technology Save China? shines light on the concrete innovations being developed to address some of the gravest problems of human and ecological health facing China today. Eight anthropologists take an in-depth look at the dynamics of “governing through science” – how sciences and technologies are being made, how they are interfacing with society, and with what effects.

 

A striking finding is that negotiations with party and state officials are routine parts of creating knowledge and innovations. Although public faith in science and technology has remained strong, the party’s promises to save and lift up the country with science have not yet been realized. Policies were ineffective or even harmful; treatments were rife with ethical and efficacy problems; and the promised “good life” seemed forever postponed. Science and technology turned out to be critically important in the making of Chinese society, but not in the ways party leaders and outside observers had hoped.

Interviews

Table of Contents, Introduction

Table of Contents
Introduction