RAND Corporation has published an illuminating report on China’s scientific strategy and the ways in which the country is building a research advantage with profound implications for both military and economic power. The report is worth reading not only for what it says about the global balance of power, but also for what it reveals about the practical management and direction of scientific progress.
The first point to understand is that scientific research has always been publicly funded. Today, governments provide the overwhelming share of research funding around the world. Before the rise of modern states, that role belonged to monarchs and rulers. Privately funded science has always occupied only a marginal place. When we read that a private investor is financing medical research, it almost always refers to the final stage of development—turning a scientific discovery into a working, commercially viable drug. That stage, however, is preceded by years of basic research into viruses, cells, molecules, or other fundamental subjects, and that work is financed by governments.
In the West, however, there is also a deeply rooted belief that science should remain independent. In practice, this has produced a system centered on grant agencies and universities. While the overall standard is generally respectable, researchers spend the vast majority of their time pursuing highly specialized topics, many of which ultimately prove to be dead ends. No one is truly able to keep track of where all the funding goes, let alone direct it strategically. As a result, American officials have occasionally been surprised to discover that U.S. grants helped finance projects at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, while the United States itself ultimately had no access to the resulting research. Scientists largely determine what will be studied. The government’s role is to secure funding and hope that ministers are not subjected to public criticism for refusing to finance a particular project. Even a small research group can launch a media campaign accusing an “uninformed” prime minister of blocking work of global importance—research that might, for all anyone knows, have led to a breakthrough cure for cancer.
To be sure, this system still produces important discoveries from time to time, and the benefits are substantial enough to justify much of the investment. Yet there is another, potentially more efficient, model. In China, the central government explicitly identifies the country’s priorities, determines what research is needed, allocates funding, defines how projects will be organized, and decides who will have access to the results. The consequence is that in areas designated as national priorities, China often produces far more research and innovation than Europe and the United States combined. RAND Corporation describes in detail the responsibilities of the various agencies involved, but this central principle is the report’s most significant insight.
There is no reason to romanticize the Chinese system. It undoubtedly has its share of confusion, corruption, waste, and occasional theft. Even so, most of its institutions appear to function as intended, and the country continues to advance in the direction its leadership has chosen.
Once again, this is not fundamentally a question of authoritarian government, surveillance, or human rights. It is a question of whether those formally entrusted with governing are actually exercising that responsibility—or whether they have, in practice, abandoned it.