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China Planning Scientific Research
Since 1949 China has attempted, with mixed success, to organize
research and development according to a centralized national plan.
The various plans for scientific development that China has adopted
since 1957 have been broad--listing topics and areas of priority
without going into much detail or attempting to issue targets or
dates to specific research institutes. From the 1950s through the
mid-1980s, the
"iron rice bowl" (see Glossary)
of guaranteed
employment and funding applied to research institutes and
researchers as much as to any other enterprises or state-sector
workers
(see Economic Policies, 1949-80
, ch. 5). No institute ever
had its budget cut for failing to make a planned discovery, and no
scientist was dismissed for failing to publish or to make progress
in research.
Much of the initiative in research seems to have come from
below, with institutes submitting proposals for projects and
funding to the State Science and Technology Commission. The
commission's plans were drawn up after conferences in which
scientists and directors of institutes suggested work that seemed
feasible and worthwhile. The Beijing headquarters of the commission
had a staff of between 500 and 1,000, not all of whom had
scientific or economic backgrounds. Some of their energies were
devoted to communication and coordination with other elements of
the central administration, such as the State Planning Commission
and the State Economic Commission. The core of the responsibility
and power of the State Science and Technology Commission was in its
allocation of funds for research and approval of projects. It
possessed neither the manpower nor the expertise to monitor the
work of the several thousand research institutes it oversaw, and of
necessity it concentrated on major projects and relied on the
advice of expert scientists and the regional scientific and
technological commissions, which processed reports and applications
for new projects. Much of its work consisted of "balancing" the
competing requests for limited funds, and its decisions often were
made on grounds other than scientific merit. Although China's
leaders have addressed the rhetoric of centralized planning to
scientific research, research activities have been more
decentralized and more subject to pressures from powerful
ministries and provincial-level governments.
Data as of July 1987
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