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China THE REFORM PROGRAM
Shortcomings of the Science and Technology System
From the perspective of China's leaders, the entire science and
technology system of the late 1980s, with its 8 million personnel
and 10,000 research institutes, represented an expensive,
underutilized and not very productive capital investment.
Dissatisfaction with the system had become pervasive by the early
1980s, and both scientists and political leaders agreed on the
necessity for fundamental reform. The primary complaint of the
leadership was that, despite thirty years of policy statements,
central plans, and political campaigns directed at the attitudes of
scientists and engineers, science still was not serving the needs
of the economy. Reformist political leaders and senior scientists
identified a number of organizational problems that were inherent
in the system adopted from the Soviet Union and that had been
compounded by Chinese work-unit and lifetime job assignment
practices
(see Differentiation;
Common Patterns
, ch. 3).
In an October 1982 speech to the National Science Awards
Conference, Premier Zhao Ziyang identified the following as primary
problems: uneven development and lack of coordination among
scientific fields; lack of communication between research and
production units; duplication of research and facilities; rivalry
among institutes, administrative bodies, and hierarchies; and
maldistribution of personnel, with some units and fields
overstaffed and others very short of skilled personnel. Zhao's
speech drew upon and was followed by extensive discussions of
management and organization by scientists and administrators. These
discussions emphasized the prevalence of departmentalism,
compartmentalism, and fragmentation of efforts. These problems,
when combined with poor management, poorly educated managers,
absence of incentives for good work or of penalties for poor
performance, and absence of direct communication between research
units and productive enterprises, resulted in the failure of the
science and technology establishment to serve production and
economic growth.
In the 1980s research institutes, like all Chinese work units,
responded to an economic system in which supplies were uncertain by
attempting to be as self-sufficient as possible. Exchanges of
information, services, or personnel across the very strictly
defined administrative boundaries were difficult, resulting in
failure to share expensive imported equipment and in widespread
duplication of facilities. The absence of information on work being
done in other research institutes, even in the same city,
frequently led to duplication and repetition of research.
Like all other workers in China, scientists were assigned to
research institutes or universities by government labor bureaus.
Such assignments frequently did not reflect specialized skills or
training. Assignments were meant to be permanent, and it was very
difficult for scientists or engineers to transfer to another work
unit. In many cases, talents or specialized training were wasted.
Institutes that may have had the funds to purchase advanced foreign
equipment often had no way to hire a Chinese chemist or
mathematician. Not only were China's scientists and engineers in
short supply, many were underemployed or misemployed.
Data as of July 1987
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