On August 27, the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Finance released the statistical bulletin of the 2019 National Science and Technology Investment Investment. Among them, data disclosed: China ’s 2019 research and experimental development (RD) funds exceeded 2 trillion yuan for the first timeRMB, reaching 214.36 billion yuan (approximately 444.7 billion yuan), an increase of 12.5%over 2018.These data show that China is increasing RD's investment and trying to accelerate China's modernization of science and technology to support China's great cause.
There is a keen international comment that this is the science and technology blockade of China to face the United States, intending to control the key core technology in its own hands.What I want to discuss here is that there are all kinds of concerns behind the beautiful number of Chinese RD funds, especially the road of scientific and technological innovation.
According to this newly released notification data, according to the current exchange rate, RD funds invested in China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) in 2019 have exceeded more than 300 billion US dollars.Some people estimate that this amount has reached 55%of the US RD funds, and China's research funds have exceeded the sum of the third (Japan) to sixth (Korea).
These data show that China's RD investment funds are already the world's second world, and it is consistent with the current China's total GDP.However, the proportion of China's RD funds accounts for only 2.23%, which is still quite different from the 2.83%of the United States and 3.26%of Japan in Japan.Even according to the growth rate of recent years, the proportion of China's RD funds in 2020, the proportion of GDP, is difficult to achieve the goal of 2.5%of China's authoritative documents.
In addition to the fact that the proportion of RD funds has not reached the goal, China's basic research funding accounts for only about 6%of the total funding, which is far lower than the general proportion of more than 15%of the general scientific and technological powers such as the United States and Japan.What is even more severe is that the basic research of Chinese scientific researchers is mostly follow -up scientific research, that is, repeated follow -up with scientific research hot topics opened by scientific and technological personnel such as the United States, Japan and Europe.This has led to the gold content of Chinese scientific researchers' papers very unsatisfactory, especially when the number has left Japan and European science and technology developed countries, and even in the current situation of the United States, it is truly founded by Chinese scientific researchers.There are very few studies.Because of this situation, China has even issued documents by the highest leadership institution to quit the number of scientific research evaluation of the number of thesis.
The proportion of funding for basic research in China is still low, especially in the research expenses invested by enterprises, the proportion of funding for basic research is pity.This may make Chinese scientific and technological personnel have to carry out how fast and provincial urgency and scientific research.This is actually a great harm for the basic research of quality rather than quantity.
Judging from this statistics, although Chinese industrial enterprises are already the main body of RD funds in China, such as over 76%of RD funds in China, the proportion of funds used for basic research is only 0.36%.Such an amazing basic research funding proportion can be explained that most Chinese industrial enterprises have only carried out urgent work -related pure technology development.
Although it may also overcome some urgent core technologies, such as 5G communications and other technologies, Chinese industrial enterprises obviously generally have far -care, such as the core technology of aviation engines, and advanced semiconductor chip manufacturing technology, etc.Both are behind the world's advanced technology.
The reason is caused by poor quality and backwardness of the basic and application basic research of Chinese companies and even the entire China.Even if Chinese industrial enterprises have low investment intensity in RD funds, such as compared with revenue, they are still low.According to statistics released by the European Union, in 2019, among the total R & D investment of more than 800 billion euros, companies from China accounted for only 11.7%, far lower than the United States of 38.0%.
EU data also shows that although the output value of Chinese companies is three times that of Japanese companies, its RD funds are only 88%of Japanese companies.The latest list of US wealth magazines shows that the number of Fortune 500 in the world has surpassed the United States, but from the perspective of R & D investment, only China Huawei and Alibaba, while the US companies have 15 companies, while there are 15 US companies., Even six in Germany.It is very clear that the gap between Chinese enterprises is quite large compared with the US companies.The total amount of R & D investment in China must also increase significantly, especially to increase the proportion of basic research funds in order to benefit long.
Among Chinese companies, Huawei Technology is already the iconic enterprise (Xinhua News Agency) of China High -tech (Xinhua News Agency), and it is also the most powerful Chinese high -tech company in the United States.Huawei is also a benchmark enterprise in RD investment.For example, according to the above -mentioned data from the Chinese Bureau of Statistics, Huawei's R & D expenditure in 2019 is as high as 131.7 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 14%of its revenue, accounting for 6%of China's total R & D expenditure.
Even so, in the face of the United States' strong suppression and even blocked, Huawei's founder and current president Ren Zhengfei fully realized that basic scientific research is the same as Huawei's life and death.Recently, Ren Zhengfei led several key figures in charge of the basic scientific research of Huawei and visited several major Chinese universities in Shanghai and Nanjing.Judging from the interviews disclosed, Huawei used to rely on global platforms to focus on attacking the same city wall in the same city wall for more than ten years, and achieved a little success.
Huawei's theoretical base was selected in the United States in the past. It has increased investment in Britain and Europe more than ten years ago, and later increased investment in Japan and Russia.After the United States included Huawei into the entity list, Huawei has shifted investment in the United States to Russia.Ren Zhengfei also hopes that ten or twenty years later, Chinese universities can bear the burden of catching up with the theoretical center of the World.
Judging from Ren Zhengfei's speech, the level of China's basic research has obviously lagging behind the United States, Britain, Japan, France, Germany and other scientific and technological powers, and even lag behind Russia, which has fallen from the peak decline.This must be said to be the most proud of Huawei leaders of the Chinese people, a sober worry about the status of basic scientific research in China.To be honest, China is not a small gap to be the most powerful country such as the United States.
Although this is the current situation of China's basic scientific research, Ren Zhengfei has high hopes for China's education and future.He said that China has the spirit of cultivation of Confucian culture for thousands of years. Now the biggest expectation of young Chinese mothers is to educate children, want children to learn, and want children to study hard.This forms an excellent foundation for a nation. China is hopeful, and China can have a greater work.
Another major concern for China to become a strong country with scientific and technological innovation is that the local administrative region's investment in scientific research is extremely unbalanced.The scientific research investment in the local administrative region is mainly concentrated in economic developed areas such as Guangdong, Jiangsu, Beijing, Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Shandong.Among them, the investment intensity of RD funds for 20 local provincial administrative regions reached less than 2%, and 2%is the intensity level of R & D investment in general innovative countries.If Huawei is listed as a provincial economy, its R & D expenditure can rank seventh in Mainland China, higher than the 25 provincial administrative regions in the Mainland.This also shows that the road to Chinese scientific and technological innovation is still long -term.
In view of the development of science and technology as a whole, China, which has gradually developed in economy and industry, has the world's first and economic aggregate in the world.Responsibility.
Therefore, China should continue to addBig RD investment intensity and intensity, especially to strengthen investment in basic scientific research, and urgently need to improve the phenomenon of large -scale output in basic scientific research.The United States and other scientific and technological workers such as other countries have made the world's recognized contributions to the world's scientific and technological development.
(The author is a professor of physics at the University of Hong Kong)
