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No.240

 
 
 


CHINA  SCIENCE  AND  TECHNOLOGY
NEWSLETTER
The Ministry of Science and Technology
People's Republic of China



N0.240 November 10,2000
 
IN THIS ISSUE
    * China's Improved R&D System
    * China's First Catalog on High Tech Products
    * Foreign Invested Banking Institutions: a Plus to Domestic Ones 
    * China's Electromagnetic Biochips
    * China's New Priority Basic Studies
    * China's Robofish
    * Shell Biological Degradation Technology

 
SPECIAL    ISSUES
China's Improved R&D System

Madame Zhu Lilan, Chinese Minister of Science and Technology said China has now developed a relatively complete scientific research and technological development system with its general S&T development level ranking the first among developing nations.She added that thanks to the implementation of series of major S&T programs such as major basic studies, National 863 Program, Solutions to Major S&T difficulties, National Torch Program, Sparkle Program and S&T Findings Diffusion, and the construction of major national scientific projects, the development of national key laboratories, the construction of national engineering (technology) research center and national key industrial labs, China's S&T undertakings have basically formed astrategic pattern serving for three major sectors: the major battlefield of economic construction, high tech development and associated industries and basic studies. The nation's R&D budget went up from Rmb 34.91 billion in 1995 to Rmb 67.89 billion in 1999, secured an increased proportion in the GDP from 0.6% to 0.83%; China's S&T papers collected by international renowned archiving institutions soared up from 26,000 in number in 1995 to 45,000 in 1999 and patent rightsgranted from 45,000 in 1995 to nearly 100,000 in 1999; the export volume of high tech products ascended from USD 10 billion in 1995 to USD 247 billion in 1999; the transaction volume of the nation's technical market rose from Rmb 2683 billion in 1995 to Rmb 5234 billion in 1999; and the aggregate revenues from technology,manufacturing and trade in 53 national high tech parks went up from Rmb 152.9 billion in 1995 to Rmb 677.48 billion in 1999.

Major achievements in China's S&T development have found expressions in the following: Enterprises have gradually become the mainstream of S&T development. Recent years have witnessed enhanced efforts on the technological progress of state owned enterprises. During the 9th Five-Year Plan period, 120 major S&T projects werekicked off at large and medium state enterprises in different sectors such as energy, transportation, electronic information, machinery, metallurgy, petrochemical and pharmaceuticals with an investment totaling Rmb 2 billion, landed break throughs in many key technologies with remarkable improvement of the technological level and market competitiveness of these large and medium state enterprises.

The socalled western development campaign has stimulated the S&T development in the middle and west sections of China. Under the unified coordination of the State Council on the west development, Ministry of Science and Technology and Chinese Academy of Sciences have launched dedicated west development projects one after the other and enhanced their support to the S&T development in the said regions in the spirit of science and education leading the way for the west development.

"Rejuvenating the trade with science and technology" has promoted the export of high tech products. To check up the declining trend of China's export sector, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Economy and Trade and Ministry of Science and Technology jointly organized the implementation of "Action Plan for Rejuvenating the Trade with Science and Technology", which has made China's high tech export grow faster with an output volume reaching USD 24.7 billion last year.

The construction of S&T brokerage services has been strengthened. In the direction of "networking process for organization with socialized functions and industrialized services", a number of S&T institutions were assisted to be transferred into S&T brokerage agencies running on market mechanism. 100 and more pioneering service centers were established at national high tech industrial development zones, realized the incubation of 4,100 S&T enterprises and spin-off 4,000 S&T findings and harvested aggregate revenues of Rmb 6 billion.

S&T related legislation has been further improved. To promote the smooth enforcement of Law on Science and Technology Advances, the state has published 20 and more by-laws and regulations such as "Decisions on Further Strengthening the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights" and "By-law on Promoting the Transfer of S&T Findings". In the meanwhile, the Regulations on National Science and Technology Award was revised and Scheme on S&T Awarding System Reform proposed.

Public S&T awareness has been further enhanced. In recent years, the state authorities have greatly enhanced public S&T awareness through strengthening the diffusion of popular sciences and education on S&T laws. Ministry of Science and Technology published together with other governmental agencies "Outlines for National Popular Science Activities, 2000-2005", which renders a powerful guidance for strengthening popular scientific activities, fully taking advantage of the role of science and technology in the campaign against pseudo science and Falundafa.

China's First Catalog on High Tech Products

Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Finance and State Taxation Administration have not long ago jointly published the Catalog on China's High tech Products which covers 2056 brand name products in 11 fields such as carrier rockets, multimedia software, dedicated integrated circuits and nanometer materials.

It is reported that being China's first list giving relatively systematic and complete coverage of technical products over different fields with detailed technical specifications and definitions, the catalog has covered 11 technical fields including electronic information, software, aeronautics and space, photo-machin ery-electronic integration, biology, pharmaceutical and medical instruments, new materials, new energy and efficient energy, environmental protection, earth-space-sea, nuclear applications and agriculture. The Catalog has for the first time included the sector of agricultural technologies so as to reflect high tech products needed by farming activities, which provided an evidence for defining high tech products in the agricultural sector; to meet the special needs of software, software products are dealt with as an independent technical field. It is worth mentioning that the products in the Catalog are of strong feasibility. The division of three different levels for the products listed in the catalog according to their technical qualifications is helpful for the formulation of relevant policies.

The compilation and publication of this catalog have served the purpose of accelerating the development of high tech industries, encouraging the production of major high tech products, guiding the investment of social resources and improving the overall market competitiveness of China's high tech industries. Foreign Invested Banking Institutions: a Plus to Domestic Ones Along with the continuous opening up of China's banking industry, the foreign funded banking institutions have become an important force in China's banking system. As disclosed by authorities concerned, by the end of 1999, foreign funded banking institutions have dotted 23 cities and Hainan Provinces with the number of operating agencies reaching 182 with an asset totaled USD 31. 8 billion, 1.53% of China's total domestic banking assets.

The asian finantial turmoil in 1997 has not slowed down China's pace of opening up to the outside world. On August 1998, authorized business transactions in Rmb at foreign funded banks have extended from Shanghai to Shenzhen.

On march 1999, foreign funded banks were allowed to open their branches in all the capital cities in the country. In 2000, seven more foreign funded banks were shown green light for their transactions in Rmb, which has made the total number of foreign funded banks doing businesses in Rmb reach 25. At the end of 1999, the total Rmb assets of those banks reached Rmb 11.24 billion, loan volume Rmb 6.7 billion and deposits Rmb 5.4 billion.

The insurance market has also witnessed the accelerated pace for opening. At the end of 1999, there were 15 foreign funded insurance companies and two foreign funded insurance brokerage firms in the country, The cities that have opened up for foreign insurance are also extended from Shanghai to Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
China's Electromagnetic Biochips

 
Chinese scientists have recently developed positive biochips through inventive electromagnetic methods, the first of its kind in the word, which has made China reach the leading position in biochip making.

Dr. Cheng Jing who had worked out the world first compressed chip lab has under the strong support of Tsinghua University established a research and development center. Th Center has successfully turned out electromagnetic biochips of independent intellectual property rights in a time less than one year after the debuts of passive biochips and electric filed active biochips manufactured by other countries. Of the technologies invented for the making, the electromagnetic matrix technology and electric spinning testing technology are the first of their kinds in the world. The said inventive chips are able to marry the effects of both electric field and magnetic field and biochemical reactions can be triggered to any point on the chip through computer based control system, which elevates the biochip based studies of nuclear acid hybrid process to a new stage and makes China's research and manufacturing of biochips possess partial intellectual properties, laying a firm foundation for the associated industrialization.

The research team headed by Dr. Cheng Jing have recently produced a variety of active biochips subjected to multiple forces operation and electric spinning, the first of their kinds in the world. In the meanwhile, they have worked out mechanical hands and fluorescent joint focus testing system which makes the further development of other application biochips possible. Up to date, Chinese scientists have
completed the application for 10 patent rights. It is reported that by taking advantage of venture capital funds both from home and abroad, they have respectively established the companies dedicated to developing biochip products for diseases diagnosis and high flux medicine screening.

China's New Priority Basic Studies

The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology has recently identified 22 projects in the National Plan for Basic Research and Development-2000. Of the selected projects, 14 are relating to agriculture, energy, information, resources and environment, population and health, and materials and 8 relating to basic scientific studies. The basic study projects defined include basic studies on agricultural animal genetic breeding and cloning molecular biology, disasters making mechanism of major crop diseases and control, photoelectric integration supporting high
speed and large volume information network system, new elements and techniques for system chip making, biodiversity variations of Yangtze River Basin and regional ecological security and the attacks and prevention of cardiovascular diseases.

The major basic studies to be launched this year also include space based observation and studies of high energy radiation of celestial bodies, molecular engineering for new materials making, pastures deterioration and desertification control and prevention, and origin, destruction and restoration of living creatures in major historical times.

Ministry of Science and Technology announced earlier this year that China will encourage the involvement of overseas research institutions and qualified scientists in some civil sections of major national basic studies. At the end of 1998, the Ministry said that China would invest Rmb 2.5 billion in major national basic studies in a timeframe of five years.

China's Major Breakthrough in Angle Measuring Tools

The first Chinese made electric level rule was recently put into official production at Hunan based Huaxingyu Sensing Technologies Co. Ltd.,. It is briefed that the electric level rule applied with modular potential dip sensing technology, a result derived from National 863 Program is composed of two major parts: modular potential dip sensor and carrier case. The said instrument is able for the first time in the country to raise the measuring accuracy to 001-0001, suitable for accurate measuring of different angles including relative ones. The development has broken the technical monopoly imposed by foreign manufactures on China with its price only one seventh of that of the imported products from US or Europe.

The modular potential dip sensor was developed in line with the modular potential measuring principle proposed by Dr. Gao Guowei of Beijing Guoke Sensor Research and Development Center. With the full independent intellectual property right, the small scale production of the said products have demonstrated that it can be used to measure the angles in the fields of missile, tank, aircraft, medical instruments and construction, effectively improving the automation level of both defense and civil industries.

China's Robofish

A 0.8-meter-long Robotfish developed by the Institute of Robots of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Space realized its movement with the help of waves rather than propellers.

Its body is a plane structure with six joints (six sections) including the head and tail. The head is made of toughened glass and the body shaped in that of natural sharks. The robotfish is powered by batteries with control and reception gears located in the head. Six serving motors swing back and forth at the tail, playing the role of propellers. As briefed by Liang Jianhong, the designer and chief investigator of the project, the robotfish weighs 800 grams with a maximum swimming speed in water at 0.6 meter per second and an energy consumption efficiency 70%-90%. Its movement is guided by a computer based remote controlling device. At present, the research team are working hard on the intelligent function for the robot so as to allow more than one robotfish to swim together in a self-control and coordinating manner. The said robot fish will find extensive applications both in military and civil sectors such as marine resources prospecting, military operation and maintaining offshore oil drilling facilities.

Shell Biological Degradation Technology

Studies on the techniques manufacturing oligoglucosamine through shell biological degradation, a project under the Solutions to Major S&T Issues sponsored by Ministry of Science and Technology and undertaken by the Institute of Chemical Compounds of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have recently passed technological checks organized by CAS in Dalian. The Institute has studied the biological degradation based preparation process of oligoglucosamine with marine shells as the raw materials. They screened out 6036 enzyme as the degradation agent. Through observing the role-playing elements of degradation reaction, they have developed
for the first time the new idea of preparing oligoglucosamine by taking advantage of reaction separation and coupling techniques, introducing nanometer filter film in the concentration and purification process of oligoglucosamine making. Tests have shown that oligoglucosamine is able to depress tumors and adjust immunesystem. It is reported that the Institute has also turned out two healthy by-products- Aoliqi capsules and oligoglucosamine biological pesticide.

China's Fringing Sea Studies

The socalled fringing sea is defined as the marine areas of a great depth close to the rims of the continent. China's fringing marine areas include South China sea and East China Sea. It is reported that Chinese scientists are planning to in a time frame of five years work on a number of major scientific issues relating to China's fringing marine areas such as the rocky tectonics and associated dynamics, the tectonic evolution of both east and south China seas and its impact, and the relationship between the evolution of China's fringing marine areas and the formation of major marine resources.

Scientists expressed that the in-depth studies and understanding of China's fringing marine areas and their floor resources will constitute an important basis and evidence for protecting China's marine rights. The drilling of major marine resources such as petroleum and gas hydrate has mainstreamed China's secondary marine industry. It is disclosed that the study of China's fringing marine areas have been listed in National 973 Program serving for major basic studies.

China's New Protein Powder

Kangside protein powder developed by Shenzhen based Kangside Protein Engineering Co. Ltd., has made its debut in Chinese market. It is reported that with soy beans and milk as major raw materials, the product is a new kind of nutritional agent extracted through modern bioengineering technologies. As shown by the scientific experiment, the new product has registered a protein content as high as 86% with the composition of 18 amino acids produced close to that of human bodies, creating a bright perspective for easy absorption. The product mainly contains soybean protein and lactalbumin, recorded almost no cholesterol with fat content as low as 4%. It is good nutritional supplement for the patients suffering from obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and tumors.


       Comments or inquiries on editorial matters or Newsletter content should be directed to:Mr. Dong Jianlong, Department of International Cooperation, MOST 15B, Fuxing Road Beijing 100862, PR China  Tel: (8610)68512650 Fax: (8610) 68512594, or Mr. Wang Jianping, Editor,NEWSLETTER, 15 Fuxing Road Beijing 100038, PR China, Tel:(8610) 68515544 Ext. 2580

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