1

China’s History of Relying on Western Technology

In the 21st Century, if a particular country fails to be in the lead in science and technology, it will be difficult for it to maintain its economic activities and international standing.

Qian Xuesen  1

Despite early advances in technology, modern China2 has struggled to regain its technical prowess in the midst of political upheavals, outside interventions, civil war, and bad policies. In the late Qing to early Republican era, Chinese leaders began efforts to import technology and send promising students abroad to “learn from the West.”3 Many of these students came back to lead aspects of China’s development and reform, and many in the later waves went on to play critical roles in China’s nuclear, space, and missile programs.4 The concept that best captures the focus of the earlier phase, put forth in 1878 by Zhang Zhidong   in his essay

Quan Xue Pian  , is the principle of ti-yong or “keep

China’s style of learning to maintain societal essence and adopt western learning for practical use.” While much has changed since the late 1800s, this formula of using skills learned from the West to make China strong has colored not only the post-Qing period but survives to this day, as it is a focus of China’s 2006 to 2020 Plan for S&T development and the foundation for much of what this book is about.

Although not stated as such, the founding leaders of the People’s Republic of China did not reject the ti-yong concept. China’s post-1949 development, for example, depended critically on Soviet aid, scholars, and designs. Reforms to its S&T infrastructure during this period reflected Beijing’s closer ties to the Soviet Union and emphasized central funding, a centralized academy, and five-year plans. The subsequent Soviet “betrayal” in the late 1950s and early 1960s substantially shaped the way in which foreign support was to be sought, as many in Beijing blame the Soviets for their setbacks, despite the upheavals brought about by their own disastrous policy choices. None of these upheavals had as profound an impact on China’s development – or lack thereof – as the Cultural Revolution (1966– 1976), which brought science and technology to a halt, with the exception of a few military programs such as nuclear weapons and missiles. This last and most grandiose of Mao’s “struggles” closed the universities and left China in technological shambles to compete with the West at its zenith of development. This “lost decade” as it is called5 is still felt today as China tries to rebuild its university system and import Western-trained talent to recreate its scientific infrastructure.

This chapter provides the historical context for our discussion of China’s technology transfer practices. We will show that while each time period is unique, with its own set of challenges, a common factor throughout has been the importance of foreign technology in China’s strategic vision, implemented in large part by students and scholars, who use the skills, knowledge, and goodwill afforded them while abroad to bring foreign technology “back” and transform China’s universities, companies, and defense industries into direct competitors of the United States.

“Self-strengthening” and reaching out towards the West6

Defeated by a technologically superior West in the Opium Wars (1842, 1860) and, far worse, by a Japan that had learned from these same Western powers (1895), China embarked on a cautious path to engage the West, not to become a full member of the world community but as a way to protect itself from further humiliation.7 This engagement was characterized by a quest to “save” China through science. Because the focus of China’s exam system was on literary and classical texts, there was no venue – and no incentive – in the traditional system for Chinese students to study modern science and technology. Any exposure to science took place at missionary schools set up by foreigners throughout the country which, while lambasted as vanguards of imperialism, played a transformative role in the evolution of Chinese attitudes toward education.8

During this period, the efficacy of the exam system was questioned and its role in holding back the development of modern science debated. The exam system was eventually abolished in 1905. However, while the promotion of “Western” science and educational reform continued, there remained an ingrained belief in Chinese cultural superiority and that the two – science and culture – could be put into separate bins.9 John Fairbank, the great historian of China, perhaps described it best as China’s leaders of the time clinging to the idea that the country could “leap half-way into modernization,” using Western science and technology to support traditional Chinese society.10 The same idea is evidenced in PRC science and technology policy literature even today.

This dualist approach was captured by Zhang Zhidong in the term tĭ-yòng (simplified Chinese:  , traditional Chinese:  ), a concept framed during the reform era at the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912). The term is made up of two Chinese morphemes: tĭ, meaning “essence”, and yòng, meaning “practical use.” It came to describe a method of self-strengthening whereby China would maintain its own style of learning to keep the “essence” of society, while at the same time using Western learning for “practical application” in developing its infrastructure and economy.11 While probably not the original intent, China’s own press today often describes the adoption of foreign systems, technologies, or ideas as being “X with Chinese characteristics”   which retains the core notion of cultural separateness.

Another outcome of the debate was the formation of the Chinese Educational Mission in 1872, which altogether sent 120 students aged 12– 15 to the United States to study.12 They were placed with local families, with some attending prep schools to learn English before attending universities. Their “mission” was to learn Western science and engineering, in the hope that some would attend the US Military Academy at West Point, then return to China and pass on the knowledge and skills they acquired.13 By 1881, changes in both China and the US14 – including the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act – prompted the Qing government to discontinue the program and the students returned home, many without having graduated. By some accounts, the reason for the change of heart was concern that the students were “losing touch with the Chinese culture and becoming completely westernized.”15

Despite the important knowledge they acquired while studying overseas, upon return to China these students were excluded from higher level official positions and their loyalty was questioned.16 Their experience forecast the fate of returnees in more recent times, who complained initially of being shunned by establishment colleagues. Professionalism eventually spoke for itself and many veterans of the mission went on to contribute to China’s development. Their numbers included the first presidents of Qinghua and Tianjin universities, the first Prime Minister of the Republic of China and 17 naval officers. Some 13 of the group served in other diplomatic positions and 14 were chief engineers or managers on the railroads.17

Benefiting from Western support during a period of transition

In terms of our topic, we identify the period from the fall of the Qing Dynasty (1912) through the warlord era (1916–1927), the Republican era (1927–1937), war with Japan (1937–1945), and the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, as a time of transition. While we acknowledge the differences in the periods and their associated upheavals, academic activities during these years consistently reveal the same quest for foreign knowledge and the same drive for access to Western technology.

In 1909, some three decades after the China Educational Mission had ended, a second wave of Chinese students arrived in the US, supported by scholarships established by the Boxer Indemnity Program (Table 1.1).18 America’s Open Door Policy, which sought to prevent rival nations from carving out spheres of exclusive influence in China, had laid the foundation for the project, with Congress authorizing $12 million owed the US for damages during the Boxer Rebellion to fund Chinese education.19 The money was earmarked specifically for study abroad and to establish the Qinghua School (later Qinghua University, a leading technical institution).20 Negotiations over the agreement strangely resemble Sino–US negotiations today, with due concern for sovereignty and fairness, and wording to make it appear that both sides “won.” As one study put it:

In the final agreement, the plan made no reference to remission: the United States did not appear coercive, nor China subjugated.21

A sticking point was the conflicting views over what the project was to accomplish, with the US wanting Chinese students to absorb Christian culture, while China wanted US know-how.22 The debate is characterized by T.K. Chu as follows:

[T]he cultural basis for sending students to America to study was to protect its institutionalized Confucianism. With the technical know-how of building strong battleships and powerful cannons, China could ward off aggressions and hence encroachment on its cultural traditions.

If you substitute “democracy” for “Christianity” one could argue that this debate presaged the current dispute over the importance and usefulness of Chinese students in the United States, where proponents of more robust

S&T collaboration

 

TABLE 1.1 Accomplishments of Students who Participated in the China Educational Mission or Boxer Indemnity Program

expound on how living in the US will make Chinese scholars more democratic and open, and thus supportive of US policies. Similarly, one can argue that today, as in the past, China continues to view Western education pragmatically as a means to acquire what it needs, and still frets about the added baggage of political reform.

China not only benefited from students and scholars studying abroad, but also from foreigners coming to China to help rebuild its moribund university system, so that China was eventually able to train its own students. Although China’s modern universities were established indigenously in the late 1800s – Tianjin in 1895, Shanghai Jiaotong in 1896, Zhejiang in 1897, and Peking (Beijing) in 189830 – interactions with leading international universities helped to build modern curricula. Two such relationships in particular highlight the role of Western and Westerntrained scholars in the development of Chinese universities.

The first is China’s relationship with Columbia University, and with Paul

Monroe in particular, who received an honorary degree from Beijing University in 1913. Monroe contributed to the development of modern curricula in China and worked with several Chinese students – including

Guo Bingwen  , Tao Xingzhi , Chen Heqin  , Jiang Menglin

 , and Zhang Boling  — who became leaders in Chinese education.31 The second is the history of Qinghua University, which was established as mentioned above by the Boxer Indemnity Fund. Qinghua’s (also Tsing Hua) instructors were recruited from the United States and its students were taught both “Chinese traditional culture and western knowledge.”32 The university continues that tradition today as it is on the leading edge of hiring foreign deans and professors, and incorporating Western-inspired changes to its curriculum and programs.33

As is the case today, the United States was not the only foreign destination for Chinese students. Many studied in Europe and returned to make significant contributions to China. Key among them were Beijing University chancellor Cai Yuanpei  , who studied in Germany, several top experts who worked on the nuclear program and had spent time in France, and early leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, such as Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai.

During the period after the Chinese Educational Mission and before the Boxer Indemnity Program had begun, very few Chinese students went to the US, as their preferred destination was Japan. The first such group arrived in Japan in 1896,34 with the number expanding rapidly through the early 1900s. It is estimated that by 1906 Japan was host to almost 12,000 Chinese students.35 Wang Xiaochu of Beijing University parsed the trend into five distinct periods as follows:36

 

This characterization ignores the large number of Taiwanese who not only studied in Japan but were educated under the Japanese system in their native province during Japan’s occupation (1895–1945). Many Chinese scholars believe that the early wave of students who returned to China from Japan had a major influence on China’s military modernization,37 as many studied military subjects there. Notable Chinese leaders who studied in Japan are Sun Yat-sen, Lu Xun, and Zhou Enlai. 

Founding of the PRC — a move toward the USSR

While the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 seemed to entail a dramatic shift in China’s S&T development policies – and in some ways it did – Beijing continued to look abroad for the means to build its technological capabilities. As part of Mao Zedong’s “lean to one side”   policy of moving China closer to the Soviet Union,38 China established a centralized or “Soviet” S&T infrastructure.39 This model placed the center of gravity for research in institutes associated with the country’s Academy of Science40 and de-emphasized research at universities. The idea was to create a pipeline through which developments from the institutes would flow into industry and, subsequently, to the economy or military.41 Applied science was emphasized over basic science, inhibiting what little progress China made during the first half of the century in establishing modern universities.42 From the early 1950s on, a premium was placed on heavy industry – concrete and tangible products – with non-experts awarded leadership positions both at the institutes and the leading universities, which had been the recipients of new ideas in previous decades.

China benefited enormously from the influx of Soviet scientists and engineers who came to set up and run the new institutes and industries, including strategic programs in nuclear weapons.43 As in previous decades, China sent students abroad, but the number sent to the Soviet Union was unprecedented. In all, some 38,000 Chinese went to the Soviet Union for training and study.44 Most were technical workers from priority industries, but there were also students, teachers and scholars. Included are China’s former Presidents Hu Jintao   and Jiang Zemin  , and former Premier Li Peng  .

China’s first Five-year Plan (1953–1957) depended heavily on Soviet aid with some 156 major industrial projects in mining, power generation, and other heavy industries supported.45 These transfers were facilitated by 11,000 Soviet scientific and technical personnel working in China at the height of Sino–Soviet cooperation. The majority were in heavy industries such as steel.46 A Joint Sino–Soviet Commission for Cooperation in Science and Technology was formed that ran from 1954 until 1963 and put together over 100 major scientific projects. China was so dependent on the Soviet Union for its scientific base that a draft of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ 12-year plan for development in 1956 was sent to the Soviet Academy of Sciences for review.

Perhaps the most important area of support was the nuclear weapons program. In September 1956 the Sino–Soviet agreement on aid to the nuclear industry was signed in Moscow as part of the 12-year plan for S&T development.47 The agreement provided technicians, blueprints, training, and support for uranium enrichment facilities and the industrial infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapons program. In addition to Soviet support, the key scientists who worked on the program, namely Qian Sanqiang   and Yang Chengzong  , were both trained in France and used their experience as a force multiplier for the early developments.

Nie Rongzhen  , Director of China’s Science and Technology

Commission and the man who ran the early nuclear weapons program, had studied in Belgium prior to the revolution. Nie credited the Soviets with providing prototypes for other military systems as well, including guided missiles, aircraft, and the technical data to support their production.48

Soviet abandonment and the Cultural Revolution

By the fall of 1960, all Soviet experts and advisors had been recalled from China, taking with them the know-how and technology needed to propel China’s development. The progress made over the first decade of the People’s Republic came to a halt both as a consequence of the Soviet withdrawal and the cumulative indigenous policy disasters that followed. In 1958 Mao launched the “Great Leap Forward”  , a fairy-tale scheme to expedite development by placing more emphasis on “red” than expert.49 Among its outlandish goals was an aspiration to surpass the United Kingdom in steel production in three years. The “experiment” ended two years later, with predictable results — not to mention one of the greatest famines in world history.

Perhaps the one policy that had the worst impact on China’s fledgling S&T programs was “walking on two legs”  50 a reference to Mao’s plan to simultaneously develop both agriculture and industry, which in practice meant deemphasizing everything but heavy industry. A corollary was the idea that anyone could do science. Unqualified workers were encouraged — sometimes under the Russian technicians’ noses — to “improve” Soviet blueprints and prototypes. This had a lasting effect, especially in areas where China lacked returned experts such as heavy aircraft and engines, but less of an impact in those areas where domestic experts had experience, such as missile development and nuclear weapons.51

Mao’s encore was the “Great Cultural Revolution”  , which threw the country into political turmoil, affecting the support and management of key strategic programs. The Cultural Revolution destroyed the nascent infrastructure that had grown, in fits and starts, since 1949.52 Universities were closed or became sites of armed conflict. Experts or anyone with Western experience were “sent down”   to the countryside and a whole generation of Chinese had its educational opportunities taken away or delayed.53 China also recalled its overseas scholars and did not send students abroad again until 1978.

To understand how devastating the Cultural Revolution was to Chinese S&T development, one need only look at the events at Qinghua University. Established through the Boxer Indemnity Fund, by the late 1960s the university had evolved into a successful place of higher learning with many of its faculty having received an overseas education and enrolling only students with the highest credentials. By contrast, after closing entirely during the first part of the Cultural Revolution, Qinghua reopened in 1970 to enroll a class of “worker, peasant, soldier students.”54 The students arrived on campus with little formal education and on the recommendation of their political chain of command.55 Scholarship and academic achievement were waived. Similar follies took place at universities across the country.56

Beijing later claimed that the Soviet pull-out, caused in part by tensions between Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and Mao, led to the cancellation of 34 major contracts and 257 other technical projects. While this “betrayal” undoubtedly contributed to China’s lack of progress, the role of China’s own policies in the breakdown can hardly be discounted.

A work in progress: rebuilding after the Cultural Revolution

Sending out the students to foreign countries was never for China a matter of cultural exchange. The goal is to make China a strong country—a fact which the overseas students must face. Qian Ning57

If importing Western know-how had been a consistent goal before the Cultural Revolution, the devastation wrought by it strengthened the need to acquire technology by any means. The post-revolution period also broke with the non-specialist focus that Mao had championed. That the “red over expert” theme wasn’t working became poignantly apparent in China’s humiliating military defeat by Vietnam in 1979, a watershed event that drove home the desperateness of China’s situation to its new leadership. China had already begun to appreciate that in addition to rebuilding institutions such as research institutes and universities, it also had to rebuild its human capital. This is best characterized by efforts that started in 1978 to restore ranks and titles, re-establish professional societies, and recognize technical achievement.58 Early negotiations with the US science advisor included the first post-Mao requests China made to send students to the

US.59

In 1978, the “Four Modernizations”   were adopted by the National People’s Congress some 15 years after they had first been proposed. The reforms aimed at making China a world power by the twenty —first century through investment in agriculture, industry, S&T, and national defense. While vague, it constituted an initial developmental plan that went beyond the heavy industry, capital-intensive focus of the Sino— Soviet days to establish a broader set of advances for a new class of professionals to execute. China enjoyed two advantages in its efforts to rebuild. First, unencumbered by existing plans and infrastructure — there were none — it could lay out a new foundation for growth that was supported by new technologies. Second, in the most striking change of heart of the century, the same China that had relied on Soviet support to counter the US in the 1950s could position itself to benefit from America’s Cold War concerns by renewing its technological links and educational exchanges with the United States.

In the post-Mao era, foreign know-how was seen as a catalyst to jumpstart China’s quest for capable military systems and industries, and to build capacity for the future. The first wave of post-CR students to go abroad tended to reflect this approach as well. They were older than even their American advisors, and sought overwhelmingly to study some aspect of technology or hard science.

China’s embrace of science and technology crystallized in its adoption of the National High-Tech R&D Program  , also known as the 863 Program.60 Implemented in 1986, the program was personally endorsed by Deng Xiaoping and was designed to “meet new global challenges and competition.”61 Described accurately as China’s “Sputnik” moment and “new technical revolution”  62 the program is focused on biology, spaceflight, IT, lasers, automation, energy, new materials, and oceanography — each a key element in China’s plan to develop world-class capabilities. The government’s role was and continues to be macro-control and support.63 Specific projects within the program are determined by a committee of experts, who look to international research developments to set priorities; Chinese research, however, is typically more applied. Launched by China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), the program impacts all sectors of the country’s science and technology enterprise and is tied closely to defense projects. A ceremony held in 2001 to celebrate the achievements of the 863 Program was hosted jointly by the MOST and the PLA General Armaments Department, chief developer of military technology systems.64 That same year the program was reevaluated with the help of foreign experts and widened to support China’s competitiveness in international markets.

China has several other centrally directed programs focused on improving different aspects of the S&T infrastructure. They include the

“Torch Program” for creating high-tech commercial industries; the

973 Program   for basic research; the 985  and 211 Programs  aimed at university

reform; and countless programs for attracting Western-trained scholars “back” to China, which are discussed in detail in Chapter 7. Each of these programs looks to foreign collaboration and technologies to cover key gaps, and each reaches out to Western-trained experts for support, both by returning to China and by “serving in place.”65

Perhaps in no other document can we see how the past and the future merge than in China’s Medium and Long Term Plan for S&T Development,

2006–2020   . This S&T blueprint lays out a development strategy that is still reliant on returnees,66 still reliant on foreign collaboration, and adds a new dynamic of using the R&D laboratories of international companies that have flocked to China as another medium through which it can acquire the skills needed for China to move forward. This latter development is explored in detail in Chapter 3. The MLP, more than previous plans, demonstrates how far China has come since opening its doors in the late 1970s as it focuses as much on the process of science as it does on the specific topic areas it seeks to develop.67

One aspect of China’s S&T development which we have not yet discussed is the difference between its ability to access foreign technology and to assimilate it. In the early days of the PRC, as best demonstrated by the failures of the Sino–Soviet cooperative period, China was at such a low level of technological development that it could not assimilate all that it acquired from the Soviet Union and needed Soviet experts to drive development to serve as the intellectual leaders for the projects. Today, however, as highlighted by scientific indicators such as patents and publications in Western journals,68 it is evident that China’s efforts over the past three decades have yielded gains in many fields, including a taste for science itself, and the technology and know-how acquired from abroad has a much more fertile place to grow roots. 

Legacy of the ti-yong period still felt today

China’s approach to technology development is both strategic and pragmatic, reflecting the evolution of early ideas of self-sufficiency into a far broader acceptance of the need for foreign technology to meet strategic goals – without losing sight of the original imperative to build things indigenously. This dichotomy, namely to seek Western technology while continuing to search for a distinctly Chinese way, confounds Western scholars and policy-makers, since we often think of the question in black or white terms – innovation vs. acquisition, and creativity vs. copying. In fact, a more nuanced view of what is happening in Chinese S&T is necessary to grasp the impact these developments will have on competitiveness.

What we see when we look at China’s early period and subsequent decades of S&T development is a desire to meet, by whatever means are necessary, the strategic goals of the time – whatever they may be – while at the same time building a system that can eventually self-perpetuate and be self-sufficient. The image of a China forging a unique path that suits its needs at a given time is put forth by Nathan Sivin in his description of postMao science, noting that “China has gradually since 1949, by fits and by starts, invented policies towards education and science that reflect its own priorities rather than the expectations of other nations.”69 Simplifying the picture as one of total dependence on Western technology or – worse – China’s “maturation” into a fair and sharing player in the world S&T arena misrepresents the threat its hybrid approach poses to the West.

The one feature that has been a central tenet of Chinese development from the late Republican to early Qing era through to today is the active role of the government in facilitating China’s “catch-up” to ensure that China benefits from its interactions with the West and also to set the terms of those interactions to achieve goals determined by the state. Chinese students are sent out to learn with a purpose, and its business and S&T collaborations are a zero-sum game, with the goal being China “winning” and meeting its strategic goals. While Beijing has not always been successful in this endeavor, especially during the decades of political chaos, the efforts that will be outlined in subsequent chapters illustrate a government with a plan and the political will to use whatever means are necessary   to acquire the “seed corn” of innovation and technology, as a means to catch up and eventually lead.

The following chapters examine each aspect of China’s foreign technology acquisition efforts and how these aspects have evolved over time, reflecting China’s developmental level, international status, and potential for access. Beijing’s approach today is similar to its historic approach, differing only in the number of tools in the toolkit it can use to its advantage. Its methods of acquisition are holistic and comprehensive, using students, businesses, and overseas organizations as part of a complex web that on the surface appears to blend with international norms, but on further examination reveals the true agenda: one-sided technology acquisition, and an approach to the international community of science that is opaque. We begin by examining one of the least-known elements of this web: China’s exploitation of open-source materials.

Notes

1 Qian Xuesen (1911–2009) benefited from the Boxer Indemnity Fund. He was later sent back toChina under suspicion of spying during the McCarthy era and became a key figure in China’s missile development program. For an in-depth look at his life see I. Chang, Thread of the Silkworm, New York: Basic Books, 1995.

2 Modern China refers to the 1909 to current time period. J.D. Spence, The Search for Modern China, New York: Norton, 1999, pp. 225–226.

3 For an overview of US—China educational exchanges from the 1800s to the founding of thePRC, see D.M. Lampton, A Relationship Restored, Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 1986, pp. 16–20.

4 “Returned Students and HEP Research in China,” Institute of High Energy Physics, October10, 2002, www.ihep.ac.cn/english/r.s.&hep/index.htm. According to the Institute for High Energy Physics, “It can be said that the development of high energy physics in China is inseparable from the returned students.”

5 Scholars refer to this period as the lost decade in which an entire generation lost out oneducational opportunities, and their absence currently affects Chinese academic “benchstrength” to this day.

6 For the purposes of this project, we look at a small snapshot of Chinese history, from the late1800s to the present day. We focus here on the period when China fell behind the West in areas with direct applications to military and technological development. The time period of “self-strengthening” referred to here is from 1860 to 1900.

7 Edwin Pak-wah Leung, “China’s Decision to Send Students to the West,” Asian Profile 16 (1998), pp. 391–400, p. 392, pp. 399–400.

8 For additional information on engineering education in this time period see Junqiu Wang,Nathan McNeill, and, Sensen Li, “Growing Pains: Chinese Engineering Education in the late Qing Dynasty,” 2010 ASEE Annual Conference and Expo.

9 This is mentioned here not to evoke the issue of how Chinese students are viewed in the UStoday or Chinese nationalism and ethnocentric views, but to highlight the concerns and suspicions in China at the time.

10 John King Fairbank, The United States and China, 4th edn, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983, pp. 173–176.

11 Spence, The Search for Modern China, pp. 225–226.

12 The New York Times, “The Chinese Educational Mission,” August 18, 1873.

13 Jin Baicheng, “Early Educational Mission”, China Daily, April 22, 2004, www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-04/22/content_325340.htm.

14 T.K. Chu, “150 Years of Chinese Students in America,” Harvard China Review, Spring 2004, pp. 7–26.

15 Jin, “Early Educational Mission.”

16 Stacy Bieler, Patriots or Traitors? A History of American-Educated Chinese Students, Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 2004, p.12.

17 Thomas E. LaFargue, China’s First Hunger: Education Mission Students in the United States, 1872–1881, Pullman: Washington State University Press, pp. 77–78, pp. 107–108.

18 Bieler, Patriots or Traitors?

19 China’s “Righteous Harmony Movement”   known in the West as the “Boxer

Rebellion” was a popular reaction to the foreign presence in China and received ad-hoc support from the Qing government. The uprising culminated in the siege of foreigners in Beijing’s Legation Quarter in June 1900, their emancipation by an eight-nation military force some two months later, and fines imposed on China, known subsequently as the Boxer Indemnity.

20 “History of Tsinghua,” University of Tsinghua, 2001, www.tsinghua.edu.cn/publish/then/5779/index.html. 21 Chu, “150 years of Chinese Students in America.”

22 Ibid.

23 For an in-depth look at Qian Xuesen, who became a key figure in China’s missile developmentprogram, see Chang, Thread of the Silkworm. 24 Jin, “Early Educational Mission.”

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 Bieler, Patriots or Traitors?

28 Ibid.29 Ibid.

30 See “Tsinghua University,” China Education Center Ltd., 2012, www.chinaeducenter.com/en/university/tsinghua.php; “Beijing University,” China Internet Information Center, 2012, www.china.org.cn/english/features/beijing/31059.htm; “Introduction to Zhejiang University,” Zhejiang University, 2012, www.zju.edu.cn/english/redir.php?catalog_id=235, “Shanghai Jiao Tong University,” China Education Center Ltd., 2012, www.chinaeducenter.com/en/university/sjtu.php.

31 Bieler, Patriots or Traitors?

32 Ping Kuang and Ian Marshall, “Internationalisation of Chinese Higher Education: Applicationof Knowledge Management to Analysis of Tsinghua University,” Journal of Knowledge Management Practice 11, no. 1, March 2010.

33 For more information on reforms at Tsinghua University see “Welcome to Tsinghua University,” Tsinghua University, www.at0086.com/TsinghuaU/; Li Yuhong and Yin Qi, “Tsinghua’s Foreign Academic Connection,” China Daily, April 16, 2011, www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2011-04/16/content_12336800.htm; Hao Xin and Dennis Normile, “Gunning for the Ivy League,” Science 319, no. 5860, January 11, 2008; and Kuang and Marshall, “Internationalisation of Chinese Higher Education.”

34 Linqing Yao, “The Chinese Overseas Students: An Overview of the Flows Change,” AustralianPopulation Society Biennial Conference, September 2004, www.apa.org.au/upload/20046C_Yao.pdf.

35 Chu, “150 years of Chinese Students in America.”

36 Wang Xiaochu, “Retrospect and Revelation of the 110-year History of Chinese Returned Students in Japan,” April 2004, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, SUN:XZSB.0.2006-04-00.

37 Yang Dongming and Ji Changhe, “Talking about the Students Studying in Japan and China’sModernization,” January 2001, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, ISSN:10061975.0.2005-01-016; and WANG Jian-hua, “On the Relation between Japan and

Modernization of Military Education in Late Qing Dynasty,” May 2004, Chinese National Knowledge Institute, CNKI:SUN:AFSX.0.2004-05-009.

38 “Formulation of Foreign Policy of New China on the Eve of its Birth,” Ministry of Public

Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, November 17, 2000, www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/ziliao/3602/3604/t18057.htm.

39 Richard P. Suttmeier, Research and Revolution: Science Policy and Societal Change in China, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1974.

40 The Chinese Academy of Science was established in 1949: Chinese Academy of Science,October 25, 2012, www.cas.ac.cn/.

41 Richard P. Suttmeier, “New Directions in Chinese Science and Technology,” in John Major,ed., China Briefing, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986, pp. 91–102.

42 We refer to modern universities as those that offer both a robust teaching and research environment, which is very different from the Soviet system.

43 John Lewis and Litai Xue, China Builds the Bomb, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988.

44 “A Country Study: China,” The Library of Congress Country Studies, August 24, 2012, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cntoc.html.

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid.

47 Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, p. 51.

48 Ibid.

49 Mao Zedong, “On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship 30 June 1949,” Mao Zedong xuanji (Selected Works of Mao Zedong), Beijing: The People’s Press, 1965.

50 Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb.

51 Ibid.

52 Charles P. Ridley, China’s Scientific Policies: Implications for International Cooperation, Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, October 1976.

53 Xin Meng and R.G. Gregory, “The Impact of Interrupted Education on Subsequent EducationalAttainment: A Cost of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Economic and Cultural Change,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 50, no.4, July 2002, pp. 935– 959 and “Front Matter,” The China Quarterly 95, 1983, pp. f1–f6.

54 He Chongling, Qinghua Daxue jiushi nian (Qinghua University ninety years), Beijing:

Tsinghua University Press, 2001.

55 Ibid.

56 “History of Tsinghua,” University of Tsinghua.

57 Qian Ning   (Studying in America). Nanjing: Jiangsu Wenyi Chubanshe, 1996.

58 Leo A. Orleans, ed., Science in Contemporary China, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980, p.39.

59 Chu, “150 years of Chinese Students in America.”

60 The plan was jointly proposed by four Chinese scientists: Wang Daheng  , Wang Ganchang  , Yang Jiachi  , and Chen Fangyun  , to accelerate China’s hightech development. “National High-tech R&D Program (863 Program),” Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China, www.most.gov.cn/eng/programmes1/200610/t20061009_36225.htm.

61 www.863.gov.cn/.

62 Evan Osno. “Green Giant: Beijing’s Crash Program for Clean Energy,” The New Yorker, December 21, 2009, www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/12/21/091221fa_fact_osnos.

63 “National Programs for Science and Technology,” Chinese Government’s Official Web Portal,2012, www.gov.cn/english/2006-02/09/content_184156.htm.

64 Du Minghua, “863 Hi-Tech Program Blueprinting China’s Future,” January 1, 2001, www.edu.cn/achievement_1509/20060323/t20060323_4403.shtml.

65 Chinese government policy documents at www.china.org.cn/english/scitech/34496.htm, www.most.cn/eng/ and Cao Cong, Richard Suttmeier, and Denis Fred Simon, “China’s 15Year Science and Technology Plan,” Physics Today 59, no. 12, December 2006, pp. 38–43.

66 “New Policies to be Issued to Lure Overseas Students Home,” People’s Daily, July 29, 2000; “China Allotted 200 Million Yuan for Students Returned from Overseas,” People’s Daily, January 22, 2002, http://english.people.com.cn/200201/22/eng20020122_89125.shtml. The funds have gone to 4,000 students who returned to China permanently and 3,000 who came back on a short-term basis,   (Chinese Study Abroad Talent

Information Network–Return to China Guide), www.chinatalents.gov.cn/hgzn/index02.htm.

67 Cao et al., “China’s 15-y Science and Technology Plan.”

68 James McGregor, “China’s Drive for Indigenous Innovation: A Web of Industrial Policies,”Washington, DC: US Chamber of Commerce, July 2010.

69 Nathan Sivin, “Science in China’s Past,” Science in Contemporary China, ed. Leo Orleans, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980.