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CHINA SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER
The Ministry of
Science and Technology
People's Republic of
China
N0.308 September 30,2002
IN THIS ISSUE
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*
China's High Tech Grows Fast
* China Controls
Satellites More and Better
* Policies for Medical
Science and Technology
* China Divides Its Marine
Functions
* Dinosaur Fossils in Extinction Age
* Transgenetic Pest Resistant Cotton
* More
Work on Chinas Weather and Marine Satellites
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SPECIAL
ISSUES
China's High Tech Grows Fast
Since the late 1980s, China has poured
investment as much as RMB 11 billion in national high tech
research and development projects in the fields of biology,
space, information, laser, automation, energy technology and
new materials. The decade and more efforts have produced
eye-catching achievements. As is shown by incomplete
statistics, Chinese scientists have turned out 700 and more
findings granted with the awards at national or ministerial
level and patent rights at home or abroad with some of them
reaching internationally leading position. The breakthroughs
such as in transgenic goat, ox and pest resistant cottons,
key technologies for high performance computer, integrated
computer manufacturing technologies, improved digital
switcher technology, 6000m submarine robot, and the major
new non-linear optic crystal varieties among many others
have demonstrated China's leading position in some of the
international hot high tech spots and its strength competing
against the developed countries.
At the end of
1980s, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology
sponsored the so-called Torch Program, an R and D effort for
developing China's high tech industries. During the period
from 1991 to 2001, the output value generated by China's
high tech industries had spiraled up from RMB 300 billion to
1,800 billion, landing an annual average growth of 20%,
which made its proportion in the national economy from 1% a
decade ago to the current 15%. In the meantime, high tech
products have become an important component stimulating
foreign trade development in the country. In 2001, China's
high tech export volume arose to USD 46.5 billion while the
same indicator was less than USD 3 billion a decade ago. The
upbeat high tech development has nurtured out 86,000 private
small and medium S and T oriented businesses with great
vitality and a number of large S and T businesses at home
and abroad. In 1991, there were only seven enterprises whose
annual output reached RMB 100 million or above in national
high tech parks. By 2001, the businesses scaled to the same
category had grown to 1,539 in number, of which 185 climbed
to the ladder of RMB 1 billion and 10 over RMB 10 billion.
Since 1991, China has created altogether 53
high tech industrial development parks at national level. As
of 2001, these high tech parks have materialized a total
revenue of RMB 1,192.8 billion with a total industrial
output value of RMB 1,011.7 billion, profits and taxes RMB
128.5 billion and foreign exchange USD 22.66 billion, or 100
times that of 1991 when these parks were founded with a
decade average growth over 60%.
China Controls
Satellites More and Better
It is reported from
the authorities concerned that Chinas space vehicle
measuring and control technologies have witnessed six major
historical advancements, which makes China able to provide
high accuracy measurement and control service for different
space vehicles at an altitude of 36,000 km such as rockets
docking, near earth orbit, solar synchronous and
geostationary satellites and manned spacecraft.
The so-called six major historical
advancements imply that China is now capable of sending
space vehicles into space, navigating space vehicles to
return to earth, synchronous positioning, satellite network,
international compatibility and spacecraft recovery. China
has made itself in the world advanced rank in terms of
mastering key measuring and control technologies such as
accurate orbit positioning and multiple satellites
management.
In recent years, China has worked
out its own S-band measuring and control system in line with
international standard and developed the centralized remote
control working mode, which have greatly improved the
control capability of space controlnetwork over manned
spacecrafts, especially in emergency cases.
On
the above mentioned basis, China established its measuring
and control network management center to exercise
centralized control and dynamic distribution of measuring
and control resources, which greatly enhanced the efficiency
of network performance and capacity for multiple satellites
measurement and satisfied the measuring and control needs of
Chinas satellites, manned spacecrafts at middle and
lower altitude orbit, earlier orbit support for synchronous
satellites and positioning management. Under the coordinated
management of the measuring and control center, fast
switching to different measuring targets has been realized.
At present, Chinas space measuring and
control network is able to simultaneously provide measuring
and control support for 20 and more satellites and
spacecrafts.
Chinese space scientists have
overcome the technical difficulties encountered in the
inter-connection between China space control network and its
international counterparts and worked out the complete
technical standards for interactive operation between the
two networks, which has made China possess the technical
capacity in line with its foreign counterparts and provided
high quality service for supporting the launch of foreign
satellites. The entrance of Chinas space measuring and
control network into the international market has brought
back huge economic returns.
China has created
a unique mode of one network controlling multiple
satellites, practiced 24-hour round clock management of all
long-life satellites launched by China, found the
application of artificial intelligence in space vehicle
control and developed the so-called expert system to support
satellite control. All these efforts have ensured the safe
operation of satellites and scientific utilization of
resources.
Policies for Medical Science and
Technology
On September 18, 2002, the national
policies on medicinal science and technology jointly
formulated by the Chinese Ministry of Science and
Technology, the State Economic and Trade Commission and the
National Administration for Chinese Traditional Medicines
were officially published for enforcement. In the future 5
years, the central government will allocate RMB 3 billion
and more to support the research and development of Chinese
traditional medicine making with priority weight on the
preparation of chemical medicines, innovative studies on
Chinese traditional medicines and techniques for preparing
biological medicines.
In the field of Chinese
traditional medicine study, China will establish its
national banks for fine traditional medicinal resources in
both the south and the north and construct an innovation
information platform for Chinese traditional medicines and
create an internationally acknowledged quality
standardization system for Chinese traditional medicines.
In the field of preparing biological
medicines, China will place its priority on developing new
biological medicines and vaccines for treating
cardiovascular and cerebral diseases, cancers and other
major diseases and work out relevant laws and legislations
on biological security and standards for associated
evaluation and analysis.
In the field of
chemical medicine studies, China will focus on turning out
the products with new mechanism, effective treatment results
and little toxicant effects with priorities on the medicines
treating cancers, cardiovascular diseases, viruses, mental
diseases, blood sugar reduction and senile diseases.
China Divides Its Marine Functions
On September 10, 2002, the Chinese State
Marine Bureau published the Functional Zoning Plan for
Chinese Territorial Marine Waters, which constitutes a
guideline document for orienting and steering marine
applications, protecting and improving marine ecological
environment and promoting the rational development of marine
resources and the sustainable development of marine economy.
The Plan covers the inland water, territorial
water, adjacent areas, special economic zones, continental
shelf and other marine water bodies under China's
jurisdiction. Mainstreamed with rational marine development
and marine environmental protection, it has its most weight
in the following three aspects:
* Dividing the
marine areas under China's jurisdiction into ten major
functional zones including port and shipping, fishery
resources utilization and preservation, tourism, marine
water resources utilization, engineering applications,
marine protection, special applications and conservation.
The Plan also proposed the development and protection
priorities and management requirements for each functional
zone;
* Defining the major functions for 30
main marine areas over Bohai Sea, Yellow Sea, East Sea and
South China Sea, including offshore marine areas, islands
and major resources development and utilization areas;
* Working out the major steps for implementing
the Plan, including improving marine functional zone
planning system and technical support system, preparing and
implementing marine function zoning plan and strengthening
its supervision and examination.
RESEARCH AND
DEVELOPMENT
Dinosaur Fossils in
Extinction Age
Not long ago Chinese
paleobiologists discovered over the middle and lower reaches
of Heilongjiang River the fossils of dinosaurs that are
believed living near the time before the massive extinction
of such animals. The discovery may unveil some important
clues for people's understanding of the reasons behind the
extinction of many biological species such as dinosaur
around 65 million years ago.
Chinese
scientists unearthed the dinosaur fossils at Wulaga area, a
place about 100 km in the south from Jiayin County. Fossils
of different sizes and ages together with ancient plant
fossils are scattering over the area and the silently
sleeping ancient animals seem to hint us that they suddenly
died in large groups between these ancient rock stratums.
The scene made the area like a huge dinosaur family grave
with abundant buried objects. The preliminary testing has
shown that these dinosaurs were living in a time period of
about 65 million or 70 million years ago.
Scientists from different countries such as
China, the U.S., Russia, UK, Germany, Japan and Korea are
looking for consecutive stratum sections that may tell the
whole story of the greatest biological extinction so far
known to the mankind. Scientists will use different means
such as paleobiology, geochemistry, paleogeomagnetism and
stratum sediment to find out more about the new discoveries.
The study is scheduled to last for 4 years.
Primitive Dwelling Structure 8,000 Years Ago
Chinese archaeologists have recently
discovered at the Xinglonggou Relics of Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region a human dwelling structure built 8000
years ago. It is reported that within the indoor structure
of 40 and odd square meters lay 7 intact pottery wares, 3
large millstones, 4 mill bars and ax, bar, knife and leaf
made of stone. In the east part of the structure stand a
pottery pot with two ears and a knife shape mouth and a
stone instrument with a round nest.
In the
middle of the room, there is an incomplete human skeleton
with missing lower part of the right leg and the right arm
as well as burns over the leg bone and skull. It is assumed
that the host was died of some artificial reasons with most
of its inside contents left intact. Whether the host died
because of a fire accident or in a unique convention or the
missing parts of the host's body left some mysteries for
further study.
Xinglonggou Relics is one of
the most typical primitive tribe villages well kept in
China. Chinese archaeologists have unearthed huge number of
pottery wares, stonewares, bone wares, shell wares and jade
wares as well as deer and pig bones in recent digging
efforts. The discovered dwelling structure has shown the
basics of the dwelling structures built 8000 years ago and
the discovery of the stone processing site shows that 8000
year ago man had made preliminary division of work.
Transgenetic Pest Resistant Cotton
Recently Cotton Institute under the Chinese
Academy of Agricultural Sciences announced that it has
landed major progresses in its commercial project for
transgenetic pest resistant cotton production. The said
Project is made up of 6 components: technical innovation,
pilot experiment, fine varieties breeding, seeds processing,
quality control and marketing. The Project has turned out
new genetically modified cotton varieties of strong pest
resistance such as Zhongmiansuo 37, 38, 39, and 41, which
has made China internationally advanced in producing pest
resistant cotton.
Applied with the home-made
proprietary pest killing genes such as Bt and Bt+CpTI and
different genetic modification techniques such as stalk
bacteria medium, pollen method and gene shooting method plus
the traditional approaches, the Project has eventually bred
out many new pest resistant cotton varieties. The Project
has not only worked out the cottons of high and stable yield
and fine quality but also reached the goals of protecting
ecological environment and reducing pesticide pollution to
the environment.
Under the stimulus of the
commercialization process, Chinas three major cotton
growing areas (the Yellow River Valley, the Yangtze River
Valley and the Northwest inland area) have seen the
establishment of five regional companies integrated with
both production and marketing. In addition, 4 ecological
breeding experimental stations were set up at Nanjiang and
Beijiang of Xinjiang, Wangjiang, Anhui of the Yangtze River
Valley and Huimin, Shandong of the Yellow River Valley,
which preliminarily established the transgenetic cotton
breeding system covering three major cotton growing areas
and the corresponding network integrated with cotton seeds
production, processing, marketing, diffusing and service.
These pest resistant cotton varieties have grown over 11
leading cotton growing provinces in the country and produced
remarkable economic and social benefits.
It is
briefed that during the period of 2002-2003, the Project has
provided transgenetic cotton seeds and fine quality regular
transgenetic cotton seeds for a growing area amounted
to115,000mu(1mu=0.0667ha.) and produced seeds of 11.5
million kilos that may accommodate the diffusion over 6.7
million mu. The implementation of the Project has diffused
the new transgenetic varieties over an area of 18.92 million
mu and landed the rising revenues of RMB 2.1947 billion.
Upon the completion of the Project, an annual output of
46.46 million kilos of transgenetic cotton seeds will be
expected with the annual sales of RMB 454.9 million.
More Work on Chinas Weather and Marine
Satellites
On September 18, 2002, the Chinese
Space Science and Technology Group Corp. signed a contract
with the Chinese State Meteorological Administration for
developing Fengyun III satellite and a similar cooperative
agreement with the State Oceanic Bureau for developing
Marine I-B satellite. The event kicks off the formal
development of Chinas new generation weather satellite
as well as its second marine satellite.
Fengyun III is Chinas second generation
polar orbit (solar synchronous) weather satellite equipped
with 10 effective payloads. In addition to visible and
infrared scanning radiometers, the satellite will be
equipped with other remote sensors such as microwave
radiometer, microwave imaging device, medium resolution
imaging spectrometer, ultraviolet ozone sounding device and
solar constants monitor. The addition of microwave sensors
has made the satellite capable of global 3-D, all weather,
multiple spectrum and quantitative meteorological soundings.
Fengyun III is designed mainly for providing
parameters on global temperature, humidity, air pressure and
radiation, realizing medium term numerical weather
prediction, dynamic monitoring of natural disasters and
ecological environment over extensive areas, providing
geophysical data for the study of global climate change and
environment changes and making weather data on any region
over the earth available for aviation and marine
departments.
Marine I-B is a back-up for
Marine I-A that was launched on May 15, 2002. Marine I-B
will have its basic technical specifications in line with
its elder sister but with readjustments of partial technical
indicators and improved functions. The satellite will also
see design improvement in storage volume and digital data
transmission rate so as to further ensure the its quality
and reliability.
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