【中文标题】中国逆潮而动，吸引科学家回国
【原文标题】Fighting Trend, China Is Luring Scientists Home
【登载媒体】纽约时报
【原文作者】SHARON LaFRANIERE
【原文链接】http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/world/asia/07scholar.html?pagewanted=1
施一公从普林斯顿大学辞职，成为清华大学生物科学院院长。
当马里兰的Howard Hughes医学院在2008年奖励普林斯顿大学分子生物学家施一公1000万美元研究资金的时候，美国的科学界并没有过分惊讶。
施博士在细胞领域的研究已经为治疗癌症开辟了一条新的道路。他在普林斯顿的实验室占据了整整一层楼，每年的研究预算达200万美元。
而真正的惊讶，实际上是震惊，发生在几个月之后，这位国籍18年、已经彻底本土化的美国公民宣布，他将回到中国追求自己的科研事业。他谢绝了奖金，辞掉了普林斯顿的工作，成为清华大学生命科学院的院长。
最近，他当着一群在他办公室里的参观者说：“直到今天为止，还有很多人不理解我为什么回到中国。特别是考虑到我当时所处的环境，这么做等于放弃了我所拥有的一切。”
普林斯顿物理系教授Robert H. Austin在电话中说：“他是我们中的明星，我觉得他是疯了。”
中国的领导人不这么认为。伴随着改革开放的三十年，太多顶尖人士流失到国外。中国正在利用其丰厚的经济资源——当然也包括民族自豪感——来引诱科学家和学者回国。
当然，西方世界，尤其是美国，依然对中国学者的学习和研究活动具有更大的吸引力。但是施博士和其它一些高端科学家的回归发出了一个信号：早先中国与技术先进国家之间的差距，正在因中国的努力而迅速地缩小，而且比很多专家的预测迅速得多。
中国在过去十年来稳步提高科研经费水平，现在已经达到了GDP的1.5％。虽然美国的投入占据了GDP的2.7％，但中国在这方面投入的比例超过了大部分发展中国家。
中国科学家在与国外科学家相比时，要面对更大的压力。在过去十年的时间里，他们每年发表的科学论文翻了4倍。他们2007年的论文总数仅排在美国之后。两位研究中国问题的美国专家Denis Fred Simon和Cong Cao出版了一本书《中国新生的科技优势》。其中提到，仅在纳米科技领域，中国就出现了约5000位科学家。
佐治亚理工学院2008年的一项研究显示，在未来10年到20年，中国将比美国更有能力把科研成果转化为商品和服务，并推向全球。
报告的末尾总结到：“中国在迅速发展的科研创新领域将更加富有成果，并转化到商业企业领域中。大家要警惕。”
数量并非质量。尽管中国有巨额的投资，但它仍在科学和技术的很多领域中举步维艰。还没有一个中国出生的科学家因其在中国大陆上从事的研究而被授予诺贝尔奖，有一些人得到的奖励是因为其在西方的研究工作。中国在美国得到批准的专利数量仅占第10位，当然这个名次还在上升。
中国的学生仍然呈大批离开的趋势。随着越来越多的家庭可以负担国外的学费，2008年大约有18万学生赴国外就读，比2007年增长了25％。中国政府的统计数据显示，过去10年中，每4个外出就读的学生里，只有一个会回国。在美国大学中获得科学或工程博士学位的学生，是最不可能回国的人群。
然而近年来，中国已经开始努力扭转这种趋势。过去的3年中，知名的科学家，比如施博士，都在陆续回国。他们身怀一项使命：撼动中国科学界任人唯亲和庸才遍地的文化，这通常被认为是阻碍中国科学进步的最大因素。
他们回国的诱因在于自身的爱国情绪、业界催化剂的身份，以及认为中国政府会支持他们的信念。
42岁的施博士被清华学生描述成有爱心的工作狂。他说：“我总觉得亏欠中国一些东西。在美国，一切都被差不多安排好了。而我在这里做的事情，影响可能比美国要大10倍，甚至100倍。”
包括他在内的一些人离开美国的时候，内心的遗憾并不像一些美国人所认为的那样强烈。当他被一群美国顶尖高校竞相追求的时候，当他在普林斯顿平步青云的时候，施博士说他相信很多亚洲人在美国的职业生涯实际上是遇到了一种无形的障碍。
47岁的饶毅在2007年离开西北大学，成为了北京大学生命科学学院的院长。他把中国的“自我反省”与美国的自我满足做了一个对比。当北京的美国大使馆问他为什么要放弃美国国籍时，他写道，美国在911事件之后就失去了道德先锋的身份，但是“美国人仍然陶醉于国家和自我强大的美梦中”。
普林斯顿大学分子生物学家施一公放弃了1000万美元的机会，于2008年回到中国。
这些科学家并非都被民主的美德所征服。饶博士说他希望，并且相信中国在他有生之年变成多党执政的民主国家。施博士说他很怀疑目前的政治体制“会永远适用于中国”。
施博士在清华大学做学生时，曾经参加过1989年……。在美国，他是一个民主党人士，并积极参加选举投票。他说：“多党民主制最适合美国不过，但并不意味着也必定适合中国。”
然而，重新进入中国政治化的科学领域是充满挑战的，一些资历不强的科学家一般都会放弃回国的打算。中国最高的科学技术咨询机构——中国科学院在上个月举办了两年一届的院士评选，施博士和饶博士未被列入候选名单。同样未被考虑的还有王晓东，一位广有名气的Howard Hughes医疗研究所的研究员。他最近担任了北京生物科学所的主任职务，同时还在担任得克萨斯西南达拉斯医学中心的全职教授职务。
这种紧张的气氛已经蔓延到中国人的博客中，施博士在网络上遭到“不诚恳”、“不值得信任”的攻击。华南理工大学工程学院教授刘仲武在2008年的一篇文章中称，施博士应当被开除出任何有关中国国家利益的项目。他写道：“记住，他是个外国人。”
施博士说，来自四面八方的批判让我回想起了文化大革命，“过去的一年半时间对我像是过了10年，我很高兴自己还没有倒下。”
但是这些回归人士也有实力派的朋友，包括他们的大学校长和共产党中央委员会的官员。施博士和饶博士帮助共产党草拟了一个方案，旨在招募海外顶尖的科学家、企业家和其它专家。政府最近吸引学者回国的行动就是依此脱胎而来的。
2008年5月份，施博士被邀请到中南海——中国领导人在北京的办公地，向副主席习近平和其它高级官员讲解中国科学技术的发展方向。
饶博士说政府非常慷慨地资助科研，甚至大方得有些过分。他认为，现在所面临的挑战是要确保资金合理地使用，而不是简单地把钱交给那些官僚机构就了事。
5年前，当他还是西北大学科学院主任时，就在英国自然杂志上发表过类似的观点。饶博士说，一旦中国下拨一笔资金，关系往往会战胜实力。他建议取消科学技术部，把它的预算转移给“更有资格的”机构。
中国禁止了他的评论。但是去年10月，政府控制的英文报纸中国日报把这个观点放到了一篇介绍饶博士的文章中，题目是“A Man With a Mission”。
Cao先生说：“这是一场逆流而上的战斗。他们都是优秀的科学家，但是他们必须形成一个足够大的团体来革新这个体系。如果失败，他们就会离开。”
在清华大学，施博士说他还是很乐观的。在不到两年的时间里，他已经招募到18位博士后，几乎全部来自美国，他们每个人都开设了独立的实验室。他说，在10年时间里，清华大学的生命科学系将会扩张到目前的4倍。
施博士坦承，清华大学的科研和普林斯顿大学还无法相提并论，他更愿意把清华大学比作一个值得尊敬的美国州立大学。
他说，但是，“只要假以时日，我们终会成功”。
原文：
Shi Yigong resigned from the faculty of Princeton University and became the dean of life sciences at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
BEIJING — Scientists in the United States were not overly surprised in 2008 when the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland awarded a $10 million research grant to a Princeton University molecular biologist, Shi Yigong.
Dr. Shi’s cell studies had already opened a new line of research into cancer treatment. At Princeton, his laboratory occupied an entire floor and had a $2 million annual budget.
The surprise — shock, actually — came a few months later, when Dr. Shi, a naturalized American citizen and 18-year resident of the United States, announced that he was leaving for good to pursue science in China. He declined the grant, resigned from Princeton’s faculty and became the dean of life sciences at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
“To this day, many people don’t understand why I came back to China,” he said recently between a crush of visitors to his Tsinghua office. “Especially in my position, giving up all I had.”
“He was one of our stars,” Robert H. Austin, a Princeton physics professor, said by telephone. “I thought it was completely crazy.”
China’s leaders do not. Determined to reverse the drain of top talent that accompanied its opening to the outside world over the past three decades, they are using their now ample financial resources — and a dollop of national pride — to entice scientists and scholars home.
The West, and the United States in particular, remain more attractive places for many Chinese scholars to study and do research. But the return of Dr. Shi and some other high-profile scientists is a sign that China is succeeding more quickly than many experts expected at narrowing the gap that separates it from technologically advanced nations.
China’s spending on research and development has steadily increased for a decade and now amounts to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product. The United States devotes 2.7 percent of its G.D.P. to research and development, but China’s share is far higher than that of most other developing countries.
Chinese scientists are also under more pressure to compete with those abroad, and in the past decade they quadrupled the number of scientific papers they published a year. Their 2007 total was second only to that of the United States. About 5,000 Chinese scientists are engaged in the emerging field of nanotechnology alone, according to a recent book, “China’s Emerging Technological Edge,” by Denis Fred Simon and Cong Cao, two United States-based experts on China.
A 2008 study by the Georgia Institute of Technology concluded that within the next decade or two, China would pass the United States in its ability to transform its research and development into products and services that can be marketed to the world.
“As China becomes more proficient at innovation processes linking its burgeoning R.&D. to commercial enterprises, watch out,” the study concluded.
Quantity is not quality, and despite its huge investment, China still struggles in many areas of science and technology. No Chinese-born scientist has ever been awarded a Nobel Prize for research conducted in mainland China, although several have received one for work done in the West. While climbing, China ranked only 10th in the number of patents granted in the United States in 2008.
Chinese students continue to leave in droves. Nearly 180,000 left in 2008, almost 25 percent more than in 2007, as more families were able to pay overseas tuition. For every four students who left in the past decade, only one returned, Chinese government statistics show. Those who obtained science or engineering doctorates from American universities were among the least likely to return.
Recently, though, China has begun to exert a reverse pull. In the past three years, renowned scientists like Dr. Shi have begun to trickle back. And they are returning with a mission: to shake up China’s scientific culture of cronyism and mediocrity, often cited as its biggest impediment to scientific achievement.
They are lured by their patriotism, their desire to serve as catalysts for change and their belief that the Chinese government will back them.
“I felt I owed China something,” said Dr. Shi, 42, who is described by Tsinghua students as caring and intensely driven. “In the United States, everything is more or less set up. Whatever I do here, the impact is probably tenfold, or a hundredfold.”
He and others like him left the United States with fewer regrets than some Americans might assume. While he was courted by a clutch of top American universities and rose swiftly through Princeton’s academic ranks, Dr. Shi said he believed many Asians confronted a glass ceiling in the United States.
Rao Yi, a 47-year-old biologist who left Northwestern University in 2007 to become dean of the School of Life Sciences at Peking University in Beijing, contrasts China’s “soul-searching” with America’s self-satisfaction. When the United States Embassy in Beijing asked him to explain why he wanted to renounce his American citizenship, he wrote that the United States had lost its moral leadership after the 9/11 attacks. But “the American people are still reveling in the greatness of the country and themselves,” he said in a draft letter.
Shi Yigong, a Princeton University molecular biologist, rejected a prestigious $10 million grant to return to China in 2008.
These scientists were not uniformly won over by the virtues of democracy, either. While Dr. Rao said he hoped and believed that China would become a multiparty democracy in his lifetime, Dr. Shi said he doubted that that political system “will ever be appropriate for China.”
As a Tsinghua student, Dr. Shi joined the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. As a registered Democrat in the United States, he participated eagerly in elections. “Multiparty democracy is perfect for the United States,” he said. “But believing that multiparty democracy is right for the United States does not mean it is right for China.”
Yet the re-entry to the politicized world of science in China can be challenging. Some scientists with weaker résumés have shunned returnees. In its biennial election of academicians last month, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China’s highest advisory body on science and technology, passed over Dr. Shi and Dr. Rao. It also did not recognize Wang Xiaodong, a well-known Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator who recently became a director of Beijing’s National Institute of Biological Sciences while remaining a full-time professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
The tension has spilled over into the Chinese blogosphere, where Dr. Shi has been attacked as insincere and untrustworthy. In a posting in 2008, Liu Zhongwu, a professor of science and engineering at South China University of Technology, said that Dr. Shi should be excluded from any projects that touch on China’s national interests. “Bear in mind, he is a foreigner,” he wrote.
“The last year and a half have been like 10 years to me,” said Dr. Shi, who says the criticism is redolent of the Cultural Revolution. “I am rejoicing that I am still standing.”
But the returnees also have powerful friends, including their universities’ presidents and some officials within the Communist Party’s Central Committee. Dr. Shi and Dr. Rao helped draft the party’s new program to hire top-flight overseas scientists, entrepreneurs and other experts — the latest incarnation of the government’s campaign to lure its scholars home.
In May 2008, Dr. Shi was invited to speak about the future of Chinese science and technology to Vice President Xi Jinping and other high-ranking officials at Zhongnanhai, the leadership compound in Beijing.
Dr. Rao says the government is generous — maybe overly so — in financing science. The challenge, he said, is making sure that the funds are spent wisely, not simply handed over to those in bureaucratic favor.
Five years ago, as head of a scientific institute at Northwestern University, he made the same argument in the British journal Nature. Dr. Rao wrote that connections too often trumped merit when grants were handed out in China. He recommended abolishing the Ministry of Science and Technology and reassigning its budget to a “more reputable” agency.
His critique was banned in China. But last October, China Daily, the state-run English-language newspaper, summarized it in a profile of Dr. Rao headlined “A Man With a Mission.”
“It is going to be an uphill battle,” said Mr. Cao, an author of the book on China. “They are excellent scientists. But they must form a critical mass to reform the system. If they don’t reform it, they will leave.”
At Tsinghua, Dr. Shi says he is optimistic. In less than two years, he has recruited about 18 postdoctoral fellows, almost all from the United States. Each has opened an independent laboratory. Within a decade, he said, Tsinghua’s life sciences department will expand fourfold.
Dr. Shi does not pretend that science there is now on a par with Princeton. Rather, he likens Tsinghua to a respected American state university.
But “in a matter of years,” he said, “we will get there.”
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发表于 2010-4-26 17:49
