Further R&D reform needed

China must make science and technology respond to the need for an economy based on knowledge and innovation

'It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." The opening line of English novelist Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities is perhaps an apt description of the status of innovation in China today. In terms of political stability and volume of research funding, few would argue that China is currently in the throes of "the best of times", free from the upheavals and setbacks that checkered the first 30 years of the People's Republic of China.

Consequently, what the British philosopher Bertrand Russell envisaged 90 years ago is, on the surface, finally being realized: "If the Chinese could get a stable government and sufficient funds, they would, within the next 30 years, begin to produce remarkable work in science."