Donation to US institute causes mixed reaction

The ratio of research and development expenditure to GDP is frequently used as an indicator for a country's economic power.

That is why some Chinese scientists said they were astonished when a Chinese businessman donated a large sum of money to support fundamental research in the United States, a country with a per capita GDP seven times that of China.

On Wednesday, Chen Tianqiao, once ranked the richest man in China, together with his wife, Luo Qianqian, donated $115 million to set up a foundation at the California Institute of Technology in the US in efforts to crack the fundamental principles that underlie brain function.