Technonationalism in 20th Century China

Science and Technology in China 4910C

Fall 1999 Washington University

Essay Five: Technonationalism and the Three Notes applied to China

B Y K E V I N H O

(10 December 1999)

Richard Samuels’ “3-note chord” model for Japanese industrial development and its synonymous relationship with Japanese national security serves as a useful benchmark to gauge Chinese industrial and technological development this century. Unlike Samuels’ Japanese setting, however, the Chinese history of industrial development has been mixed at best and dismal at worst. While science and technology have been tied to and recognized as vital to the Chinese national interest during various regimes, the fact that there have been multiple regimes (each with its own set of constraints), speaks to the case of hamstrung Chinese industrial development. Samuels speaks of indigenization, diffusion, and nourishment of technology. Indeed throughout the KMT period and the CCP period, examples of the successful importation and implementation have been seen, but with both periods there was seldom enough time and capital to substantially replicate the Japanese situation. The Republican period experienced significant indigenizaton and slight diffusion, but circumstances prevented adequate nurturing of foreign technology, at least to a point where it was as sophisticated as Japanese development. During the Communist period (until 1978) there was a mini-case of the successful application of a 3-note chord approach by way of the atomic bomb project. The rest of the period, however, viable and genuine industrial growth was markedly troubled. Since 1978, though, the PRC has been in a state of campaigning for greater indigenization of Western technology and practices that would make it a more robust and sound economy, but it must be kept in mind that these efforts are set against a background and legacy of 50 years of communist rule.

By the KMT consolidation of power in 1928, there was a firm desire for modernization in China. At that point in time, the foreign powers—mainly the United States and Great Britain, and to a lesser extent Japan and Germany—were the main conduits for the transfer and transportation of Western ‘modern’ science and technology to China. Chinese thinkers and leaders had reached the realization that Western technology was one of the roots of Western power. (see Gasster 45) However, the Chinese were adept enough to realize that it was not only the technology itself that was important, but these sophisticated weapons were a consequence of Western scientific education and other institutions, that ultimately made up the bulwark of Western technological prowess. Therefore, one of the main areas of the modernization effort focused in the realm of education, which allowed for greater diffusion and dissemination of Western information of all sorts. By a coincidence, a wave of scientific evangelicalism had hit China, which established mission schools that provided an education required for the first generation of Chinese scientists to go abroad to Western universities in the early 1900s. The hope was that these Chinese scientists would train abroad and spread their knowledge back to China, thereby building a scientific community and infrastructure that would ultimately make Chinese science and industry self-sufficient and self-replenishing. Along Samuels’ model, then, this would presumably lead to the creation of a class of people who could nurture this type of industrial development. By the 1920s, the KMT pushed indigenous scientific education in all schools in China. Initiatives of foreign philanthropic organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the China Foundation had provided the some of the money required to foster this scientific base to be built. Along with the Boxer Scholarships, these organizations provided the necessary base for industrial development by training Chinese students in the fields of biomedicine, genetics, and by promoting secondary science education in China. Also important, was the fact that these organizations help set up a major source of scientific transmission to China (from the West) by employing Western trained teaching staffs at Chinese universities and colleges.

On a more bureaucratic level, though, just as the Japanese setting was supposed to be directed by the efforts of MITI, the Republican Chinese approach was also top-down and goal directed with the market as the driving force with occasional government help (unlike the Communist era). Industrial development depended on the co-optation of scientists and the cooperation of the scientific community within China. Eventually, very much like the technonationalism of Japan, the line between scientific development and economic development became deliberately blurred in China as part of the KMT-directed and initiated “national defense economy” effort. However, Chinese industry had not yet reach sufficient levels in order to sustain itself, or to be self-reliant. Reardon-Anderson points out that demand for items like synthetic dyes and chemical fertilizers was not yet great enough to merit local production of sulfuric acid. (Reardon-Anderson 1986, 206) However, similar to the growth of academic science in China, this area of chemical industry was also an area that the Chinese were making significant headway, as demonstrated by the ninety-five percent drop in the import of ethanol from 1925-1936 (Ibid., 197) This serves as evidence that by the time wide-scale hostilities broke out with Japan in 1937, an indigenous and modern science industrial base was starting to emerge in China.

I would argue that the KMT was most successful at consolidating ideology and creating the institutions necessary to facilitate economic and industrial growth, but lacked the time and capital to accomplish the goals of sophisticated and ingenious industrial development. As science became more sophisticated and as concerns over Japan grew, the government began to push science towards technonationalistic concerns. The KMT did so by creating such organizations such as the National Defense Planning Commission, which was founded in 1932 after the Kwantung Division of the Japanese Army had seized Manchuria in 1931. The commission was headed by the noted geologist Weng Wen-hao, which was characteristic of the KMT’s predilection for including technical specialists in its planning apparatuses. (Kirby 1984, 78) These organizations, such as the National Economic Council were working towards the common KMT goal of developing a strong China—technonationalism in action. Eventually, these organizations laid out plans to build up such physical plant as steel works and power plants that were to aid in the development of specific industries and public works. (see Kirby 1984, 96) The thought mirrors Japanese planning efforts, in that centralized planning via agendas like the KMT’s Three-Year Plan was perceived as the way to rapid industrial development.

With the Communist Revolution in 1949, the conduit of science and technology shifted to the Soviet Union, who was supposedly united with China by a common commitment to Marxist-Leninist ideology. As with Soviet military contributions to China, Soviet industrial contributions to the Chinese were not as forthcoming. Like the KMT the CCP had hoped that an emphasis on state-directed industrial planning, however, theirs displayed a level of unprecedented control and was not one that was market driven. The Soviets provided this model and provided all the trappings of it, including the model of the Academy of Soviet Sciences. The Soviet scientific system separated research from universities and placed the prerogative on regional research institutes. However, the system was a segregated top-down command research organization that was run by non-informed political leaders that, arguably, squelched genuine scientific innovation. (see Reardon-Anderson, 8-22) This same command approach was applied to the overall economy as well, and, arguably, squelched genuine industrial growth after the First Five Year Plan.

A main component of Samuels’ argument is that a necessary horizontal “protocol,” as exampled by the zaibatsu and the keiretsu, allows for diffusion of information and paves the way for true future innovation. While most of the communist period in China can be thought of as a period of imposed vertical Soviet organizations, counterproductive populist science and general decline (which all lasted until Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in 1978), there are exceptions to the rule. The success of the atomic bomb project illustrates that the Chinese did not simply adhere to the Soviet structures they imported, but instead bypassed the Soviet style system at times, which allowed for innovation. The Soviets were to provide vigorous assistance” to the Chinese by means of providing a nuclear reactor, a cyclotron and fissionable material. (Lewis and Xue, 41 & 48) However, the Sino-Soviet relationship deteriorated as time moved on and tensions between the Chinese and the Soviets grew worse. The Soviets pulled out early on during the bomb project, but they had provided enough materials and schematics so that the Chinese could reverse engineer and innovate the necessary procedures and components to build a bomb. The success of the project stemmed from that fact that it was not run along Soviet lines. The project’s director, Nie Rongzhen, was allowed far greater flexibility within his organization by the central authorities and subsequently allowed Chinese scientists to be a “little bolder” than their Soviet counterparts. (Reardon-Anderson, 45) This mentality of adopting non-Soviet methods proved to be the source of innovation and success in China.

Currently, the Chinese state is facing another round of indigenization and diffusion, however, whereas Japan found itself starting from scratch twice this century, the PRC has the legacy of shedding 50 years of Stalinist state planning. Getting rid of these large and unproductive state industries represents one of the great problems facing the CCP. Also, a large consideration is implementing a rule of law and a legal framework acceptable to Westerns that will entice foreign technology transfers. Efforts are more likely to start at a local level than a national level, as seen by American Good Corporation’s efforts at setting up a canning plant in Dalian. The effort failed due to bureaucratic and logistical complications that are a result of 50 years of communist administration. Larger efforts like producing IBM clone computers in the late-1980s were also hampered by inadequate distribution and lack of demand. However, the recent commitment to the World Trade Organization shows that the dominant clique of China’s leadership wishes to allow for more and more Western investment and subsequent technology transfer, and the picture for industrial and commercial development is still volatile.

Therefore, the CCP has along way to go before a stable internal industrial base that is capable of genuine growth and self-reliance (tenets of the Communist party). Across the Strait of Taiwan though, the success of the KMT regime in Taiwan might also be considered along Samuel’s model. Regardless, on the same ground where Samuel’s model falls short on explaining Japanese cultural and context specific events (like the Korean War, the Mutual Defense Treaty with the U.S.) so does the danger lie that the CCP leadership will adhere to a scientism that is devoid of cultural and social considerations. The 3-note approach and model definitely provides a worthy benchmark and a useful framework to consider Chinese development and which direction it needs to go, but it is only a model at most and we must always remember that models only go so far because they are inherently short-hand for true understanding.