Adviser maps out strategy to beat West’s tech blockade

To break free from the West’s “tech stranglehold”, China needs to reform its assessment of talent, bolster synergies between industry, academia and research, and nurture a fertile ground for innovation, a national political adviser said.

Liu Zhongfan, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, emphasized the need for innovation in evaluation metrics, arguing that merely tallying the number of published articles or awards won is insufficient.

“Relying solely on quantitative data will absolutely fail to identify the best talent,” he said.

Liu cited his own field of research, graphene, as an example. Statistically, China appears to be far ahead, with approximately 91,900 graphene patent applications, accounting for 72.2 percent of the global total — 10 times more than the United States, which ranks second.

However, he questioned the actual amount of innovation represented by the domestic numbers.

“This is a microcosm of China’s high-tech industries and is not limited to graphene alone,” he said.

The blind pursuit of efficiency and quantity, where everyone rushes in, only leads to significant dispersion and waste of resources, which does not help in addressing the “choke point” challenges faced by the high-tech industry, he added.

Liu said that is where basic research comes into play. He said fundamental research should be guided by interest and curiosity, embracing free exploration that cannot initially define its utility or guaranteed outcomes, and was not something that can be planned.

Such free exploration was how revolutionary concepts like relativity and quantum mechanics came to be.

However, Liu said he had recently observed a worrying trend, with an excessive emphasis on major research programs, key projects and talent initiatives increasingly squeezing out funding for free exploration.

“While it might not be necessary to say that basic research should be bolstered, at the very least a certain proportion of resources should be reserved for such endeavors,” he said.

To achieve technological breakthroughs, it is also essential to enhance collaboration between research and development institutions and enterprises to advance the commercialization of R&D outcomes, Liu said, adding that insufficient collaboration remained a weakness.

“Enterprises are the main drivers of innovation,” Liu said.

He said the easing of technological “bottlenecks” ultimately hinges on enterprises, which means the solution is the creation of a fair and competitive market environment that allows more enterprises to grow and thrive.

In response to the United States’ technological suppression, China should more actively engage in international exchanges and cooperation, Liu said.

“As long as we have something superior, they will be willing to collaborate with us,” he said.

“We should adopt a more liberal, bolder and open-minded approach to reaching out globally.”