China is pursuing a more focused, centralised science and technology funding strategy, with implications for foreign scientists
Xi Jinping President of the People's Republic of China speaks at a United Nations Office in Geneva. UN Photo / Jean-Marc Ferré / Flickr
Over the past year, China’s President Xi Jinping has increasingly peppered his speeches with references to “new productive forces”.
Even by the opaque standards of rhetoric used by the Chinese Communist Party, the term sounds bland enough to make all but the most hardened China watchers glaze over.
But it’s actually part of a significant shift in China’s science and technology strategy, one that foreign research collaborators with the country need to know about, say observers.
“It’s the beginning of more centralisation in funding, and more narrowly directed innovation and R&D support,” said Nis Grünberg, an expert on Chinese…
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