Posted on 06/26/2005 9:28:11 PM PDT by BringBackMyHUAC
China's nanotech revolution Alexandr Nemets 8/23/2004
Prior to 2000, the Chinese media made practically no mention of the concept of "nanotechnology" (nami jishu) or its potential for revolutionizing China's high tech industry. Today, however, dozens of major Chinese research centers and hundreds of enterprises engage in the production of nanotechnologies, which has quickly become a multibillion-Yuan industry. Concentrated in China's major economic centers such as Beijing, Shenyang, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Hong Kong, these urban hubs account for some 90 percent of all nanotech Research and Development.
The rapid development of China's nanotech industry is due in large part to the intervention of the central government. Apparently added to a list of priority technologies at the end of the 1990s, nanotech has enjoyed state funding since then through National 863 Hi-Tech R&D Plan. The plan provided huge investments for nanotech projects from both the central and local governments. It seems that the Chinese leadership had plans to transform their nanotech industry by 2010 – with the hope of making it comparable to China's microelectronics, telecom, and other high-tech industries.
Remarkably, developments within the industry have been both civilian and military in purpose, though the latter has, of course, enjoyed a higher degree of priority. Strategists within China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) understand perfectly well the significance of nanotechnologies in military reforms within the United States over the last twelve years. With this in mind, China has actively cooperated with leading nanotech companies in the United States and Europe. It seems reasonable to assume, also, that such cooperation is well underway with the Russian Federation.
Major Nanotech Complexes
In July 2001, Shanghai Nanotech Promotion Center (SNPC) was established to focus on R&D and the industrialization of tools needed for nanotech research. (Shanghai had already started work on a $217 million Stone Nanotechnology Port in May of that year.) [1] Also in July, the Shanghai city government announced that it would soon open a nanotech base, uniting three, state-level research centers, several laboratories focusing on nano-materials, and eleven additional companies specializing in the commercialization of R&D products.
The first phase of construction, near East China Science and Technology (S&T) University, was finished within the month, and 76,000 square meters immediately became available for nanotech firms. Plans had been made for an additional 200,000 square meter facility at the same location, but in August, the Shanghai Municipal S&T Commission announced the city would concentrate its resources to focus on research and industrialization over the next four years (2001 to 2005). The intent of the project was to dramatically improve China's nanotech R&D and commercialization, particularly in nano-materials, nano-electronic components and nano-biological/medical technologies. The Shanghai S&T Commission stated that it would also set up a nanotech incubator program. At that time (July 2001), there were already twenty institutions engaged in nanotech development in Shanghai. [2]
Less than a year later, in May 2002, the Shanghai S&T Commission announced its intent to provide further investment opportunities and preferential treatment to nanotech-related companies. Zhu Jiping, Director of the Commission, was quoted as saying: "In 2001, Shanghai government invested 30 million Yuan in nanotech – nano-biology, nano-medicine and nano-electronics; this laid solid foundation for nano-sector. We are now pushing nanotech development to 2nd stage – nanotech products industrialization. Shanghai's government will accelerate the application of nanotech in different industries, especially automotive products."
This push to accelerate Shanghai's nanotech production was echoed by Shanghai Nanotech Promotion Center's (SNPC) new director Niu Xiaoming: "At this second stage, SNPC will help companies in the nano-sector to improve their advanced technologies. SNPC strives to establish an information network linking all professionals in the sector. Currently six nanotech R&D centers – built in such leading Shanghai universities as Jiaotong University, Fudan University, East China University, East China Normal University, Shanghai University and East China S&T University – are exchanging their latest nanotech results through this network." [3] By mid-2002, Shanghai had developed an extensive nanotech infrastructure, which led to the rapid development of nanotechnologies throughout 2003 and 2004.
At the same time as Shanghai was experiencing its nanotech boom, Beijing was also investing heavily in this new industry. The Center for Nanotechnologies at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing opened in 2000. Uniting over a dozen CAS institutes and several university laboratories, the aim of the center was to upgrade scientific cooperation while accelerating nanotech industrial development in Beijing. Just one year later, in December 2001, Beijing's Tsinghua University announced a new approach to the production of carbon nano-tubes at a rate of 15 kilograms per hour, 60 times faster than the speed at which they had originally been produced. [4]
In November 2002, CAS launched a joint project with the U.S. company, Veeco Instruments Inc. The CAS Institute of Chemistry and Veeco agreed to cooperate in the running of a nanometer technology center aimed at providing access to Veeco-made nanotech instruments to Chinese researchers, including atomic force and scanning-tunneling microscopes. The center would also provide the Institute of Chemistry's molecular nanotech R&D division with "super-advanced" measuring and controlling devices. The Institute's chief researcher, Chen Wang, has worked closely with CAS vice president Bai Chunli to ensure support for his work on molecular nanotechnologies.
The partnership between CAS and Veeco came amidst great optimism regarding China's nanotech potential. "China will gain the leadership position in nanotech," remarked Veeco President Don Kania at the opening ceremony. This bold statement of confidence in Chinese nanotech superiority was affirmed by Bai Chunli, CAS vice-president and chief scientist of the National Coordinating Committee for Nanotech, who stated simply: "China enjoys the advantage in research of nanometer materials." By the time the center opened, China had more than 300 enterprises in the nanotech sector, with some 7,000 scientists engaged in nanotech R&D.
The CAS-Veeco center was just one part of China's plan to establish a national nanotech infrastructure. At the end of March 2003, CAS, Peking University and Tsinghua University announced a joint National Center for the nation's long-term nanotech development. Approved by the State Council, the Center will enjoy an early-stage state investment of 250 million Yuan ($30 million). The Central government has budgeted two billion Yuan (about $240 million) for nanotech projects between 2003 and 2007; another 2 to 3 billion Yuan is due from local governments. [5]
This heightened investment in nanotech has not been limited to Beijing, however. At the end of June 2001, CAS and China's Ministry of Science and Technology unveiled the Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science (SYNL). The newly established laboratory is expected to compete with its counterparts in the United States, Japan and Germany. [6] And, in November 2003, a Nanotech Park was established in Xian. Hong Kong has also developed a large complex of nanotech industries, while Zhejiang University in Hangzhou became the center of nanotech R&D and industrialization in the prosperous Zhejiang province.
At the present time, some thirty institutions are engaged in basic nanotech research. These include CAS Physical Institute, CAS Chemical Institute, CAS Solid Physics Institute (Hefei), Tsinghua University (Beijing), Beijing University, Hangzhou University, Nanjing University, and several universities in Shanghai. In addition, Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen have each created their own Nanotech Centers, uniting local R&D structures. In terms of basic nanotech R&D, China has reached the most advanced levels in the world, rivaling even the capacities of the United States.
Dr. Alexandr Nemets is a specialist in PLA development and Sino-Russian relations. He is the author of several books and articles on a wide variety of topics relating to China.
Notes: 1. Asiaport Daily News (www.smalltimes.com), Shanghai, July 19, 2001 2. Xinhua Agency, Shanghai, Aug. 7, 2001 3. China Daily, Beijing, May 13 2002, p.3 4. (Asiaport Daily News (www.smalltimes.com) HK, Dec 17, 2001 5. Renmin Ribao, November 21 2002 6. Renmin Ribao, June 29 2001
Using the government to prohibit trade isn't extending commercial relations, it's restricting them. You think because the Chinese government hobbles the choices of their consumers that the U.S. should emulate them. You do not address the effect of government restricting U.S. consumer choices on the standard of living of those consumers at all.
I still believe in trade and commerce.
You believe in government managed trade. Your adulation of Hamilton (and government managing trade) exposes you as a statist. You assume that the Chinese communists have a superior grasp of production and resource allocation, and further assume that their decision to provide consumers with subsidized goods is a harm to those consumers.
I would be prohibiting (i.e., countering) their advantage obtained from their manipulations.
What you would counter is the advantage conferred upon American consumers with an advantage conferred to whatever businesses feted Capitol Hill from K street..
You clearly haven't studied Alexander Hamilton, or your disdain would have long ago vanished. He was a true Revolutionary War hero.
He was a 'revolutionary' who wanted to replace the British King with an American one. He was a monarchist at heart, and mercantilist in thought. He lobbied for a central bank and encouraged the American government's indebtedness. I know plenty about him to not care for him. I prefer Henry and Jefferson to the Hamiltonians.
And the guilt trip about usurpation you try to lay on him is really not one that would have been anticipated in 1796. The Communist Party and its covert tentacles dedicated to the very usurpations you allude to (from the Bill of Rights, etc) was not yet in being...or even conceivable then.
The usurpations were certainly conceived of, the Federalist Papers exist as an effort to refute those concerns. The fact remains if the Hamiltonian quest for a stronger federal government resulted in the usurpations he dismissed. The Jeffersonians were correct.
If that were so, then they would abolish their communist system. They don't and won't. And if they were serious about "relatively stable reserves" then they wouldn't park them in the U.S. currency...which they know their parasitic trade flows has seriously weakened. Nor would they also, if so financially constrained, be able to be simultaneously deploying 800 IRBMs across the Strait of Taiwan this last decade. Nor deploying the new Yuan class attack sub. Or the DF-31 ICBM, or the JL-2 SLBM.
Their banking system is a horrendous mess though, another reason I'm not worried about the U.S. falling prey to the dragon.
Their banking system is a front operation for the Party. Of course its a mess. They funnel the country's net profits through the banks to shore up their municipal and state industries. They periodically kick in $120 billion or so to keep the edifice going. Looks like they are going to do the same thing with their "stock market" as well. But it means nothing, because they will have the lion's share of the world's industries located in their grasp when the balloon goes up.
The charges against him being a monarchist was a base canard often leveled by his enemies in the court room, and in politics. I don't think you know him quite as well as you assume. Perhaps later I will explore that further.
But I was intrigued by your fastening upon two of the other Founders, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson. And indeed they are worthy of our respect, but you should note that Jefferson was one of the intemperates who disparaged wrongly Hamilton. Nonetheless, you should be aware that Jefferson was not the blind free trader you assume either:
"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."
--Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814. ME 14:119
"The prohibiting duties we lay on all articles of foreign manufacture which prudence requires us to establish at home, with the patriotic determination of every good citizen to use no foreign article which can be made within ourselves without regard to difference of price, secures us against a relapse into foreign dependency."
--Thomas Jefferson to Jean Baptiste Say, 1815.
Before you disparage Hamilton's mercantilism...you better take a gander at this modern sample of the best and brightest of economists on the Chinese side of the fence:
"Kicking Away the Ladder", by Ha-Joon Chang, Cambridge University.
He basically would appear to conclude that Hamilton is right for someone seeking to become an advanced and dominant nation.
Clearly they are climbing the ladder now that we kindly...and selflessly... put in place all for their benefit...manifestly against our own national interest...and once at the top...you can see the wheels spinning in their communist heads.
They plan to push us off the throne, so to speak, and somehow kick the ladder away themselves so that WE can't climb back up to where we used to be.
I.e., no mercy or foolishness to let us recover once our utopionists realize that they have been been mugged, and lose a bit of their liberal dementia.
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