In Beijing in April 2002, the 10th meeting of the China-US Joint Commission on Science and Technology Cooperation -- co-chaired by Xu Guanhua, Chinese minister of science and technology, and John H. Marburger, assistant to the president of the United States and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy of the US — found both countries encouraging the growth of non-governmental and quasi-governmental cooperation in science and technology at all levels.
In the past 20 years, almost one-fourth of all Chinese sent overseas for study or research by the Chinese Academy of Sciences were sent to the United States. Among the some 10,000 Chinese Academy of Sciences personnel who have studied or worked in the United States are key leaders of the Academy and of its attached branches including Bai Chunli, Hong Guofan, Ma Zhimin and other highly respected scientists. In the past 10 years, cooperation between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and US science and research institutes or universities has included numerous projects. The Physics Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences set up a quantum physics research lab with the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory; the Institute of Computing Technology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Texas State Agriculture University established a united laboratory on modern communication technology; and the publication work for the English version of the Chinese Plants chaired by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Missouri Botanical Garden, and co-edited by many botanists from many counties or institutes, is underway. Some of the achievements of Sino-US scientific and technological cooperation: A remote satellite ground station by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing electron-positron collision project, China digital earthquake network, the discovery of a hitherto unknown spiral-shaped galaxy, substitute technological research for home-use fluorine refrigerators and the production of super energy-saving refrigerators without fluorine, the framework for nuclear safety supervision management regulation and its management methods, and a trial factory for electricity generation via circulation of gas. Chinese-American Nobel Prize winners Tsung-Dao Lee, Chen Ning Yang and Samuel C.C. Ting often hold international academic-exchange seminars and lead research cooperation between the two countries.
