The period since the 1980s has been a golden period for science and technology in China. Since 1981, China has scored more than 522,000 major achievements in science and technology, of which nearly 20 percent have reached the international advanced level.
In line with worldwide trends, China has transferred scientific and technological findings into actual productivity, and with great success. Within the short run of the past 10 years, China's new- and high-tech industry has developed into an important stimulus to national economic growth. Compared with a decade ago, the industrial value of the nation's new- and high-tech industry has increased from 300 billion to 1,800 billion yuan, with a yearly average growth of more than 20 percent, some 10 percentage points higher than the yearly average increase of the country's whole industries in the corresponding period. In the composition of the national economy, new- and high-tech industry has accounted for 15 percent from 1 percent 10 years ago.
According to the statistics of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the China Research Institute of Science and Technology Information, in 2001 the number of scientific and technological papers published internationally by Chinese scientific and technological personnel ranked sixth in the world. Papers that have been published internationally and included by the three influential index-searching systems, the SCI (Science Citation Index), EI (Engineering Index), and ISTP (Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings), increased by 29.9 percent over the previous year, 24.7 percentage points higher than the increase of the world's total scientific papers. They accounted for 4.4 percent of the world's total scientific papers, increasing by 0.8 percentage point over the previous year.
With scientific and technological breakthroughs being made one after another, applications for patents also have increased year by year. By the end of 2002, the applications for patents in the country had reached the accumulative total of 1.66 million, of which, more than 253,000 applications were made in 2002, an increase of 24.1 percent over 2001.
The Law of the People's Republic of China for Progress in Science and Technology issued in July 1993 is the basic law directing the development of China's science and technology. It stipulates the objectives, functions, sources of funds and system of rewards for the scientific and technological development. In 1995 the Chinese government further put forward the strategic plan of "rejuvenating the country by relying on science and education," a plan that also propelled the development of science and technology. Beginning from 2002, the state's strategy for scientific and technological development shifted from follow-up and simulation to self-reliance, innovation and realization of technological breakthroughs. According to a state plan, by 2010, an initial state system of innovation suited to the socialist market economic system and corresponding to the laws of scientific and technological development will have been established, and the R&D funds in the whole society will account for 2 percent of the GDP. Meanwhile, the basic construction of science and technology, innovation system and culture will have produced marked effects. The construction of the state's key scientific research bases will have reached the world's advanced level, and a big leap forward in the innovative ability of the key fields been realized. By 2020, the national innovation system will have been improved to be comparatively perfect, the R & D funds in the whole society will account for 3 percent of the GDP, and the state's scientific and technological competitiveness will have been in the front row of the world.
