Musings from Beijing

Academician Chen Liquan at 85 – Dreamer of Electric China

My walk path 

Greetings from Beijing! My fifth visit to China and this time I am spending more time here. It is the Chinese Academy of Sciences PIFI (President’s International Fellowship Initiative) Fellowship that is supporting me in developing research and research collaborations. I sense the position of the Chinese Academy of Science when walking into China as the airport immigration had a special lane for those men and women of sciences – Academicians in China. 

CAS has a long history starting on 1 November 1949. It is the world’s largest research organisation. In China with Science and Technology as the base platform for growth and competitiveness, CAS is an important national institution.  

I am based in the Haidian District of Beijing which is one of 16 districts but this is the second most contributing district to the Chinese economy – over a trillion RMB. However, it was the first district in China to do so in 2023. Today, the No. 1 prefecture is the Padong district in the Shanghai area. The Haidian is home to Zhongguancun – China’s Silicon Valley. I walked down at Innoway in that zone and the vibrancy was unbelievable. I was told that if you throw a stone and hit three one would be a Professor, the other a Doctor, and the third a worker! Full of universities and research institutes, science and tech is felt in the air. To give some numbers there are 83 universities and about 183 research institutes packed into this district.  

There was a time when tweets haunted Beijing showcasing its worsening air pollution. Now it is almost always a blue sky unless nature decides to do otherwise with rain, hail or a sandstorm. EVs dominate the transport system with the occasional hydrogen bus seen too releasing water as its exhaust! I walk past the CAS Institute for Semiconductors in my walkabouts. I am quite conscious of the chip war that is currently going on. There are three science cities and one hi-tech area in Beijing and these are home to state-of-the-art equipment and systems.  Something ubiquitous here in China is the QR code! The smallest place of trade displays a QR code and society is virtually cashless – point-scan-pay-proceed and that is true even to the toilet! I am sure that many would be utterly lost without their mobile. I wonder with such a level of digitisation connectivity has to be pretty reliable and so far, that has been exactly my experience. I think that the technology based on the mother tongue has made all the difference. As a foreigner, Artificial Intelligence has stepped in to ensure that I only face minimal difficulties as conversations are carried across the screen of a mobile phone with the language seamlessly getting translated – well almost! I am sure each word and tonality that I use provides nonstop learning material. The phone is also my financial planner and free analytics are available. Of course, I too am completely transparent to the system at large. Today China of course has added a great firewall to its great wall, precisely in controlling this aspect. This is of course one issue for us as visitors. 

Good connection between university, industry, and state

One aspect I have felt is that there is a good connection between university, industry, and state. Of course, here the State is quite clear on what should be done and when. That aspect is perhaps laser-sharp. The observation of how conversations are initiated when you get to hear that a different nationality has appeared on the scene. I perhaps heard more about Sri Lanka quite quickly which I may have never if I am back there. One particular line that went deep into my mind was the comment that you should get your young children to think more about the country like we do here. 

More curious to know why I found that he is giving leadership to several projects in Sri Lanka while staying in the heart of Colombo and said that most of his senior employees appear to be spending a considerable amount of time planning to depart from Sri Lanka. He almost indicated that he cannot fathom why one wants to leave such a beautiful country! 

This also reminds me of the comment of an editor of the Global Innovation Report upon coming to the island for the first time asked me after reading a Sunday English newspaper why I have so many advertisements to study abroad. I know if you take perhaps the most widely read Sunday paper in Sri Lanka, you have more pages in the education section than the business section! My silent thought to myself was Do we know what we are doing?! Or Do we care?! Precisely the point that my Chinese friend was indicating.

On invitation I visited an industry – Origin Water – who is a giant in the water field. It leads in membrane processing of water and wastewater. Beijing uses reclaimed water for cleaning and in the city eco-system. The technology has evolved from an in-house R&D unit which now supports a production facility. The company runs wastewater treatment for Beijing city and it is remarkable technology at play when one observes how tons of wastewater and sewage are turned into reusable clear water. To put Beijing into some perspective the city has almost the population of Sri Lanka – approx. 22 million and the area of the city is 25% of Sri Lanka. Water is a scarce commodity and there is great emphasis on recycling and reuse. 

R&D has turned into commercialisation and entrepreneurism meant BOO management of utilities. Today the company is also part of the Chinese Space Mission. Origin has really moved on. I believe this is just one story of so many. Otherwise, this transformation that one sees on the ground cannot happen. The work ethos is set to deliver and the old and the young are equally at play. There is also quite a strong movement to attract foreign talent with complete facilitation. 

Three pillars

Beijing has three pillars well knitted – innovation, education, and entrepreneurship. I noted with interest the visa schemes – R-visa is talent visa – that are in operation which specifically states about high talent! Only a limited footwork is necessary as QR codes take you from start to finish! The position that Beijing finds itself in today is a result of all these far-sighted investments and actions. Definitely, economic testimony to the efforts put in is present. Beijing has held the top spot in the Nature Index – Science Cities (up to 2023 – 7 times in a row!). Beijing led the global innovation cities with the highest number of highly cited researchers (Clarivate Analytics). While China ranks second to the USA in terms of Unicorn companies Beijing contributes with the most unicorns to the China position – 114 in 2023. 

China today prides itself on the position its science and technology is occupying on the global stage. DNA of this nation most certainly has inventions that transformed the world – compass, paper making, printing, and gunpowder. The China section in the Beijing Science and Technology Museum/Centre showcase these contributions and instil pride in the young generation that visits the site every day. Today the national consensus in China is science and technology are the primary productive forces.

To us as visitors CAS has a publication Explore China. It is full of interesting facts one in particular is that it is a country with a temperature difference of over 100C! In its final chapter CAS is predicting more from science – that in the future China Science will bring about a more beautiful life. In a publication on exploration, science has been given a standalone chapter. Undoubtedly CAS is proud of their contributions and wants the world to see those. Science and Technology indeed have transformed China. Some of the negative environmental outcomes have been managed well. The leadership is now articulating an even closer relationship to nature with growth – an ecological civilisation. Most certainly an enlightened pathway. 

Electric China

My host CAS Institute RCEES – Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences celebrated 50 years of research and outreach on 18 May. Listening to the academician Yu Gang who reported on the air pollution in Beijing to its current situation had a strong message to the young researchers who were present in numbers to celebrate the day – If China wants to do something it can do it! CAS Scientists have changed the course of China. The dream of Electric China materialised due to CAS. Not only Chen Liquan and team (pursued the dream of Electric China) developed the lab processes but also enabled the world’s largest EV battery factory to materialise in China. All of them are conscious of the value of their work in building a stronger China. The work ethos of the community – young and old is something to emulate.

I have a daily 15 mins of a quiet walk to the institute. Other side of the road is an entry to the Tsinghua University – considers to be the China’s MIT! It is unbelievable to think that this nation at one time was the world’s most populace and still the second. The orderly, disciplined movements and streets do not communicate this. I suppose it is the poverty that accentuates the ill effects of population density. Elevate the economy and more quality spaces appear. China today is another example of a miracle in 30 years where the central role for the transformation had been science and technology with an unwavering growth mindset. For a few days in China, I have the opportunity of absorbing the good and what had gone well in China – Woo-Yew-Kwo (The Land without sorrow! – Definitely energy is in the air!).