From Gunpowder to the Next Big Bang
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
BEIJING
There is a techie adage that goes like this: In China or Japan the
nail that stands up gets hammered, while in Silicon Valley the nail
that stands up drives a Ferrari and has stock options. Underlying
that adage is a certain American confidence that whatever we lack
in preparing our kids with strong fundamentals in math and science,
we make up for by encouraging our best students to be independent,
creative thinkers.
There is a lot of truth to that. Even the Chinese will tell you
that they've been good at making the next new thing, and copying
the next new thing, but not imagining the next new thing. That may
be about to change. Confident that its best K-12 students will
usually outperform America's in math and science, China is focusing
on how to transform its classrooms so students become more innovative.
"Although we are enjoying a very fast growth of our economy, we own
very little intellectual property," Wu Qidi, China's vice minister
of education, told me. "We are so proud of China's four great
inventions [in the past]: the compass, paper-making, printing and
gunpowder. But in the following centuries we did not keep up that
pace of invention. Those inventions fully prove what the Chinese
people are capable of doing - so why not now? We need to get back
to that nature." Nurturing more "creative thinking and
entrepreneurship are the exact issues we are putting attention to
today." But this bumps head-on against Chinese culture and
politics, which still emphasize conformity.
But for how much longer? Check out Microsoft Research Asia, the
research center Bill Gates set up in Beijing to draw on Chinese
brainpower. In 1998, Microsoft gave IQ tests to some 2,000 top
Chinese engineers and scientists and hired 20. Today it has 200
full-time Chinese researchers. Harry Shum, a Carnegie Mellon-
trained computer engineer who runs the lab, has a very clear view
of what Chinese innovators can do, given the right environment. The
Siggraph convention is the premier global conference for computer
graphics and interactive technologies. At Siggraph 2005, 98 papers
were published from research institutes all over the world.
Nine of them - almost 10 percent - came from Microsoft's Chinese
research center, beating out M.I.T. and Stanford. Dr. Shum said:
"In 1999 we had one paper published. In 2000, we had one. In 2001,
we had two. In 2002, we had four. In 2003 we had three. In 2004, we
had five, and this year we are very lucky to have nine." Do you see
a pattern?
In addition, Microsoft Beijing has contributed more than 100 new
technologies for current Microsoft products - from the Xbox to
Windows. That's a huge leap in seven years, although, outside the
hothouses like Microsoft, China still has a way to go.
Dr. Shum said: "A Chinese journalist once asked me, 'Harry, tell me
honestly, what is the difference between China and the U.S.? How
far is China behind?' I joked, 'Well, you know, the difference
between China high-tech and American high-tech is only three months
- if you don't count creativity.' When I was a student in China 20
years ago, we didn't even know what was happening in the U.S. Now,
anytime an M.I.T. guy puts up something on the Internet, students
in China can absorb it in three months.
"But could someone here create it? That is a whole other issue. I
learned mostly about how to do research right at Carnegie
Mellon. ... Before you create anything new, you need to understand
what is already there. Once you have this foundation, being
creative can be trainable. China is building that foundation. So
very soon, in 10 or 20 years, you will see a flood of top-quality
research papers from China."
Once more original ideas emerge, though, China will need more
venture capital and the rule of law to get them to market. "Some
aspects of Chinese culture did not encourage independent thinking,"
Dr. Shum said. "But with venture capital coming into this country,
it will definitely inspire a new generation of Chinese
entrepreneurs. I will be teaching a class at Tsinghua University
next year on how to do technology-based ventures. ... You have
technology in Chinese universities, but people don't know what to
do with it - how to marketize it."
A few of his young Chinese inventors demonstrated their new
products for me. I noticed that several of them had little granite
trophies lined up on their shelves. I asked one of them, who had
seven or eight blocks on her shelf, "What are those?" She said the
researchers got them from Microsoft every time they invented
something that got patented.
How do you say "Ferrari" in Chinese?