Hybrid rice, cloned monkeys and mythical dragons
为庆祝新中国成立70周年，中国日报精心准备了一份24版专刊，为祖国母亲献礼祝福。这24个版面，从各个维度、细节回顾新中国走过的70年辉煌历程，展现中国人自己的故事。
CD君已从专刊中选出多篇优秀报道，从今天起与大家分享。连续八天精彩不断，记得关注我们的推送哦。
▲ Left to right:
Top: Andrew Yao Chi-Chih, Tu Youyou, Yang Chen-Ning；
Middle: Yuan Longping, Li Fanghua, Yao Tandong；
Bottom: Pan Jianwei, Chen Hualan, Zhang Miman.
During a general assembly of China's top scientists and engineers last year, President Xi Jinping said "historic, holistic and structural" changes had taken place in the science and technology sector in recent years.
Many innovations had allowed China to catch up with other scientific powerhouses or even lead in certain frontier fields, Xi said.
China is among the world research leaders in chemistry, materials science and physics and has built major scientific instruments such as the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility and the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak, he said.
Some notable Chinese scientific and technological achievements highlighted by Xi included hybrid rice, the cloning of a macaque monkey using somatic cells, quantum information technologies, supercomputing, deep-sea and deep-Earth exploration, high-speed rail, and research in vaccine production and disease prevention and control.
As innovation is the driving force of development, Xi said efforts must be made to ensure high-quality science and technology to underpin the development of a modern economy.
"Practice repeatedly tells us key core technology cannot be demanded, bought or begged," he said. "Only by firmly grasping key core technology in our hands can we fundamentally guarantee national economic security, national defense and other security."
One of the prime examples of achievement is hybrid rice. Almost half a century has passed since agricultural scientist Yuan Longping developed the first strain in 1970, and by the end of last year farmers in more than 40 countries had planted more than 7 million hectares of the crop.
In 2010, Jiaolong, China's first manned deep-sea research submersible — named after a mythical dragon — entered service, making China the fifth country in the world to have deep-sea exploration technology after the United States, France, Russia and Japan. Chinese designers started working on the project in 2002.
In January this year, Chinese scientists announced the cloning of five monkeys from a gene-edited macaque with circadian rhythm disorders. It was the first time multiple monkeys had been cloned from a gene-edited monkey for biomedical research. The cloned monkeys were born at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai.
Bai Chunli, the academy's president, said the idea of obtaining core technologies and improving China's innovative capacity has been one of the key missions for the academy, which is also celebrating its 70th anniversary this year.
The academy has become a national pillar in science and technology, with more than 100 institutions and nearly 70,000 personnel, a significant increase from the 17 institutions and around 1,000 staff members at the time of its founding in 1949.
Bai said the keys to China's rising scientific prowess include the nation's ability to implement joint efforts and use limited resources to tackle major challenges, and utilizing the advantages of interdisciplinary subjects and "big science" instruments to produce groundbreaking original work.
"New China's scientific foundation was very weak in its early days," he said, adding there were only around 30 research institutions and fewer than 50,000 science workers in the entire nation.
Minister of Science and Technology Wang Zhigang said: "Our nation has a rare historical opportunity to catch up or even surpass other countries in science and technology, while we also face the monumental challenge of being left behind.
"Only through fully enhancing our innovation capability and achieving leapfrog development in key science and technology fields can we obtain strategic initiative in the next generation of global competition."
Wang said the external geopolitical climate has changed dramatically in recent years, as trade and innovation frictions between China and the United States become increasingly intense and complex.
These factors will add many uncertainties to China's socioeconomic development, but the pressure can motivate the country to upgrade its technologies, products and industries, he said.
Xu Guanhua, a former minister of science and technology, said China still faces three major obstacles to becoming a science and technology powerhouse: a lack of world-class science talent; lackluster market services to assist innovation efforts; and a lack of confidence to tackle difficult projects.
"A top talent can often decide the ability of a research team or even an entire institution," Xu said, adding that world-class talent and the ability to make original breakthroughs are essential for China to catch up with developed countries.
In addition, scientific exploration and market needs both involve great uncertainties that require the market mechanism to play a role in allocating social and human capital, Xu said. For example, China lacks reliable, high-quality appraisal institutions to assess technology companies, so a lot of social resources are being invested ineffectively.
Insufficient protection of intellectual property rights and a weak innovation service industry also hinder small and medium-sized companies' ability to create innovative products and services, he said. "The innovation service industry is a highly professionalized sector that takes a long time to mature, and it cannot succeed without government policy support," Xu said.
Dou Xiankang, president of Wuhan University, said China was still lacking in some key technological fields such as microchip and engine manufacturing, which could hamper the nation's socioeconomic development.
"To overcome these obstacles, the first thing is to attract and build a team of young, high-quality talented people," he said.
"The second is to increase investment in human capital, as well as more government support. Solving these bottleneck issues will require patience and time, but I am sure we will have fewer such issues in the future."
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