In an interview with the media in Los Angeles, Chen Ning Yang, a famous physicist of Chinese origin, Nobel Prize winner pointed out that China, having taken science and technology as its strategic plan for state development, will enable it to have more first-rate scientists and professional talents in the 21st century.
When answering the question why no scientist in China's mainland has ever won the Nobel Prize while many overseas Chinese have carried away the laurels, he said that China needs four conditions to have its first-rate scientists doing first-rate scientific researches. Firstly, China needs talented people; secondly, a good tradition; thirdly, the determination and fourthly, the financial resources. China has so far obtained the previous three, yet is short of the fourth. The annual salary a professor earns in China is only US$2,000 at present. If this can come up to US$ 20,000, it would help ease these overseas professors' worries back at home, and China is sure to have more excellent scientists.
Yang said that there is a great wealth of talents in China and China's strategy for revitalizing the nation by science and technology also indicates that it has attached great importance to the cultivation of talents. The Chinese government has taken ten key universities under its wing for development with its investment in them doubled, but he discovered that unlike American scientists who can concentrate on researches without worries behind, many Chinese professors have to worry about their household work, housing and children. Yang said that if the salary for professors can be increased by 10 folds there will be no worries for them and they'll be able to engage in scientific researches in a more energetic way, and China will by then have more scientists to win the Nobel Prize.
(People's Daily 11/29/2000)
