1. Mohamed Hassan is the executive director of TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world in Trieste, Italy. He was a participant at the academy's second general conference, held in Beijing from 14–18 September 1987.
   Email: mhassan@twas.org

Abstract

Two decades ago, Deng Xiaoping welcomed nations to an international meeting in Beijing. Mohamed Hassan recalls how China's leaders set out their plans for the nation to rejoin the world's scientific elite.

The memory is still fresh. On 12 September 1987, I flew into a Beijing airport that comprised a few badly maintained structures, no larger than a small provincial airfield. All around was peeling paint and dim lighting, no signs, no assistance and an anxious wait for luggage.

往事历历在目。1987年9月12日，我飞抵北京机场。那时的北京机场只有几幢年久失修的建筑， 还不如一个普通的省级机场。斑驳的墙壁和昏暗的灯光随处可见，没有任何标志和指示牌，我只能焦急地等待行李。

The drive from the airport was another eye-opener. The road we took was poorly paved. Street lighting was sporadic. A smattering of cars, mainly Japanese-made, had to make room for bicycles, wheelbarrows and the occasional donkey cart. Beijing was a busy, even frenetic place. It was certainly well cared for. But it was impoverished.

从机场出来，一路上更是令我大开眼界。 道路崎岖，街灯依稀。一路上只有少数的日产汽车，还得不停地给自行车、独轮车和偶尔出现的驴车让路。北京繁忙得有些疯狂。It was certainly well cared for. But it was impoverished.

D. PARKINS

The Beijing from the window of my car was the image of China in the West. Yet, over the next five days, the idea of China as a poverty-stricken backwater, unable to harness new ways of learning and ultimately modernity, would be tested and changed forever.

车窗外的北京正是西方眼中的中国。然而，在随后的五天里，认为中国贫穷落后、不可能走上学习并实现现代化道路的想法烟消云散。

As I and the other delegates were about to discover, China's most prominent officials and scientists all agreed that science and technology would be a key element in the country's plans to re-emerge as a global power. As one of my colleagues, MGK Menon, former chief scientific adviser to India's late prime minister Indira Gandhi, recalls today: "the state of science in China was a welcome surprise but largely because so little was known about it."

正如我和其他代表将要发现的那样，中国的主要领导人和科学家一致同意，科学和技术将是这个国家重新崛起为世界强国的进程中的关键因素。我的一位同事，曾经是印度前总理Indira Gandhi首席科学顾问的MGK Menon如今回忆道：“当时中国科学状况的（良好）让世人感到惊讶，但更多的是因为在这之前我们缺少了解。”

Drawn together

I was then starting my career at TWAS, then known as the Third World Academy of Sciences and the brainchild of the Pakistani theoretical physicist Abdus Salam. Salam had lured me to the academy from the University of Khartoum in Sudan, where I was a professor of mathematics, specializing in modelling the formation and the movement of desert dust and sand.

那时我刚刚开始为第三世界科学院的工作。第三世界科学院是在巴基斯坦理论物理学家Abdus Salam的倡议下成立的，在Salam邀请我为科学院工作之前，我还是苏丹喀土穆大学的数学教授，主要模拟沙漠中尘土和沙丘的形成和运动。

Salam knew China well; his contacts were at the highest levels. He also knew that China's leadership wanted both to open up to the West and to have a leading role for the developing nations of the South. So it was no surprise for me to learn that our second general conference would in effect become China's coming-out party — an opportunity for the country to show itself off to the world (both North and South) and a chance for enterprising scientists and policymakers from the developing countries to learn from — and do business with — Beijing.

Salam非常了解中国，他与中国保持着密切的接触。他清楚，中国的领导人不仅愿意对西方开放，更希望成为发展中国家的领头羊。所以，当我了解到我们的第二届院士大会将实质上成为中国的首次登台表演时，我并不感到惊讶。这是中国向世界展示自己的一个机会，也是发展中国家里有进取心的科学家和政府官员向北京学习与合作的机会。

Salam had other reasons for wanting to work with China. He was a candidate for the job of running UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. As a Nobel prize-winning professor at Imperial College London, Salam had little difficulty accessing the levers of power in the Anglophone world. But to secure the UNESCO post he needed the backing of countries elsewhere. Getting a nod from a permanent member of the UN Security Council, such as China, would certainly help.

Salam与中国合作还有另一个原因。他当时正在申请成为联合国教科文组织的负责人。作为诺贝尔奖的获得者和伦敦帝国学院的教授 ，Salam可以不费吹灰之力地获得英语国家的支持。但是为了确保联合国教科文组织的这一职位，他还需要其它国家的支持，而获得来自联合国安理会永久成员之一的中国的首肯，是十分必要的。

China anew

The opening session took place in the Great Hall of the People two days later on 14 September. There were more than 150 participants from 50 countries, joined by an equal number from China. Given that this was a rare example of China putting its science on display, interest from the Western scientific community was high. International organizations represented in Beijing included the then International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), headed by Julia Marton-LaFèvre, the International Foundation for Science (IFS), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Science Council of Japan.

两天之后，也即9月14日，来自50个国家的150名与会人员参加了在人民大会堂举行的开幕式，其中一半的参会人员来自中国。考虑到这是中国展示其科学水平的为数不多的会议，西方科学界表示了极大的关注，来自Julia Marton-LaFèvre领导的国际科学联盟理事会、国际科学基金会、美国科学发展促进会和日本科学理事会等国际组织的代表齐聚北京。

The Chinese Academy of Sciences, an institution that is key to understanding science in modern China, was our host. Whereas, in Western countries, government ministries, research funding bodies and scientists operate (mostly) independently of each other. In China (as in Russia), all three of these functions are rolled into a single state-run and state-funded academy of sciences. The Chinese academy, which was established just two months after the Communist takeover in 1949, had grown substantially in size and impact over the next two decades. However, the assault on intellectuals during the 10-year Cultural Revolution severely put back the academy's work.

作为当代中国科学的主力的中国科学院是我们的主人。虽然在西方国家，政府部门、研究基金和科学家相互独立，但在中国（同样在俄罗斯），这三者的功能被整合到一个国家运作和资助的科学院中。中国科学院在1949年共@产&党执政两个月之后就以成立的，随后二十年里不断扩大，影响力与日俱增。然而，在10年的文化大革命中，对知识分子的攻击几乎使科学院的工作陷于停顿。

The scars of this period had clearly not yet healed for many of the Chinese speakers at the 1987 conference. In his opening address, Zhou Guangzhao, then president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, described the Cultural Revolution as a "disaster" for China. Similarly, Zhao Ziyang, general secretary of the Communist Party, said that bullying and humiliation had characterized the Cultural Revolution.

在1987年的会议上，许多中国发言人在那段历史中留下的创伤还未愈合。时任中国科学院院长的周光召在他的开幕致辞中，称文化大革命是中国的一场“灾难”。同样，时任中国共%产^党总书记的赵$紫#阳称欺凌与耻辱是文化大革命的代名词。

China's leader, Deng Xiaoping, later told Salam that if China did eventually join the ranks of developed nations, it would never forget its history and where it came from: that it would always see itself as a developing country first and foremost. But that said, out of the embers of the Cultural Revolution, it harboured larger ambitions.

中国领导人邓小平后来告诉Salam，如果中国最终成为发达国家的一员，它也将永远不会忘记它的历史和它的根：不论何时，它将首先把自己当作为发展中国家。但是，在文化大革命的灰烬之后，中国雄心勃勃。

Too often, the main message coming out of conferences on science and technology in developing countries was (and still is) one of inadequate salaries, low standards of research and development, poor working conditions and either political apathy or excessive political interference. Beijing 1987 could have been the same. However, our hosts were determined to show that they would not be defined by the past.

在发展中国家召开的科学与技术的会议传达出来的信息常常是——也一直是——工资不足、研究水平低、恶劣的工作条件，以及缺少政策支持或是过多的行政干预。1987年的北京也可能如此。但是，我们的主人决定告诉世界，他们将不会被过去束缚住。

We learnt from the opening talks that, in 1949, China, with a population of nearly 550 million, had just 50,000 people recorded as working in science and technology in some 30 scientific institutes. But by 1985, the country had more than 10 million people working in almost all fields of science and technology, including 300,000 active researchers. The Chinese Academy of Sciences alone had 80,000 scientists working in more than 120 research institutes. The academy system was complemented by a rapidly growing system of higher education consisting of 2 million students in more than 1,000 universities.

在公开的交谈中我们了解到 ，在1949年的中国，5亿5千万人口中只有分布在30个科学研究所的5万人从事科学与技术工作。但是在1985年，这个国家拥有1000万人从事几乎所有领域的科学与技术的研究，这其中有30万活跃的研究者。仅仅是中国科学院，就有8万名科学家在120余个研究所从事研究。与此同时，中国的高等教育事业也蓬勃发展，在1000余所大学中有200万学生。

We also learnt that China's scientists had been busy pushing the envelope in a diverse set of research fields. Among other achievements, they had synthesized bovine insulin, carried out research into low-temperature, high-conducting materials, launched 19 satellites and developed an extensive nationwide remote-sensing system. In agriculture, China had eliminated the wheat-rust fungus and created hybrid rice varieties, allowing improved crop yields. In health care, vaccines had led to significant reductions in the incidence of diseases such as diphtheria, scarlet fever and polio.

我们也了解到，中国的科学家正积极投入到广阔的研究领域中去。在大量的成果中，包括牛胰岛素的合成，超导体的研究，19颗卫星的成功发射和遍布全国的遥感系统。在农业领域，中国消灭了小麦诱菌，培育了可以提高粮食产量的杂交水稻的新品种。在卫生领域， 疫苗的广泛种植使得白喉、猩红热和小儿麻痹症等疾病的医疗负担大为降低。

Listening to the presentations and observing China's scientists, it became clear that this kind of progress was different from that taking place in other Communist countries — especially the Soviet Union. Unlike former Soviet Russia, for example, China had no problems in acknowledging that it would need access to Western science and technology to innovate. At the time of the conference, an estimated 100,000 students from China had studied or worked abroad (mostly in Western countries) and then returned home to help build their nation's infrastructure. This number is now in excess of one million.

通过聆听和观察中国科学家，我们发现，他们所取得的进步与其他共产主义国家不同——特别是苏联。例如，中国在承认他们需要学习西方的科学和技术，以实现创新，而承认这一点在苏联显得尤为困难。在会议期间，大约有10万中国学生完成了在国外的学习和工作（大部分在西方国家），并回到家乡参与他们祖国的建设。这个数字现在超过了100万。

Finally, we learnt that China, which had begun to open the door of scientific exchange with both developed and developing countries, was eager to collaborate with partners in a broad range of fields. To facilitate this, Chinese officials announced that they would be hosting a TWAS–China field office inside the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

最后，我们认识到，刚刚与发达国家唉和发展中国家开启科学交换之门的中国，正积极地在各个领域寻找可以合作地伙伴。为了促进此事，中国官方宣布，他们将在中国科学院设立一个专门负责第三世界科学院与中国关系的办事处。

This was a truly transformational moment. China was telling us that it was no longer alone in science, that it would welcome opportunities to become part of the international scientific community and that it was eager to join with others both to enhance its own capabilities and to help address critical global challenges in both science and society. Biotechnology, materials science, particle physics and space science were about to get a new major partner, and both China and the rest of the world would benefit as a result.

那真是一个变革的时代。中国正告诉世界，它在科学上不再踽踽独行，它将珍视成为国际科学界一部分的合作机会，它将积极与外界合作以提高自身并且帮助解决科学和社会问题中所面临的重大的全球性挑战，而中国和世界将在这一过程中获得双赢。

Back to the future

I returned to China in October 2003 to celebrate TWAS's 20th anniversary. My journey began in Trieste and ended at Beijing's international airport, just as it had 15 years earlier. The opening ceremony, just as before, was held in the Great Hall of the People.

在2003年庆祝第三世界科学院成立20周年之际我再次来到中国。从的里亚斯特来到北京国际机场，一如十五年前。开幕式在人民大会堂举行，一如往昔。

I may have followed the same roads to the same places in Beijing, but so much else had changed. The airport was a gleaming new state-of-the-art facility and one of the biggest and busiest airports in the world. The tree-lined avenues that led from the airport to the city centre were jammed with automobiles and taxis, and framed by sleek apartment houses, office buildings and commercial establishments. Enormous holes in the ground, shadowed by large construction cranes overhead, foretold of larger structures to come, including the venues for the 2008 Olympics.

我或许沿着同样的路到达同样的地方，然而时过境迁，北京发生了巨大的变化。北京机场拥有了焕然一新的先进设备，并且是世界上最大和最繁忙的机场之一。从机场到市中心的道路绿树成荫，车水马龙，崭新的住宅楼、写字楼和商业机构随处可见。大地上遍布地基深坑，大型起重机投下巨大的阴影，预示着大型建筑将拔地而起，其中包括2008年奥运会场馆。

Hu Jintao, China's president, spoke at the opening ceremony in front of 3,000 people. The audience consisted not just of scientists and political leaders from around the world, but also of many young Chinese students who filled the outer reaches of the great hall. Earlier that day, Hu had congratulated China's first astronaut, Yang Liwei, who had just returned home after completing a 21-hour, 14-orbit journey around Earth. The space flight, President Hu observed, constituted "another important step for the Chinese people scaling to the summit of world science and technology".

中国国家主席胡#锦%涛在开幕式上对3000人发表讲话。听众中不仅有来自世界各地的科学家和政治领袖，更有坐在大会堂外围的年轻中国学生。当天早些时候，胡#锦%涛刚刚向完成飞行二十一小时绕地十四周并顺利返回的中国第一位宇航员杨利伟表示祝贺。胡锦涛指出，空间飞行标志着“中国人民向世界科学和技术的高峰迈进的又一重大进展”。

As I listened to President Hu and peered at the audience beyond the podium, I could not help but think that one of the most important first steps in China's rebirth as an international scientific powerhouse took place in the same hall in 1987. The promise of modern science and technology in China that I had first glimpsed 15 years ago had been fulfilled.

当我聆听胡主席讲话，环顾讲坛后的听众时，心潮澎湃，感慨万千，中国成为世界科学强国的重要的第一步就发生在这个宏伟的会堂内。从1987年到此刻，整整15年过去了，我所见证的在中国发展现代科学与技术的诺言已经兑现。