The stunning new “silk road” of Chinese development will be largely based on domestic innovations and rapid developments in Beijing’s prowess for utilising cutting-edge scientific and technological breakthroughs.

China wants to achieve scientific development through its own research efforts rather than take the overseas technology transfer route it has always followed.

“Innovation is the soul of a nation’s advancement and the everlasting driving power of national prosperity for China,” says Zeng Peiyan, vice-premier and the man credited to be in the drivers seat steering the current success story of China.

“There is a tight linkage between national development and the growth of science and technology in the country,” said Peiyan, speaking at the opening of the World Economic Forum’s China Business Summit. He said by 2010 the per capita GDP of China will double compared to what it was in 2000. The Chinese government plans to continue investing heavily in science with the aim of helping it “leapfrog forward on the technological front”.

Coming just days after India’s Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal inked a new Science and Technology Co-operation Agreement with China, this grand science plan could offer new opportunities for both countries, especially since a new Sino-Indian Science Declaration is planned during President Hu Jintao’s proposed November visit to New Delhi.

In a way Sibal echoed the Chinese views. At the ongoing WEF, he expressed happiness at the way the Chinese government embraced science by making public a clear roadmap for investments it wants to make in science till the year 2020.

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