How China built technology skills: Chemistry classes and research labs
By Keith Bradsher
China’s dominance in electric cars, which threatens to spark a trade war, began decades ago in university labs in Texas, when researchers discovered how to make batteries using minerals that were abundant and cheap.
Companies in China have recently built on those early discoveries and figured out how to make the batteries hold a strong charge and last for more than a decade of daily charging. They produce large numbers of these batteries cheaply and reliably, and produce most of the world’s electric cars and many other clean energy systems.
Batteries are just one example of how China is catching up to — or outpacing — advanced industrial democracies in its technological and manufacturing sophistication. The country is making breakthroughs in a long list of sectors, from pharmaceuticals to drones to high-efficiency solar panels.
Beijing’s challenge to the technological leadership the United States has held since World War II is reflected in China’s classrooms and corporate budgets, as well as in the directives from the highest echelons of the Communist Party.
A significantly higher proportion of Chinese students major in science, mathematics and engineering than students in other major countries, and that share continues to rise even as total higher education enrollments have increased more than tenfold since 2000.
Spending on research and development has soared, tripling in the past decade and now ranking China second only to the United States. Researchers in China lead the world in publishing highly cited papers in 52 of 64 key technologies, according to recent calculations by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
Last month, Chinese leaders pledged to take the country’s research efforts to the next level.
A once-a-decade meeting of the Chinese Communist Party leadership selected scientific training and education as one of the country’s top economic priorities. That goal received more attention in the meeting’s final resolution than any other policy except strengthening the party itself.
China will make “extraordinary arrangements for urgently needed disciplines and majors,” said Huai Jinpeng, the minister of education. “We will implement a national strategy for cultivating top talents.”
According to the Ministry of Education, a majority of students in China choose to major in math, science, engineering or agriculture. And three-quarters of Chinese doctoral students do so. By comparison, only a fifth of U.S. undergraduates and half of doctoral students fall into these categories, although U.S. data defines these majors somewhat more narrowly.
China’s lead is particularly large in batteries. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 65.5 percent of highly cited technical papers on battery technology come from researchers in China, compared with 12 percent from the United States.
The world’s two largest manufacturers of electric car batteries, CATL and BYD, are both Chinese. China has nearly 50 graduate programs focusing on battery chemistry or the closely related subject of battery metallurgy. In contrast, in the United States, there are only a handful of professors working on batteries.
Students in the United States are getting interested in battery research, said Hillary Smith, a professor of battery physics at Swarthmore College. But, she added, “they’re going to be competing for a few spots if they want to do battery research, and most of them are going to have to choose something else.”
The roots of China’s battery successes can be seen at Central South University in Changsha, a city in central-southern China that has long been a hub of China’s chemical industry. Central South University has nearly 60,000 undergraduate and graduate students on a sprawling, modern campus. The chemistry department, once housed in a small brick building, has moved to a six-story concrete structure with labyrinths of labs and classrooms.
In a lab filled with glowing red lights, hundreds of batteries with new chemical properties are being tested simultaneously. Electron microscopes and other advanced equipment occupy other rooms.
“For us, the experimental equipment is sufficient to meet everyone’s testing needs,” said Zhu Fangjun, a doctoral student.
Peng Wenjie, a professor, has set up a battery research company nearby that employs more than 100 recent graduates from doctoral and master’s programs and more than 200 assistants. The assistants work in relays for each researcher, so that testing of new chemistries and designs continues around the clock.
“There are many people on site to carry out the testing, so the efficiency is very high,” said Professor Peng.
China’s growing expertise in manufacturing has sparked a lively debate in other countries, particularly the United States, over whether to invite Chinese companies to build factories or to try to copy what China has achieved.
“If the U.S. wants to build a supply chain quickly, the best way is to invite Chinese companies. They will set it up very quickly and bring technology,” said Feng An, founder of the Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation, a nonprofit research group in Beijing and Los Angeles.
Manufacturing accounts for 28 percent of China’s economy, compared with 11 percent in the United States. China hopes that investment in academic education and research will translate into efficiency gains that will help boost the entire economy, said Liu Qiao, dean of Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management.
“If you have a large manufacturing sector,” he said, “it is easy to improve productivity levels.”
China’s manufacturing capabilities, however, have become a geopolitical issue. The government subsidies and policies that fueled the manufacturing boom have made many other countries reluctant to buy more of China’s exports.
The European Union has imposed hefty provisional tariffs on electric vehicles from China. In the United States, which has also used tariffs to effectively block Chinese EV companies, political and commercial pressure has hampered ventures with Chinese battery makers.
Still, Chinese battery companies are looking for ways to produce in the United States for the American market. Building and equipping an electric car battery factory in the United States costs six times as much as in China, according to Robin Huang, chairman and founder of CATL.
The work is also slow — “three times as long,” he said in an interview.
The United States continues to top China in total research spending, in terms of dollars spent and also in terms of its share of each country’s economy. Research and development accounted for 3.4 percent of the U.S. economy last year after several years of increases.
But China is at 2.6 percent and that percentage is still rising.
“What happens if China catches up to the US in R&D and they have the manufacturing base?” asks Craig Allen, chairman of the US-China Business Council, which represents American companies doing business in China.
Strong foundation
> A larger proportion of Chinese students major in science, mathematics and engineering than students in other major countries.
> Total enrollment in higher education in China has increased more than tenfold since 2000
> Spending on research and development has increased dramatically over the past decade, tripling
> Researchers in China lead the world in publishing highly cited papers in 52 of 64 key technologies, recent calculations show
> China has nearly 50 graduate programs focusing on cell chemistry and the related subject of cell metallurgy