纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英中国如何在技术领域建立优势科研进步和巨额投资

China’s domination of electric cars, which is threatening to start a trade war, was born decades ago in university laboratories in Texas, when researchers discovered how to make batteries with minerals that were abundant and cheap.

如今，中国在电动汽车领域的主导地位有可能导致一场贸易战，然而这项技术是几十年前在得克萨斯州的大学实验室诞生的，当时那里的研究人员发现了如何使用丰富而廉价的矿物质制造电池。

Companies from China have recently built on those early discoveries, figuring out how to make the batteries hold a powerful charge and endure more than a decade of daily recharges. They are inexpensively and reliably manufacturing vast numbers of these batteries, producing most of the world’s electric cars and many other clean energy systems.

最近，在这些早期发现的基础上，来自中国的公司研究出了如何让电池保持强有力的电量，并能承受10多年的每日充电。这些公司正在以低廉的成本和可靠的方式制造大量这种电池，生产世界上大部分电动汽车和许多其他清洁能源系统。

Batteries are just one example of how China is catching up — or passing — advanced industrial democracies in its technological and manufacturing sophistication. It is achieving many breakthroughs in a long list of sectors, from pharmaceuticals to drones to high-efficiency solar panels.

电池只是中国在技术和制造成熟度方面赶上或超过先进工业民主国家的一个例子。从制药到无人机，再到高效太阳能电池板，中国在众多领域取得了许多突破。

Beijing’s challenge to the technological leadership that the United States has held since World War II is evidenced in China’s classrooms and corporate budgets, as well as in directives from the highest levels of the Communist Party.

自“二战”以来，美国一直保持着技术领先地位，而北京对这一地位的挑战体现在中国的课堂和企业预算中，同时也体现在共产党最高层的指示中。

A considerably larger share of Chinese students major in science, math and engineering than students in other big countries do. That share is rising further, even as overall higher education enrollment has increased more than tenfold since 2000.

中国学生主修科学、数学和工程学的比例大大高于其他大国的学生。这一比例还在进一步上升，尽管自2000年以来，高等教育的总体入学人数增加了10倍以上。

Spending on research and development has surged, tripling in the past decade and moving China into second place after the United States. Researchers in China lead the world in publishing widely cited papers in 52 of 64 critical technologies, recent calculations by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute reveal.

中国在研发方面的支出激增，在过去十年中增长了两倍，仅次于美国，位居世界第二。澳大利亚战略政策研究所最近的计算显示，在64项关键技术中的52项里，中国研究人员发表了最多被广泛引用的论文。

Last month, China’s leaders vowed to turn the nation’s research efforts up another notch.

上个月，中国领导人誓言要让中国的研究工作再上一个台阶。

A once-a-decade meeting of China’s Communist Party leadership chose 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 did, except strengthening the party itself.

在十年一次的会议中，中国共产党领导人将科学培训和教育作为国家的首要经济任务之一。在会议的最终决议中，除了加强党的自身力量之外，这一目标比其他任何政策都受到更多的关注。

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.”

中国将“超常布局急需学科专业”，教育部长怀进鹏表示。“深入实施国家基础学科拔尖人才培养战略行动。”

A majority of undergraduates in China major in math, science, engineering or agriculture, according to the Education Ministry. And three-quarters of China’s doctoral students do so.

根据中国教育部的数据，中国大多数本科生主修数学、科学、工程或农业。中国四分之三的博士生也是如此。

By comparison, only a fifth of American undergraduates and half of doctoral students are in these categories, although American data defines these majors a little more narrowly.

相比之下，只有五分之一的美国本科生和一半的博士生主修这类专业，尽管美国的数据对这些专业的定义更窄一些。

China’s lead is particularly wide in batteries. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 65.5 percent of widely cited technical papers on battery technology come from researchers in China, compared with 12 percent from the United States.

中国在电池领域的领先优势尤其明显。根据澳大利亚战略政策研究所的数据，在被广泛引用的电池领域技术论文中，有65.5%来自中国的研究人员，相比之下，只有12%来自美国。

Both of the world’s two largest makers of electric car batteries, CATL and BYD, are Chinese.

全球最大的两家电动汽车电池制造商宁德时代和比亚迪均为中国企业。

China has close to 50 graduate programs that focus on either battery chemistry or the closely related subject of battery metallurgy. By contrast, only a handful of professors in the United States are working on batteries.

中国有近50个研究生项目专注于电池化学或与电池冶金密切相关的学科。相比之下，美国只有少数教授从事电池研究。

Undergraduates in the United States are becoming interested in battery research, said Hillary Smith, a battery physics professor at Swarthmore College. But, she added, “they are going to compete for a very few spots if they want to do battery research, and most will have to choose something else.”

斯沃斯莫尔学院的电池物理学教授希拉里·史密斯说，美国大学生对电池研究越来越感兴趣。但她也说，“如果他们想做电池研究，由于名额太少，竞争非常激烈，大多数人不得不选择其他专业。”

The roots of China’s battery successes are visible at Central South University in Changsha, a city in south-central China and a longtime hub of China’s chemicals industry.

透过长沙的中南大学，可以看到中国电池行业的成功根源。长沙是中国中南部的一个城市，长期以来一直是中国化工工业的中心。

Central South University has nearly 60,000 undergraduate and graduate students on an extensive, modern campus. Its chemistry department, once in a small brick building, has moved to a six-story concrete building with labyrinths of labs and classrooms.

中南大学拥有面积广阔、设施先进的校园，在校本科生和研究生近6万人。它的化学系曾经位于一座小砖楼，现在已经搬进一栋六层的混凝土建筑，里面有迷宫般的大量实验室和教室。

In one lab, which is filled with glowing red lights, hundreds of batteries with new chemistries are tested at the same time. Electron microscopes and other advanced equipment occupy other rooms.

在一个闪烁红光的实验室里，数以百计使用新化学成分的电池同时接受测试。很多房间里配备了电子显微镜和其他先进设备。

“For us, the experimental equipment is sufficient to meet everyone’s testing needs,” said Zhu Fangjun, a doctoral student.

博士生朱方军（音）表示：“我们的实验设备能够满足所有测试需求。”

Peng Wenjie, a professor, has set up a battery research company nearby that employs more than 100 recent doctoral and master’s program graduates and over 200 assistants. The assistants work in relays for each researcher so that the testing of new chemistries and designs continues 24 hours a day.

彭文杰教授在学校附近成立了一家电池研究公司，雇佣了100多名刚毕业的博士和硕士以及200多名助手。助手们轮班为每位研究人员工作，以便一天24小时不间断地对新的化学物质和新的设计进行测试。

“There are many people on site to do the tests, so the efficiency is very high,” Professor Peng said.

彭文杰说：“现场有很多人在测试，所以效率非常高。”

China’s broadening expertise in manufacturing has created an active debate in other countries, notably the United States, over whether to invite Chinese companies to build factories or whether to try to duplicate what China has accomplished.

中国在制造业方面的专业技能不断发展，这在其他国家，尤其是美国引发了一场关于是否邀请中国公司建厂或是否试图复制中国成就的激烈辩论。

“If the U.S. wants to build up a supply chain quickly, the best way is to invite Chinese companies, and they will set it up very quickly and bring technology,” said Feng An, the founder of the Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation, a nonprofit research group in Beijing and Los Angeles.

“如果美国想快速建立供应链，最好的办法是邀请中国公司，他们会很快建立起来，并且带来技术，”位于北京和洛杉矶的非营利研究机构能源与交通创新中心的创始人安锋说。

Manufacturing makes up 28 percent of China’s economy, compared with 11 percent in the United States. China’s hope is that investments in scientific education and research will translate into efficiency gains that will help lift the entire economy, said Liu Qiao, the dean of the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University.

制造业在中国经济中占的28%，在美国占11%。北京大学光华管理学院院长刘俏表示，中国认为在科学教育和研究方面的投资将转化为效率的提高，有助于提振整个经济。

“If you have a large manufacturing sector,” he said, “it’s easy to improve productivity levels.”

“如果拥有一个庞大的制造业，”他说，“提高生产效率就很容易。”

China’s manufacturing prowess has become a geopolitical issue, however. The government subsidies and policies that have helped fuel the factory boom have left many other countries wary of buying more of China’s exports.

然而，中国的制造业实力已成为地缘政治问题。推动工厂繁荣的政府补贴和政策让许多国家对购买更多中国出口产品持谨慎态度。

The European Union has imposed formidable provisional tariffs on electric vehicles from China. In the United States, which has also used tariffs to effectively block China’s E.V. companies, political and commercial pressure has impeded ventures with Chinese battery makers.

欧盟对来自中国的电动汽车征收了高额临时关税。美国的关税实质上已经将中国电动汽车公司阻止在外，而政治和商业压力则阻碍了与中国电池制造商的合作。。

Still, China’s 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, said Robin Zeng, the chairman and founder of CATL.

尽管如此，中国的电池公司仍在寻找在美国为美国市场生产电池的方法。宁德时代的董事长兼创始人曾毓群说，在美国建造和装备一家电动汽车电池工厂的成本是在中国的六倍。

The work is also slow — “three times longer,” he said in an interview.

工作进度也很慢——“用时要多出两倍，”他在接受采访时说。

The United States still leads China in overall research spending, in terms of dollars spent and also in terms of the share of each country’s economy. Research and development represented 3.4 percent of the American economy last year after several years of increases.

美国在总体研究支出方面仍然领先于中国，无论是从支出的美元金额还是从占两国经济的比重来看都是如此。研究与开发占美国经济的比重在连续几年增长之后，于去年达到3.4%。

But China is at 2.6 percent and rising.

但中国的比例为2.6%，而且还在上升。

“What happens when China passes the U.S. in R&D and they have the manufacturing base?” asked Craig Allen, the president of the U.S.-China Business Council, which represents American companies doing business in China.

“如果中国在研发方面超过美国，拥有制造业基础，会发生什么？”代表在华美企的美中贸易全国委员会的会长克雷格·艾伦问道。