Report presented in July 2002 Planning Committee Meeting

Dr. Rusong Wang, Chair of the Cinese node, presented the report of the Node at the March 2002 Planning Committee Meeting.

Beijing Node Report from August 2001 to February 2002

A. Node Works

1.  Three Workshops:

• Discuss the 2001 State of the Future report
• Discuss Sept. 11 Event and its implication to Mankind
• Discuss the Future Strategies in China to meet the challenge of modernization and globalization after Sept.11

3. Translation of 2001 State of the Future into Chinese, the draft came out, and publication of the State of the Future at the Millennium.

4. Joint-conferences on “from vision to action” including

• International Conference on Eco-sanitation, Nanning, China, Nov.5-8, 2001
• National Conference on Ecopolis Development, Changchun, Sept.15-18
• Regional conference on Eco-settlement Planning and Design, Guangzhou (Sept.29-30, 2001), Hangzhou (Aug., 2001), Changsha (Dec. , 2001).

1. Both Risks and Opportunities for survival, security and development are increasing in modernization, urbanization and globalization after Sept. 11.

2. The current technology-dominated world is vulnerable and not so safe as we expected; the human civilization is threatened by terrorism as well as the non-intended and/or natural feedback originated from human action;

3. In 5 years, the world peace is still the main stream overwhelming the risks, while in ten years or so some risks will keep increasing and might overwhelming the opportunities if man can not alleviate the sharp social, economic and natural conflicts and carefully manage them such as:

• long-term conflicts such as that in Mid-east between Palestine and Israel;
• some technical innovation might be switched from beneficial to harmful and uncontrollable as chemical, biological and information “bombs” even not deliberately induced;
• natural disasters including climatic, water-related and pests or diseases outbreak.

(1) World Scale:  Globalization and High-tech domination

 Driving forces:

• Science & Technology
• Market
• Governance
• Culture

Key processes:

• Global capitalism
• Global institution
• Global spirituality
• Global eco-cybernetics (GAIA)

(2)  Regional scale: Urbanization and Modernization in China

• Impacts on hydrological, meteorological, biological and landscape process, ecological footprint and nature’s service
• Impacts on material, energy, capital and people flow
• Impacts on production mode, consumption style and social behavior
• Threatening to people’s health and life security

• Positive and negative roles in business, education, communication, daily life and social behavior;
• Risks: information exploding risk; facility collapse risk; behavioral misleading risk, crime-inducing risk.

• Social security: poverty, injustice, inequity, religion, isolation, desperation
• Economic security: counter-ecologically production, consumption, reduction, circulation and regulation
• Natural security: system level disorder in water, fire, soil, wood and metal

• Tension can not be alleviated through tooth to tooth action, revenge will deepening the hate and cause further revenge. To switch positive feedback to negative one, one need to release the energy of hate and turn it into the energy of love from internal inducement rather than external interference; one must distinguish the majority of citizens from a few extreme organizations and leaders such as Bin Laden;
• Learn experiences from traditional civilization (symbiosis, resource recycling and self-reliance) to reform industrial civilization (competition, nature exploitation and profit driving) in an eco-cybernetical way;
• Limited carrying capacity of the planet can not maintain the high quality of life experienced in industrialized countries like US, switch the development goal from material wealth only to include individual and ecosystem health and spiritual faith as well is absolutely necessary.

1. Initiating Eco-security study in China with an emphasis on the eco-security and strategies of urbanization and modernization started from a series of workshops and conferences.

2. Organizing an International Conference on Eco-city, Eco-industry and Eco-culture, Aug.19-23, Shenzhen.

3. Organizing a National Conference on Globalization and eco-countermeasures after China entered into WTO, Sep. 5-8, Chengdu.

4. Publishing The State of the Future 2001 in Chinese.

D. Suggestions for future MP studies

1. Deepening scenarios to link the future alternatives with real development strategies in different economy;

2. Enhancement of regional MP studies through initiating one concrete project each year;

3. Hold Global forums in different regions through giving lectures to decision makers, researchers and students to switch the future vision into action;

4. Pay attention to retrospect study in addition to prospect study;

5. Pay attention to spiritual study in addition to material study.

The Power Point Presentation made by Dr Wang can be viewed/downloaded here.

Zhouying Jin, Director, Center for Technology Innovation and Strategy Studies(CTISS), Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), represented the Node at the July 2002 meeting, in her quality of co-chair of the Beijing Node of the Millennium Project.

Zhouying Jin presented the node's participation in the Millennium Project over the last six month, especially the S&T interviews, Goals 2050 lookout study, and the Counterterrorism one. The results of all these, along with the other research are in the 2002 State of the Future. She also mentioned that the Chinese publisher who translated the 1999, 2000 and 2001 editions of the State of the Future expressed interest in translating and publishing the "2002 State of the Future" too.

She then presented a very interesting study: Soft Technology -- The Essential of Innovation. Below is an abstract. Click on the link below the abstract to download the PDF version of the whole document.

Soft Technology -- The Essential of Innovation

Abstract
In this paper, the Zhouying Jin proposes a new conceptual framework for technology and reclassifies technology into hard and soft. Soft-tech refers to technology derived from outside of natural science disciplines and from outside of conventional science. Through discussions on technological competitiveness, new institutional innovation, Chinese traditional medicine, and the gap between developed and developing countries, the author argues for the significance and need for soft technology. Based on this conceptual framework, the author offers her view on China's path towards innovation.

Click here to download the PDF version of the whole document.