CHINA: INSTRUMENTATION CAPABILITIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84M00044R000200350001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 28, 2008
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 1, 1983
• Content Type: REPORT

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f~ Intelligence
Secret
SW 83-10021
April 1983
Copy 4 0 7
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Directorate of
Intelligence
China:
Instrumentation Capabilities
Division, OSWR
Office of Scientific and Weapons Research.
Comments and queries are welcome and may be
addressed to the Chief, Science and Technology
This paper was prepared by
Intelligence Council.
This paper was coordinated with the National
Secret
SW 83-10021
April 1983
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Secret
China:
Instrumentation Capabilities
Key Judgments As China moves from an agrarian-based economy to an industrialized
Information available economy, adequate instrumentation, diagnostic procedures, and standards
as of I January 1983 become more important. China's scientific leaders recognize the important
was used in this report.
role of instrumentation in the development of an advanced economy. We
believe that they are anxious to assimilate recent advances in measurement
and calibration procedures and in related instruments into China's ad-
vanced S&T development efforts, and they are attempting to catch up with
the rest of the world in these critical areas. At present, Chinese basic
instrumentation capabilities are barely sufficient for current research and
production programs. Although these capabilities are improving, prospec-
tive industrial and military requirements for unprecedented sensitivity and
precision in research and production will outdistance these improvements.
As a result, we believe, the limited precision of measurement standards and
equipment, a shortage of personnel, and poor quality control will constrain
many of China's scientific, industrial, and military projects for at least the
next 10 years.
The demand for instruments in China is spread among three classes of
users: research institutes, production units, and universities. Generally,
Chinese Academy of Sciences research institutes and ministerial research
institutes have the best available equipment, production units and factories
have the second best, and universities have old and/or very poor equip-
ment.
Although many instruments used in China are manufactured domestically, 25X1
most of them are copies of established foreign (US and Japanese) designs
obtained either by reverse engineering or from published literature.
The Chinese consistently accept domestically made instruments that are
five to 10 years behind Western state of the art rather than purchase and
attempt to copy the newest equipment from foreign sources. In most cases,
the purchase of older, less expensive instruments is due partly to shortages
of foreign exchange funds and especially to past failures in Chinese
attempts to copy more advanced equipment. Chinese scientists have stated
that such risk taking carries no rewards, 25X1
while a complete or partial failure would lead to severe criticism from other
scientists competing for China's scarce resources and research funds.
Secret
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April /983
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A major weakness is lack of a central supply. Too many instruments are
made by individual users rather than by instrument factories, with
resulting duplication of effort and inefficient use of resources. This has
inhibited long-term development and production of instruments. The
general shortage of adequate instruments and the limited cooperation
among researchers who would rather hoard equipment than risk losing it
make it difficult for one institution to acquire or borrow instruments from
another facility.
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Development of Instrumentation Capabilities
Capabilities and Deficiencies
Metrology and Standards
Chinese Metrology Organizations
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China:
Instrumentation Capabilities
As China attempts to develop an advanced economy,
instrumentation ' will play a key role both in manu-
facturing processes and in scientific research. All
automated processes and most testing, measuring, and
analytical work in industry are dependent upon ade-
quate capabilities in instrumentation and metrology.2
Sophisticated instruments are critical also to the
quality of fundamental and applied scientific re-
search
Adequate instrumentation and metrology do not,
however, require merely the acquisition or develop-
ment of state-of-the-art instruments; they require also
large numbers of personnel fully qualified to use and
maintain the instruments.
At present, the Chinese are confronted with a three-
fold problem in this area. First, they must acquire or
domestically develop adequate instrumentation. Their
current stock of research and production instruments
is seriously deficient in quality and quantity. Second,
they must effectively distribute and utilize instru-
ments. To do so, there must be major improvements in
the communication links between research and pro-
duction units. Third, the Chinese must train and
maintain sufficient numbers of technicians, engineers,
and scientists for designing, fabricating, repairing,
and using these instruments. A lack of competent
technical personnel is perhaps the most serious con-
straint on instrumentation in China.
Further complicating the problem is the cause-and-
effect relationship between the poor quality of instru-
mentation and the backwardness of China's scientific
' An instrument is a device for measuring and sometimes also
recording and controlling the value of a quantity under observation.
Instrumentation is the design, manufacture, and use of physical
instruments or systems for detection, observation, measurement,
recording, automatic control, automatic computation, communica-
tion, or data processing.
' Metrology is the science of measuring. It comprises the develop-
ment of instruments and methods of using instruments to provide
consistent, precise standards and benchmarks for scientific and
and military research capabilities. While we shall be
concerned primarily with the effect that instrumenta-
tion has on scientific and technological development,
some attention, conversely, must be given to the effect
that scientific development has on instrumentation
development and use.
Development of Instrumentation Capabilities
Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, the Chinese in
their instrument manufacturing depended largely on
Soviet and East European instrument technology to
provide complete plants, production techniques, spe-
cial machinery, designs, blueprints, prototypes, tech-
nical information, advice, and training. Aided espe-
cially by the Soviets, China's instrumentation
industry began to develop on its own. Chinese scien-
tists have stated that China became about 60 percent
self-sufficient in instruments during this period. In
addition, Chinese open-source accounts indicate that
the organization and development of a comprehensive
research establishment, effectively supporting the in-
dustry, was well under way.
The biggest factor affecting Chinese development of
instrumentation was the Sino-Soviet rift in the early
1960s. this dis-
pute effectively cut China off from Soviet and East
European resources. The Chinese responded by trying
to develop self-reliance for meeting their instrumenta-
tion needs and by seeking new suppliers from the
West. In addition to the dispute with the USSR, it
was a shift in priorities a little later resulting from the
Cultural Revolution (1966-70), we believe, that led
China to depend more heavily on domestic resources
for instrumentation. This policy brought about a
significant expansion in the variety of instruments
produced. It caused serious problems, however, since
large-scale production of instruments beyond trial
development stages was often limited by the scarcity
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of resources. As a result, instrumentation in factories
and plants gradually became less sophisticated, and
new instruments became more difficult to acquire.
Many existing ones fell into disrepair. Priority was
given to the defense sector and to a few select
industries, such as electronics, space, and agriculture.
The rest of the industrial sector suffered from low
quality and a poor variety of instruments, a shortage
of researchers capable of designing new equipment, a
breakdown in mechanisms to introduce new technol-
ogy into industry, and generally inadequate linkages
between research and industry.
The impact of the Cultural Revolution on the S&T
establishment aggravated many of the problems that
had resulted from the overemphasis on self-reliance.
In our judgment, the scientific stagnation of the
Cultural Revolution left many of China's S&T capa-
bilities 10 to 20 years behind advanced modern levels.
Instrumentation was no exception.
it was not until a ter the
Cultural Revolution that small specialized plants were
set up to meet industry needs for high-precision
instruments. Most of these instruments were supplied
either to large plants producing new, more sophisti-
cated products or directly to the military. In addition,
some foreign instruments and related technologies
were acquired from the United Kingdom, Japan, and
West Germany.
By 1971 there were about 50 major plants producing
instruments in China, the major centers being located
in Beijing, Nanjing, Tianjin, and Shanghai. Some 15
countries, with Japan foremost, supplied China with
$10 million (US) of instruments annually.
most of these
imported devices were used as prototypes for domestic
production. From the early 1970s through 1977,
China imported whole plants and test facilities in an
attempt to catch up quickly with advanced world
levels of instrument technology and manufacture. We
believe that this practice proved to be less than
successful because of delays in the domestic manufac-
turing system, underutilization of existing plant ca-
pacity, and duplication of imported equipment and
effort.
poor project management
and a lack of qualified personnel were the major
factors in these problems.
In 1978 China began an ambitious modernization
program on a broad scale designed to bring the
Chinese economy and S&T capabilities up to modern
Western standards by the year 2000. In support of the
program, the Chinese reaffirmed previous efforts to
acquire or develop a wide range of instruments. We
believe that many of their purchases proved ineffectu-
al because of mismatching of the imported items with
actual needs. Domestic development was handicapped
by the low quality of production and research capabil-
ities at most facilities, which to a large extent was
caused by a lack of instruments. By 1979, however,
the Chinese began to recognize the shortcomings of
their modernization strategy. Several major readjust-
ments were instituted. A large number of scientific
and industrial projects were scaled down, postponed,
or canceled completely because the Chinese lacked
much of the ancillary equipment and know-how re-
quired. Chinese press releases reported an overall shift
from heavy to light industry and a greater concentra-
tion on the acquisition of technology rather than
purchases of large quantities of equipment. The devel-
opment and application of sophisticated instruments
were given greater priority.
Currently, China continues to engage in widespread,
open acquisition of instruments and related technol-
ogy from the West.
the Chinese have expressed great-
est interest in equipment and technologies that do not
represent state of the art in the West. It is our
judgment that the Chinese want foreign instruments
that are three to five years behind Western state of
the art, because of lower cost and greater ability to
copy and manufacture such devices in China and
integrate them into existing research facilities. In
most cases, however, the purchase of older, less
expensive instruments is due partly to shortages of
foreign exchange funds and especially to past failures
in Chinese attempts to copy more advanced equip-
ment. China's scientific leaders also recognize that
the most modern instruments are not required for all
industrial and research applications.
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Capabilities and Deficiencies
use. (3
poor quality control has been found in the
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Currently, the Chinese find themselves with instru-
ments varying widely in quality and quantity. Many
of the instruments used in factories are based either
on Soviet technology of the 1950s and 1960s or on
Japanese technology of the early 1970s. Most instru-
ments used in scientific laboratories are copies of
Western designs from the mid-1960s to the mid-
1970s. Truly Chinese-designed and Chinese-built in-
struments-much costlier than their imported coun-
terparts would be-are available only for limited,
special applications, predominantly in the military
sector, where the need for specialized instruments and
for a dependable supply of spare parts often overrides
economic factors. We estimate that the Chinese cur-
rently depend on imports for nearly 40 percent of the
total number of instruments that they need. These
instruments are typically of late 1970s design but still
are advanced devices having a degree of sophistication
and precision otherwise unavailable to the Chinese.F_
The Chinese also have severe problems in supporting,
maintaining, and properly using the equipment and
instruments that they have. We believe that these
problems result in part from the diversity and lack of
standardization of instruments.
We believe that key factors hampering China's instru-
mentation sector include the following: (1) There is no
readily available supply of basic instruments in China.
What is considered in the United States to be off-the-
shelf equipment must in China usually be either
designed and built or imported by individual institutes
or even researchers. The lack of cooperation or coordi-
nation with other facilities or researchers leads to
duplication of effort and inefficient use of already
scarce resources. In fact, the scarcity of resources has
led many institutes into rival or adversary relation-
ships with institutes that they should be working
closely with. (2) The lack of a pool of technicians
trained to maintain and properly use existing instru-
ments has resulted in inefficient and, at worst, inef-
fectual use of these instruments. We have even seen
Chinese press reports that instruments have been
damaged or destroyed by improper maintenance and
design and manufacture of new instruments.
China's instrumentation sector shares many of the
deficiencies of the entire Chinese S&T system, includ-
ing overcentralization of authority, poor communica-
tion between research institutes and between research
and production facilities, and high compartmentaliza-
tion. As a result, the Chinese have difficulties trans-
lating prototype instruments, whether of domestic or
foreign origin, into serial production.
The Chinese instrumentation industry cannot meet
customer needs for sophisticated, state-of-the-art de-
vices in terms of either quantity or quality. Even
though foreign assistance is needed to increase design
and production capabilities in the instrumentation
sector, China remains dedicated to eventual national
self-sufficiency. Often, if an electronics plant needs
sophisticated test equipment, the plant will make it
instead of purchasing it from a domestic supplier or
from foreign sources. As a result, production processes
are retarded and standardization of precision equip-
ment among plants is difficult. Of even more impor-
tance, new, more sophisticated instruments are not
introduced concurrently with state-of-the-art ad-
vances. As a result, the Chinese fall further behind in
practical accomplishment even as they are increasing
their long-run capabilities.
In sophisticated S&T instrumentation and technol-
ogy-intensive products such as integrated circuitry, we
judge China to be anywhere from two to 10 years
behind world levels. However, this lag probably does
not mean much in terms of China's current industrial
needs. Actually, China's manufacturing and research
needs continue to be met in a minimal manner using
available instruments and equipment. We believe that
inadequacies in Chinese instrumentation first will
become apparent in basic research, in the develop-
ment of sophisticated electronics, in automated manu-
facturing processes, and in efforts to expand or im-
prove currently backward and outdated production
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capabilities. Where present instrumentation is not
sufficient, China in the short term is aggressively
seeking outside help, in the form of license agree-
ments, joint ventures, and purchases of foreign tech-
nology, to upgrade specific deficiencies.
A good example of this process is the Quality Assur-
ance Project in Beijing. This project will establish an
applications and quality assurance center in Beijing
test domestically made products. Through this pro-
gram the Chinese will obtain needed high-quality
integrated circuits at reduced cost and will acquire
know-how in setting up and running an effective
testing and quality assurance program for instru-
ments.
The Chinese appear to be compensating for many of
their instrumentation problems. Individual scientists,
and some workers at production facilities, have be-
come adept at making and repairing their own equip-
ment and, where necessary, acquiring through infor-
mal channels many devices that they cannot build
themselves. Some institutes have sent personnel to the
United States and other countries on shopping excur-
sions that included buying from ordinary retail out-
national standards. The majority of Chinese metro-
logical efforts are
based on designs and theories already well established
in the West.
According to Chinese open sources, the State Eco-
nomic Commission (SEC) is responsible for metrology
and standards in China (see figure). Under the SEC
are two bureaus concerned with various aspects of
metrology and standards. The Bureau of Metrology
(BM) ensures that standards, calibrations, and other
services are available to scientists, engineers, and
technicians across the economy. The Bureau of Stan-
dards (BS) is responsible for developing and promul-
gating standards that will promote efficient industrial
production. We believe that the integration of these
two bureaus in May 1982 into the SEC was an
attempt to facilitate development and application of a
set of national standards throughout China's research
and production sectors. These same sources indicate
that the Bureau of Standards develops policy and
manages standards in all areas of the economy,
including agriculture, commerce, and industry. The
bureau deals with standards at the national level,
setting some 1,800 "national" standards, over 13,000
"ministry," or "professional," standards (used by vari-
ous ministries), and numerous other standards for
factories and individual (usually small-scale) produc-
tion units.' National standards are intended to apply
to technologies directly involved in production on a
nationwide basis. Ministry, or professional, standards
govern only products within certain divisions of some
ministries.
Metrology and Standards
Without adequate metrological and standards capa-
bilities, instruments cannot be developed or properly
used. During the early years of Chinese instrumenta-
tion development, individual, institutional, and re-
gional separations made implementation of national
standards for measurement and calibration a difficult
the Chinese have begun to
address the problem and are making progress in
establishing, and obtaining adherence to, a set of
have determined that each of the 29 provinces of
China has its own provincial bureau of metrology,
which receives standards and technical leadership
from laboratories under the Bureau of Metrology.
' Perhaps 60 percent of these standards cover hardware items
(screws, nuts, rivets, and so forth) rather than specifications used
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The provincial bureaus in turn transfer metrology and
standards to the countryside. Each provincial bureau
is responsible to the Bureau of Metrology but is
funded by the province.
the National Institute of Metrology (NIM)
under the BM maintains primary measurement stand-
ards for the whole of China. NIM comprises two
laboratories, one in Beijing and one in Chengdu. The
principal tasks of these national laboratories are to
maintain primary and reference standards, to do
research on standards, and to transfer standards to
local authorities, such as provincial bureaus of metrol-
ogy, and to industrial ministries. We believe that the
laboratory at Chengdu was established to provide a
backup metrological capability for defense purposes
and to better provide standards throughout the coun-
try by reason of its southwest location, which saves on
transportation costs to and from large parts of China.
For the 29 provinces, NIM currently maintains 120
calibration standards and from them provides second-
ary calibration standards. According to open-source
Chinese news reports, more than 15,000 instruments
are calibrated each year with these standards.
the
Chinese do not seem to be developing new devices or
techniques at either of the NIM laboratories.
highlight a heavy Chinese dependence
on Western published literature for designs of equip-
ment and methods of mensuration.
The Beijing laboratory of NIM has a staff of some
1,600, of whom about 830 are research scientists. It is
subdivided into 11 labs: Time and Frequency, Chem-
istry, Optics, Quantum Metrology, Length and Angle,
Mechanics, Temperature, Electricity and Magnetism,
Microwave Measurements, Radioactivity, and Large-
Scale Integration. NIM-Beijing has its own machine
and instrument shops, and the majority of the test
equipment used is made there. It is of sufficient
quality to accomplish day-to-day industrial metrology
requirements. The instruments include high-
temperature-resistance thermometers, optical pyrom-
eters, stabilized dye lasers, a ring laser for angle
calibration, laser interferometers for gauge blocks,
combustion calorimeters, a Krypton-86 luminosity
standard, standard cells and resistors, a cesium clock
accurate to 1 part in a trillion, and microwave power
and impedance standards. The Beijing laboratory has
made excellent measurements of the gyromagnetic
ratio of the proton, a fundamental measurement
demonstrating, even by US criteria, a high degree of
precision and sophistication in electromagnetic me-
trology.
the Chengdu
laboratory of NIM as being smaller than the one at
Beijing, with a staff of some 600, of whom about 240
are scientists. As is true of the Beijing laboratory,
research at Chengdu is geared to the development of
measurement and calibration capabilities comparable
to and consistent with those of other laboratories
throughout the world. The Chengdu laboratory is
subdivided into eight labs: Length, Optics and Lasers,
Temperature, Electricity and Magnetism, First Me-
chanics, Second Mechanics, Radioactivity, and Cr o-
genics.
several of the Chengdu labs
largely just duplicate the work done by their counter-
parts in Beijing. Noteworthy exceptions are the work
in measurements of complex decay of radioactive
nuclides, hardness testers, national primary electrical
resistance standards, an anechoic chamber for acous-
tic studies, and Josephson junction standards.
these standards
and equipment represent either unique work for Chi-
na or the highest quality for such work in China. Most
of the test equipment used at Chengdu is made on the
premises, using Western published designs in many
Activities of the Shanghai Administration of Metrolo-
gy are nominally coordinated by BM and its functions
are similar to those at NIM.
Shanghai researc ac> ities an
industry depend on this laboratory rather than on the
NIM laboratories. The Shanghai laboratory is locally
funded, by the municipality of Shanghai, and enjoys
almost complete autonomy. It is larger and more
diversified than a provincial bureau, and with a staff
of over 1,200 is second in size only to the NIM
laboratory at Beijing. Its labs generally duplicate
most of the facilities and work of NIM
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modern equipment. more
imported equipment than at either ion 01 IM,
including instruments from such companies as Fluke,
Weinschel Engineering, and Hewlett-Packard. We
view the better equipment as being consistent with
Shanghai's status as China's most industrialized city.
the
continuing rivalry and lack of cooperation among the
three major metrology laboratories is a significant
factor in China's failure to establish effective national
standards. This rivalry has resulted not only in an
undesirable duplication of effort, but also in a weak-
ening of national authority. As long as the Shanghai
Administration of Metrology views itself as better
than the laboratories of NIM and more capable of
providing standards on its own, the metrology system
of China will never become truly national. It will be
up to the central government to resolve this problem.
The provincial metrology bureaus transfer standards
of measurement to factories and individual production
institutes, however, lack sophisticated equipment and
trained personnel. As a result, only rudimentary work,
we believe, comes from these institutes.
gy organization. They intend,
to pattern Chinese metrology techniques,
equipment, and organization after those of NBS
rather than develop their own instruments or methods.
Several NIM delegations have visited the United
States to see how manufacturers transmit require-
ments to and use the services of NBS.
This situation is reminiscent of the Chinese attempts
to acquire modern industries by importing entire
plants during the 1970s and probably will entail many
of the same problems. We doubt that adopting the
technology and organization of NBS will supply the
Chinese with an appropriate, or even adequate, me-
trology system because of the fundamental differences
between the US free market system and the Chinese
controlled economy and the Chinese inability to carry
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units, make precision measurements in their own labs,
and develop new job-specific metrology techniques.
Much of the activity at the provincial bureaus is the
calibrating of instruments used in local industrial
plants. Most of the funds for running the bureau come
from the local government
many bureaus charge small fees for local
services. This income usually accounts for 2 to 5
percent of their total income. Examples of these
services might be: calibration of viscometers for the
petroleum industry; calibration of ammeters and pres-
sure gauges; testing of transformers; measuring hard-
ness of steel samples; calibration of standard cells,
gauge blocks, and potentiometers; and certification of
weights for use by weights and measures inspectors. It
is also the responsibility of the provincial bureaus to
provide information on metrology to the general pub-
lic as well as to specialized users
Several provincial-level specialized research institutes
develop new metrological techniques and recommend
standards for specific local users.
the China Metrology Science Research
Institute and the Standards Research Institute pro-
vide this support in Chengdu and Beijing. These
out extremely sophisticated research
Classes of Users
The demand for instruments in China is spread
among three classes of users: research institutes,
Production units, and universities.
these three S&T sectors often compete for the
country's limited instrumentation resources. General-
ly, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) research
institutes and ministerial research institutes (the latter
serving the military and/or civil sectors) have the best
available equipment, production units and factories
have the second best, and universities have old and/or
very poor equipment
While this situation is beginning to change, and there
are certainly exceptions, we believe that it will be
some time before adequate instrumentation will be
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found in all three sectors. Production units and fac-
tories will increasingly need sophisticated instruments
for improving speed, quality, and precision in manu-
facturing. Universities will need better equipment if
they are to provide rigorous training for scientists and
engineers. At this time, China does not, we believe,
have an industry able to produce instruments of the
various types or sophistication needed.
Chinese open literature describes the National Gener-
al Bureau of Instrumentation Industry (NGBII), es-
tablished in 1980, as having primary responsibility for
the instrumentation sector. The NGBII, which is
directly subordinate to the State Council, is described
in this literature as being responsible for: (1) coordi-
nating all development of instrumentation and auto-
mated devices; (2) organizing and managing the pro-
duction, marketing, research and development of all
industrial processing instruments, scientific instru-
ments, and photographic and duplicating equipment;
(3) drawing up and carrying out standards for instru-
mentation and automation; and (4) examining and
approving plans for introducing advanced instrumen-
tation technology and for importing instruments. In
our judgment, NGBII is overextended in this role,
with poor linkages with other parts of the instrument
sector and too many areas of responsibility. As a
The other limiting factor, we believe, is the lack of a
readily available supply of off-the-shelf instruments
found in most Western countries.
individual facilities feel compe e o supp y eir own
instrument needs as much as possible. Limited coop-
eration and a lack of foreign exchange make it very
difficult for an individual facility either to get instru-
ments from other facilities or to purchase foreign
equipment most facilities hoard
their equipment and instruments and would rather see
them underutilized where they are than let them out
on loan to be used more effectively at some other
facility, with the risk of losing them for good. F_
While specialized instrument factories do exist, they
are usually affiliated with, and subordinate to, a
specific production unit or program and therefore not
available to supply other customers. The Zhouzhou
instrument plant, which supplies components solely to
a First Ministry of Machine Building project assigned
by the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF),
is an example of such a relationship. The CAS
maintains three special support entities dedicated to
supplying instruments for use by CAS institutes: the
Dongfang (Oriental) Scientific Instruments Import
and Export Corporation, the Scientific Instrument
Plant, and the Yanshan Instrument Corporation. The
first of these is an import company and the other two
design and build instruments. Because of the over-
whelming demand and the diversity of research pro-
jects, the three entities cannot meet CAS needs.
In our judgment, most of the scientific instruments
currently in use at research institutes are essentially
copies of US and Japanese equipment. Many oscillo-
scopes
for example, are copies of 10- to 15-year-old Tek-
tronix, Inc., designs. For sophisticated, newer instru-
ments, Chinese officials have indicated a preference
for purchasing US and Japanese equipment directly
and entering into joint ventures with Western compa-
nies to obtain modern technology and equipment.
Domestic Instruments
As China moves from an agrarian-based economy to
an industrialized economy, adequate instrumentation,
diagnostic procedures, and standards will become
increasingly important. In modern industrial nations,
instruments and standards play a key role in both
manufacturing processes and scientific research. All
automated manufacturing processes, industrial testing
and quality control, and analytical research depend
upon adequate, high-quality instruments and a sound
metrological capability. Modern, sophisticated instru-
ments also are the critical tools of scientific research
and development. The quality of research, the ability
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to innovate, and the capability to compete with other
industrial nations all are determined by the quality of
Until such management defi-
instruments and standards.
Our analysis has shown that, while many of the
instruments used in China are manufactured domesti-
cally, very few actually represent indigenous develop-
ment. Most are copies of foreign designs obtained
either by reverse engineering or through published
literature. This lack of original design exemplifies a
conservatism that permeates the Chinese scientific
community and can be attributed mainly to lingering
effects of the Cultural Revolution. Researchers would
rather copy existing technology that might be several
years old than risk developing a new concept that
might not be entirely successful or yield immediate
benefits. Such a failure would be viewed very critical-
ly by other scientists competing for limited resources,
by government bureaucrats looking to further trim
tight budgets, and by political cadres dissatisfied with
the current strong emphasis on science and technol-
ogy
Generally, problems in the development and produc-
tion of modern instruments come less from specific
deficiencies in apparatus than from inadequate man-
agement and insufficient technical personnel. The
lack of understanding by managers of the theory and
application of process control severely inhibits produc-
tion. The best instrumentation is useless if it is not
properly incorporated into the production process.
have problems in scheduling and utilizing resources.
facturing operations was correspondingly weak
ciencies are corrected, the best equipment will be of
little help in advancing China's production capabili-
ties. Rather than developing improved capabilities,
the Chinese will be doing little more than copying
existing technology and trying to force it to satisfy
their needs.
While the mass production of microprocessors is
currently beyond the scope of Chinese industry, devel-
opmental work is proceeding at a rapid rate and serial
production should be attained within the next five to
seven years. The Chinese realize that virtually all of
the next generation of instruments and control equip-
ment will be microprocessor-based devices and that a
domestic microprocessor industry will be a necessary
base for an effective instrument industry. The real
question in microprocessor development is whether
China will be able to drive such a technology-intensive
endeavor as designing new microprocessors with its
present lack of free competition among designers. If
not, China may be dependent for many years on
Western technology for microprocessor-based ideas
and products.
Given the capabilities described above, it is not likely
that China will supply complete systems such as
airframes, large computers, or integrated heavy ma-
chinery to world markets within the next 10 years.
Present Chinese capabilities are better suited to sup-
plying selected components and subsystems. In so
doing they will have the need and the incentive to
build and strengthen their S&T and instrumentation
bases, and thereby to advance their industrialization.
In the meantime, in keeping with current economic
policies in China and to maximize what resources it
does have, emphasis has been placed,
on instruments for t a aircraft in-
dustry, laser research, nuclear research, metrology
(frequency and time standards), iron and steel analy-
sis, electronic manufacturing and development, and
production units manufacturing consumer goods such
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as clothing and TV and radio sets.
Imported Instruments
Chinese open-source literature describes how instru-
ments are imported by special import-export organi-
zations in China. The Chinese Academy of Sciences
has its own such organization, called the Oriental
Scientific Instruments Import and Export Corpora-
tion (OSI). OSI has two main import departments, one
dealing with electronics and computers, and the other
with optics, lasers, infrared, and related instruments.
OSI represents the CAS in the open acquisition of
scientific instruments to support all CAS research
institutes
Educational facilities, non-CAS research institutes,
and production units do a small amount of negotiating
for instruments, particularly through visiting scholars
and exchange delegations. They usually depend, how-
ever, on specialized trade organizations to acquire
equipment for them. These organizations include the
China National Instruments Import and Export Cor-
poration (INSTRIMPEX), China Nuclear Energy
Industry Corporation (CNEIC), Northern Industrial
Corporation (NORINCO), Chinese Precision Ma-
chinery Import and Export Corporation (CPMIEC),
and the China Electronics Import and Export Corpo-
ration (CEIEC). Recently acquired items include such
equipment as aircraft for radar testing and aero-
instrument calibration, teleprinters, cathode-ray tube
terminals, digital multimeters, microprocessors, spark
gap testers, oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, acous-
tic intensity meters, strain gauges, in-circuit digital
test systems for MSI printed circuit board devices,
laser spectrometers, and a wide range of exothermic
property sensors and probes.
There is evidence) lof bitter
competition between Chinese trade organizations in
their pursuit of contracts to purchase Western scien-
tific instruments for domestic customers. Decentral-
ization of authority has effectively stripped
INSTRIMPEX of its previous monopoly in the busi-
ness but has left instrumentation users with inflated
prices and unmet demand for equipment. Many of
China's trade organizations have staff people with
limited technical knowledge. This has often resulted
in purchases of insufficient, outdated, inadequate, or
unneeded equipment. Scientists and researchers gen-
erally display contempt for trade organizations be-
cause of their failure to provide them with instru-
ments tailored to their needs and because of
overcharging on purchase prices and on subsequent
servicing and parts.
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