在与中国的竞争中，美国有时会自食其果。在唐纳德·特朗普执政期间，联邦政府对大学的支持削减尤其具有破坏性。为了表达他们的痛苦，一些美国科学家指出，该国的战略对手可能从这些紧缩中获益。去年，哈佛大学的一位学者抱怨说，中国已被“捧上银盘”交付了未来。
In its competition with China, America sometimes commits self-sabotage. Under Donald Trump, cuts in federal support for universities have been particularly damaging. To convey their anguish, some American scientists have drawn attention to the advantage that their country’s strategic rival may gain from these retrenchments. China had been handed the future “on a silver platter”, complained one academic from Harvard University last year.
在中国，从事共产党青睐领域（如人工智能和机器人）前沿研究的学者有充足的资金。但这位哈佛学者可能会惊讶地发现，在许多大学校园里，教职员工的情绪低落。尽管政党热衷于推动科学事业，但它对谁能获得国家资金变得越来越挑剔。四月，教育部表示，近年来已撤销了12,200个学位课程，主要集中在“商业管理”等软科目上，并用人工智能及其他中国领导人习近平青睐的领域专业取代了许多课程。
In China there exists plenty of funding for academics who are engaged in cutting-edge research in fields favoured by the Communist Party such as artificial intelligence and robotics. But the Harvard academic may be surprised to learn that on many campuses, the mood among staff is sullen. Eager though the party is to promote scientific endeavour, it is becoming more selective about who gets the state’s cash. In April the education ministry said that it had revoked 12,200 degree programmes in recent years, mainly in soft subjects such as “business management”, replacing many with majors in AI and other fields favoured by China’s ruler, Xi Jinping.
本十年，中央和地方政府在科学技术方面的支出年均增长仅为3.5%，从2010年代末的10%大幅下滑。这些类别的支出涵盖从博物馆到社会科学的方方面面，但涉及物理和化学等学科的部门也感到了压力。自然科学部门的政府支出增长更为缓慢。一些大学预算正在被削减。九月，北京大学是几所下达新命令要求“节约开支、紧日子”的高校之一。在一些机构中，研究人员的薪酬和福利正在被削减。有时，整个学位课程都被取消。
This decade’s spending by central and local governments on science and technology has grown annually at just 3.5%, slumping from 10% in the late 2010s. Outlays in these categories cover everything from museums to social sciences, but departments involved in subjects such as physics and chemistry are also feeling the pinch. Government spending on natural-science departments is growing more slowly. Some university budgets are being cut. In September Peking University in Beijing was one of several to issue new orders to “practise thrift and tighten belts”. At some institutions researchers’ pay and perks are being reduced. Sometimes whole degree-programmes are being axed.
自20世纪90年代以来，中国大学迅速扩张，学术人员的生活条件变得舒适得多。大学的国际地位也大幅提升。据《泰晤士高等教育》统计，2017年仅有两所中国大学跻身世界前100名。今年则有八所上榜，其中包括清华大学和北京大学，分别位列全球第11和第13名——为亚洲最高。
Since the 1990s China’s universities have expanded rapidly and the living conditions of academic staff have become far more comfortable. The international stature of universities has also soared. In 2017 just two of them were among the world’s top 100, according to Times Higher Education. This year eight were, including Tsinghua University and Peking University which ranked 11th and 13th globally—the highest of any in Asia.
对于长期习惯了好日子的中国学者来说，经费收紧带来了痛苦的冲击。即便是中国75所由中央政府资助的精英大学，也有一些正受到挤压。它们的预算中位数今年增长了6.8%，但每五所中就有一所遭到削减。一些大学将研究生项目的奖学金数量和金额削减了一半以上。
To Chinese academics who have long been used to good times, the belt-tightening has come as a painful shock. Even some of the country’s 75 elite universities, which are funded by the central government, are being squeezed. Their median budget grew 6.8% this year, but one in five suffered cuts. Some have more than halved the number and value of scholarships for postgraduate programmes.
中国较弱的经济是部分原因。除顶尖大学外，许多大学严重依赖地方政府的拨款，而地方政府的预算正因房地产市场的长期低迷而受到压缩。在全国2900所大学中，地方政府负责资助95%。《经济学人》查阅的文件显示，即便在深圳和杭州这两个习近平所青睐的科技产业重镇，今年的预算也被削减了5%以上。
China’s weaker economy is in part to blame. Other than top-tier ones, many universities depend heavily on financing from local governments whose budgets are being crimped by a prolonged slump in the property market. Local authorities are responsible for 95% of the country’s 2,900 universities. Documents reviewed by The Economist show that even in Shenzhen and Hangzhou, both big hubs of the kind of tech loved by Mr Xi, have had their budgets cut by more than 5% this year.
经济仍以4.5%的速度增长。但它无法创造足够的新就业岗位来吸纳创纪录数量的毕业生：青年失业率为19%。因此更多人选择留在校园。博士生年度招生人数自2019年以来几乎翻了一番，达到20万人。留在学术界的人不得不争夺日益缩减的政府资金。博士后工作已变得缺乏保障，正如一位学者所说，晋升要求“不人道”。
The economy is still growing at 4.5%. But it cannot create enough new jobs to absorb record numbers of graduates: youth unemployment is 19%. So more are staying on campus. The annual intake of doctoral students has nearly doubled since 2019 to 200,000. Those who remain in academia have to compete for shrinking supplies of government money. Post-doctoral work has become insecure and requirements for promotion, as one academic puts it, “inhumane”.
学者们通常需要获得一笔资助才能在学术阶梯上晋升。自2021年以来，向中国国家自然科学基金委员会——中央政府科学资助的主要来源——的主体资助项目提交的申请量已激增80%，达到20万份。但发放的资金总额仅增长了3%。申请成功率从2013年的22%下降到去年的12%。今年，该基金会已将针对青年研究人员的资助额度提高了50%——部分原因或许是为了平息他们的不满。
Academics often need a grant to move up the ladder. Since 2021 applications to the main grant programme of the National Natural Science Foundation of China—the principal source of central-government funding for sciences—have risen by 80% to 200,000. But the amount disbursed has climbed by only 3%. Success rates for applications fell from 22% in 2013 to 12% last year. This year the foundation has boosted handouts to young researchers by 50%—in part, maybe, to assuage their discontent.
恢复满意度将是困难的。约克大学的查强（Qiang Zha，音译）表示，高校越来越多地采用西方的雇用模式，学者们往往需要辛勤工作多年才能获得终身职位。一些人抱怨称，由于预算吃紧，学校在招聘初级员工时旨在提升研究成果，却根本没打算给他们终身职位。如今在学术界找工作或晋升异常艰难，许多人选择了离开。深圳中学就聘用了100多名拥有博士学位的员工。
Restoring happiness will be difficult. Increasingly, universities are adopting Western styles of employment, with academics often having to labour for years before being granted a permanent job, says Qiang Zha of York University. Some complain that schools are hiring junior staff to bolster research output with no intention of ever giving them a permanent place, owing to tighter budgets. Getting a job or promotion in academia is now such a struggle that many quit. Shenzhen Middle School employs more than 100 staff with PhDs.
正如党的总喉舌《人民报》（应为《人民日报》，注：按外媒原文直译或行业惯例，此处指《人民日报》）上个月所指出的那样，中国的高校并不“缺钱”。根据官方数据，总体而言，他们获得的资金至少在增加：去年大学科研支出增长了11%，达到3410亿元（合470亿美元）。但包括非国有企业在内的企业正提供越来越大比例的资金。
As the party’s main mouthpiece, People’s Daily, pointed out last month, China’s universities are not “running out of money”. In aggregate, at least, they are getting more: spending on university research rose by 11% last year, to 341bn yuan ($47bn), according to official figures. But companies, including non-state ones, are providing a growing share of that cash.
在有数据可查的最近一年2024年，它们提供了大学新增研究经费的一半。然而，这些企业对于支持那些不太可能帮助其培育商业上所需的、具商用价值的人才和技术的研究兴趣索然。并且，它们更青睐知名高校。
In 2024, the most recent year for which data exist, they supplied half of new funding for research at universities. But they have little interest in supporting research that is unlikely to help them nurture the talent and technologies that will help them commercially. And they prefer big-name universities.
吝啬可能也有一些好处。普林斯顿大学的谢宇（音）表示，在中国大学迅速扩张时期，晋升往往与发表材料的数量而非质量挂钩，他也负责北京大学的一个研究中心。现在，大学必须更有甄别力，并在更紧缩的预算下产出更多突破。
There may be some benefit in tight-fistedness. When China’s universities were rapidly expanding, promotion was often linked to the quantity of material published rather than quality, says Yu Xie of Princeton who also runs a centre at Peking University. Now universities have to be more discerning and produce more breakthroughs on tighter budgets.
但正如一位学者所指出，发表论文的压力产生了欺诈的动机。“论文工厂”在淘宝等热门电商网站上公开宣传其服务。一些研究人员因行贿以发表其作品而被抓。网络侦探（包括博士辍学生）一直在搜寻学术不端行为，以期将教授拉下马。一些省级政府正在调查这样一种做法：学者向公司支付资金来资助他们的研究，以便满足晋升的资助配额。在一项小型政府调查中，五分之一的受访者承认存在这种做法。
But, as one academic notes, the pressure to publish papers creates an incentive for fraud. “Paper mills” advertise their services on popular e-commerce sites such as Taobao. Some researchers have been caught paying bribes to get their work published. Online sleuths (including dropouts from doctoral study) have been ferreting out academic malfeasance in order to topple professors from their posts. A few provincial governments are investigating a practice whereby academics pay companies to fund their research in order to meet grant quotas for promotion. In a small government survey, one-fifth of respondents admitted to the practice.
然而，大多数青年学者都在艰苦进行研究，而长期就业的前景却很渺茫。不过，其中一些人会爬上学术金字塔的顶端。正如激烈的竞争在国家的出口领域所起的作用一样，这种竞争有助于产生顶尖的构想。
Mostly, however, junior academics grind away at their research with poor prospects for long-term employment. Some, however, will climb to the top of the academic pile. As it does in the country’s export sector, ferocious competition can help produce champion ideas. ■