|
Cross-strait research
hits a snag
LOCATION: A neurobiologist at Peking University
is seeking to change more than a decade of apolitical collaboration between
scientists on both sides of the Strait
By J. Michael Cole / Staff Reporter
Cross-strait politics entered the world of science recently after a Chinese
neurobiologist insisted that Taiwanese co-authors identify their university as
being located in “Taiwan, China.”
News of the spat were first reported by ScienceInsider, a blog of the Science
journal, on Friday, which said that cross-strait cooperation on scientific
research had accelerated in the past decade. Usually, collaborators from both
sides stayed clear of politics by avoiding references to “Republic of China” and
“People’s Republic of China” and simply using “Taiwan” and China” respectively,
it said.
However, the growing sense of nationalism in China appears to have entered the
lab, with neurobiologist Rao Yi (饒毅) of Peking University insisting that a
Taiwanese team led by neurobiologist Chiang Ann-shyn (江安世) of National Tsing Hua
University (NTHU) in Hsinchu, which collaborated with Rao’s group on research,
identify the university as being located in “Taiwan, China.”
Following back-and-forth visits and “exchanges of ideas,” one of Chiang’s
students assisted Rao’s research team with scientific experiments seeking to
understand the role of octopamine, a biomolecule, in the brain of Drosophila, a
genus of small flies commonly known as “fruit flies.”
Rao drafted a paper on the findings and included Chiang and the student as
co-authors. However, references to NTHU located it in “Taiwan, China.”
“It was unexpected,” Chiang is quoted as saying in the story, adding that
projects funded by the National Science Council give scientists the right to
state their address as “Taiwan” or “Taiwan, Republic of China.”
Rao, ScienceInsider said, also requested that the Taiwanese scientific community
endorse such designation for universities in Taiwan.
In a letter to National Science Council Minister Lee Lou-chuang (李羅權) last week,
in which the editor-in-chief of Science magazine was copied, Rao said a
reasonable compromise was for the two sides to drop the “PR” and the “RO,” while
retaining the word “China.” He said his group was willing to drop the PRC
designation from its address and simply use “Beijing, China,” adding that Taiwan
should reciprocate.
In a follow-up e-mail to ScienceInsider, Rao explained the rationale behind his
decision.
“On the mainland [sic] side, the major concern is about Taiwan independence.
When a paper lists ‘Taipei, Taiwan’ together with ‘Beijing, China,’ it equates
Taiwan with China, not as a part of it,” he wrote.
If the council does not change the rule, it would be “extremely difficult for
mainland Chinese scientists to co-author papers explicitly or implicitly
endorsing a Taiwan that is not a part of China,” he said.
Rao’s contention goes in the face of nearly 15 years of scientific collaboration
across the Taiwan Strait, which started with joint efforts between Academia
Sinica’s Institute of Physics and the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of
High Energy Physics.
“We have been using the ‘Taipei, Taiwan’ and ‘Beijing, China’ affiliation format
in our publications since the birth of the [collaboration] in 1997,” says Henry
Wong, who handles collaboration on Taiwan’s side, was quoted as saying.
According to National Science Council Deputy Minister Chen Cheng-hong (陳正宏), the
number of papers with co-authors from Taiwan and China grew from 1,035 in 2009
to 1,207 last year.
For his part, Chiang took the incident in stride.
“Personally, I believe that China and Taiwan are heading [in] a friendly
direction. With more patience, I hope we can all contribute to promoting
scientific collaboration between the two sides,” he said.
|
