A Study On The Sino-U.S. Exchange And Cooperation In Agricultural Science And Technology During The Modern Times

One of the most important drives for modern economic growth is the development of science and technology. Thus, the modernization of a country is also a process of the improvement of science and technology.The great loss of the Opium War forced the Chinese to envisage the fact that China was no longer a central country with huge territory and abundant wealth, and had lagged far behind the developed countries, which urged the rise of the "Westernization Movement" in 1860 and the Revolution of 1911. From then on, China has been trying to open the outside world, and has begun the process of modernization.The contents of the modernization are very broad, and learning the advanced western science and technology is undoubtedly one of the most important parts. In the exchange of science and technology between China and foreign countries during the modern times, the Sino-U.S. exchange was the most frequent and fruitful, which takes the major position in not only quality but also quantity. And the exchange of agricultural science and technology is one of the fields with the greatest achievement. The reasons are as follows, firstly, China is a big country with traditional agriculture, which occupies the leading position in the national economy; secondly, with its special resource endowment and historical condition, America has been paying special attention to the agriculture during the 18th and 19th centuries, and has developed the most advanced agricultural science and technology on the world. Hence, there is a necessity in Sino-U.S. exchange and cooperation in agriculture, which indicates that there is a faster development in the biology and agronomy, as well as other natural and technological sciences in Chinese higher education during the modern times.The Sino-U.S. exchange and cooperation began at the end of 19 century. The prime work is limited in the translation of literatures and the spread of agricultural knowledge; and the special research of biologic resources and dissymmetry exchanges. And more formal one began in the 1920's. In 1925, Nanking University and Cornell Universityinterscholastic cooperation and made a plan for the Chinese crop variety improvement, which was the formal beginning of the Sino-U.S. exchange of agricultural technology; And then, the Sino-U.S. agricultural technology cooperative team, the cooperation of farm tool improvement between Chinese agriculture and forest Department and International Harvester Company, Chinese rural reconstruction committee and Asian development center for vegetables.After the cooperation of Chinese crop improvement, the professor C.H.Myers of Cornell University wrote a general report on the five-year cooperation, expatiating the process and achievement. In 1964, the professor H.H.Love from the Cornell University and the college president J.H.Reisner from Agricultural college of Nanking University co-work the book The Conell-Nanking story, which also made a comment on the cooperation. After 1970's, the famous breeding expert Shen Zonghan published his complete works which includes The Beginning of Modern Agriculture and The Cooperation of Agricultural Technology between China and the U.S., summarizing, analyzing and evaluating on the situation of the Sino-U.S. exchange and cooperation in agricultural science and technology. These works cannot only be called the summary of work done at that time, but also the principium study on Sino-U.S. exchange in agricultural science and technology.The selection of the topic of this paper has a certain historical and practical significance. There are many studies on the Sino-U.S relations, which focus mostly on the political, diplomatic, business and general cultural education, rare systematical studies on the exchange and cooperation of agricultural science and technology. Until now, there has been no book published on the Sino-U.S. exchange and cooperation in agricultural science and technology. Thus, this paper will compensate the shortcoming in the aspect. The ancients once admonished us to take history as a mirror. The U.S. co...