China's Science Revolution

Now on BBC News, it's time for China's Science Revolution.

China is on a mission to supersize science, from building the largest

radio telescope the world has ever seen, to creating vast underground

experiments. They're using pigs' eyes in a radical treatment for

blindness and pushing the boundaries of exploration, from the deepest

ocean to outer space. This nation is on the verge of making great leaps

in research, but it also faces major challenges.

In the south-west of China, a place of spectacular natural beauty. This

is one of the poorest areas in the country, but it's now home to a vast

new scientific experiment. Our understanding of the universe is

about to be transformed. This is China's new giant of science. The

largest radio telescope ever built. Measuring-a kilometre across, it's

nearly twice the size of its rivals. It's unusual for China to open up

projects like this to outsiders, but as it nears completion, I've been

given rare access and a chance for a few unlike any other. It's only when

you get up close that you really get a sense of this thing's scale. It's

simply colossal. Bigger is better when it comes to astronomy, because

the larger the dish, the more signals can be collected from space,

helping us to see deeper into the universe than ever before.

So the signals come into the dish Yes and reflect to the receivers.

This is the project's deputy manager. In China the astronomy, we

are far behind the world. In the past years, lots of people like me

go abroad to use the telescope outside China, but I think this is

the time for us to build something in China and used by lots of Chinese

users and also welcome the international users. Some telescopes

use light to see the visible universe, creating stunning images

like these. But the galaxy's stars and celestial bodies are constantly

emitting radio waves. It's these signals that a radio telescope

listens out for. This one is so big it will shed light on the furthest

reaches of the cosmos. We want to use the big telescope to explore the

unknown in the universe. We want to know where were the first forms and

what conditions for life in the universe. How does the galaxy

evolve? At a cost of $180 million US, it's part of a huge investment

in science. It's been built in record time. It's taken five years

to get to this stage. More than 4,000 of these enormous triangular

panels have been fixed into place. Each one can move, changing the

angle of the dish to point it to any part of the sky.

The telescope's 140 metres deep. I'm on my way to see what it's like at

the bottom of the dish. We've come under the telescope. As can you see,

it's an incredibly complex structure. Everything up here is

made from aluminium, which keeps it very, very light and that's

important when you've got something this big. The surface too is

perforated with tiny holes, which means the light comes through

helping the vegetation to grow. This adds extra support for the ground.

But in The Valleys beyond the telescope, China's push for progress

is having a far-reaching impact. These villagers and many like them

will have to live in a five kilometre radio quiet zone. Anything

that interferes with the telescope being like mobile phones or wireless

networks, will be banned. The government has offered money for

anyone who wants to leave, but feelings are mixed.

Eng fleerz now racing to -- engineers are racing to fill in the

final pieces of the dish. It's on track to be finished by September.

It could give us our best views yet of the heavens. It's an impressive

display of China's growing scientific ambition.

This is a nation with a great history of scientific endeavour,

going back thousands of years. The Chinese invented the plough, charted

the stars and developed gunpowder. But over the centuries progress

stalled. And then came the turmoil of the cultural revolution. In the

1960s, the Communist Party, under chairman Mao, made a push to

re-assert his power. Amidst the patriotic rallies, war was declared

on so-called liberal thought. Intellectuals and academics were

persecuted and scientific research ground to a halt. But experiencing

China now is very different. 30 years ago, the country began its

great reform, opening up to the rest of the world and aits economy grew,

science began to flourish once again. Today China is making a

scientific come back in a major way. It's spending -- its spending on

research is unprecedented. A few years ago it overtook Europe and now

it's rapidly catching up with the US. It's starting to pay off. In the

Shanghai offices of the sign journal Nature, they've been tracking

China's progress. In China, there seems to be more of a sense of

urgency. There is a feeling that in the last 100 years, we lost a lot of

opportunities, because we weren't doing research. Now there is this

golden opportunity in terms of funding, in terms of societial

recognition of the role that can be played by science. Where does China

currently sit in terms of the world stage of science? Of course, now

China's the second largest economy in the world. In terms of spending,

China is now number two in the world. In terms of scientific

output, measured by a number of papers published, China has passed a

lot of countries. Now it's also the second in the world next to the US.

One area the country wants to excel at is deep-sea research. On China's

East Coast, the crowds are gathering. It's launch day for a new

5,000-ton research ship. It's been built by a private Chinese company

called Rainbow Fish. This vessel is China's latest bid to dominate the

waves. When it comes to the sea, China really is thinking big. This

research ship will explore the world's oceans, but it will also

serve as a launch pad for submarines, that can explore

anywhere, no matter how deep. The company's plan is to take humans to

the very deepest parts of the ocean. The Mariana trench in the Pacific.

It's developing a submarine that will take a crew of three nearly 11

kilometres down. In decades of exploration, only a handful of

people have been there. Now China plans to be next. So this is a

life-size model of the Rainbow Fish. Exactly. The head designer says he

wants to make the dive by 2020 and he's excited by what he might see.

Most important part is this part, the cameras, radios, so you can

record all of it. I would like to be the first of the Chinese people to

reach the Mariana trench. We are creating our personal history. That

makes me exciting. The Chinese government has its sights set on the

ocean. Their manned submersible has been exploring the depths. Now

they're building a new vessel that can go even deeper. The Government

stresses the purpose is scientific. But tensions are building in the

oceans. China is involved in territorial disputes in the South

China Sea, where there's a growing military presence. Some fear that

developments in underwater technology could tighten the

country's control of the deep. But the Rainbow Fish team say its

project isn't about politics. This is the company's Managing Director.

Although the whole research is down inside China, but we can see this is

very much international cooperation. We get American scientists, the

Russian scientists, the European scientists, all be part of the team.

This is a commercial venture and he believes there are people who will

pay to use the research ship and submarine. Definitely first the

scientists who are interested in studying the deep sea, science and

technology. The second is those big companies and off-shore company, oil

company. The last one is those people, tourists, adventurers, they

want to go down themselves to look at what's going on there. For now,

though, the deepest depths remain largely unexplored. It's a

mysterious, alien world. But China's underwater plans are progressing

quickly and it could be the nation that will open up this final

frontier. China is putting its money and faith

in science. The country is in the midst of an economic slow down. But

it's banking on high-profile research to grow once again.

Progress in almost every field of science is happening at a diying

rate, especially medicine. But is this push to be first, this push to

discover taking us into uncharted ethical territory? This is in the

south of China. It's a typically busy afternoon at Cannes trip's

biggest Eye Hospital. China accounts for a fifth of the world's blind,

that's eight million people. And damage to the cornea, the

transparent film that covers the front of the eye, is a major cause.

For many, the only hope is a transplant. There's a huge waiting

list. Once the main source of organs was from executed prisoners. That's

now been banned, but the wider population is reluctant to donate.

In China, because so many people, they have the tradition of opinions

say they don't like to give cornea after this. This is the main reason

why we can carry out 5,000 transplants in China. This man

became blind after his cornea became infected. It meant he lost his job

as a security guard. But 24 hours ago, he became the latest patient to

undergo an experimental treatment. He was given a new cornea from a

very unlikely source... These pigs are the radical solution to China's

transplant crisis. Bred for their meat, their corneas are removed as a

by-product. The government gave the go ahead for this last year. Now

it's being rolled out on a massive scale. The city has become a hub for

research and it's home to the bio tech company behind the treatment.

It took ten years of research to develop it. This is one of your

laboratories? Yes. This doctor is the firm's CEO. We try to use

animals to replace human corneas. We tried goat, dog, pig or cow.

Finally, we find out that pig's cornea is very similar to the human

beings. It's very different from the traditional treatment. It's totally

new. So it takes time for us to introduce to the hospitals and

patients, the society. We're still at a very early stage. The pig

corneas undergo a number of steps to get them ready. Viruses and bacteria

are removed, a major concern is diseases that can jump into humans.

All pig cells are also stripped away, leaving the basic scaffolding

behind. This is the final product here. Let's open it up. You can see,

incredibly thin and light. It looks just like a contact lens. It's this

that's transplanted into the patient. Back at the hospital, and

the check-up has gone well. His sight is already starting to return.

Were you surprised when someone said the cornea would be coming from a

pig, from an animal? Will you be able to go back to work after the

operation and will this help you? The company says this treatment has

a high success rate. But some warn China's moving too fast and other

advances such as cloning, stem cell research and gene editing are

causing concern. Some people have the views because China is a bit of,

not Wild West, but the frontier of science, and therefore there's a lot

of ambition and appetite to explore the latest technology, and

therefore, in that context, the time and the effort, required to debate

and discuss and fully understand consequences before embarking on

something is probably not entirely there. Despite this, the nation's

scientific presence is growing, especially in physics. And deep,

under ground, in the south of China, a huge mystery is on the verge of

being solved. Scientists are on the trail of one of the most elusive

particles ever known. They're called nutrinos and they're everywhere.

Even as I speak to you, trillions are streaming through me. The only

problem is you can't feel them or see them. They're incredibly

difficult to study. Down there, they think they've cracked it.

The walls here have been carved out of granite and we're travelling

under hundreds of metres of rock. That's really important if you want

to study tiny, ghostly particles. You need to be sheltered from the

constant space weather, things like cosmic raise, that are bombarding

the surface of the earth. The other thing I should tell you

while we're under ground is nutrinos don't behave like we expect them to.

They do something that no other particle can do, they're constantly

changing between three very different forms, swapping from one,

to the other and back again. It's this that scientists are trying to

understand here. It's a good age of studies. Many experiment are going

on. There are a lot of them are under construction, we expect big

discoveries in the near future. This is the heart of the experiment.

Beneath these covers is a giant tank filled with water. Inside there are

the detectors. These are able to spot the very, very rare occasions

that a nutrino bumps into a regular particle. So far they've found

millions of them and it means we're finally getting close to cracking

how they work. And this is vital because NUTs are thought to have

played an essential roll -- nutrinos are thought to have played an

essential part in the forming of the universe. The work's been so

successful, it's won global recognition. At a star-studded

ceremony, Chinese scientists were among the winners of the 2016

breakthrough prize, a high profile, international award. Collecting it

was the Professor in charge of China's physics research. The

secrets of nutrinos is not finished. Many more mysteries are yet to be

discovered. Thank you. In the capital, Beijing, I went to meet him

at the Chinese academy of sciences. Like many scientists here, he used

to work abroad. But he says the country's brain drain is being

reversed. With the more and more investment from the government and

the more and more opportunities, and in particular, more and more say

right community build up, I think there will be more people coming

back, I hope. China's publication rate seems to be increasing. Is

there a general feeling of optimism about the research being carried out

here? Numbers doesn't really mean that you are the best. Even if you

have, say, the highest publications in the world. Still I think there's

a long way to go to reach at least a number and even more difficult the

quality. But there's one area where China really is catching up quickly

and that's space. At Beijing's science and technology museum, you

can see the excitement this is generating. China is a growing space

power, much to the delight of these kids. Since its very first satellite

launch in 1970, China's programme of exploration has progressed rapidly.

And it's certainly capturing the imagination here. Enthusiasm for

space starts early here in China. The children have come here today to

learn about the latest missions, really instilling a sense of

national pride. That's important because if China's ambition pays

off, this could be the next generation going to the moon and

beyond. The chief designer of China's moon missions is here. The

space agency is run by the military and shrouded in secrecy. But he's

agreed to talk to me. It's his first ever interview with a foreign

journalist. In the past China's been very secretive about its space

programme. Do you think it's opening up more?

In 2013, China made its way to the moon. It set down a robotic Rover,

becoming the first country to land there in nearly 40 years. And soon

it will return, this time to the far side of the moon, a place no-one has

been before. But China's also heading for the desolate plains of

the red planet. The space agency recently announced its mission will

blast off to Mars by 2020. This is a space nation on the rise.

In a new spirit of collaboration, Chinese astronauts could soon work

alongside those from Russia and Europe, but not on the International

Space Station. The United States government has blocked them from

joining this multinational project, because China's space programme is

military led. The US won't work with them for fears over national

security. But this international friction

isn't slowing China down. The kids here will get to see some 20

missions launching this year alone. China's space ambitions aren't

letting anything get in their way. All of these science projects are

raising China's profile. Now the country has reached a turning point.

What's happening now in the next five years, we have a huge impact

China's position and role and success in science in the next

several decades. There's still work to do on ethics, openness and

quality, but with the money invested, the experiments ready, and

the scientists returning home, the world is now watching to see if

China's science revolution will pay off.

Hello. It may be August, but that doesn't stop us having severe

weather