China and its Inventions: Anna Chen on the radio 2014

Anna Chen – 4 November 2024, China and its inventions

In the week that Shenzhou-19 transports three fresh taikonauts to the Tiangong Space Station and the Shenzhou-18 crew return safely to the Gobi desert in Inner Mongolia, China’s space marvel remains largely ignored by the media.

True, we don’t get to see that much of the International Space Station, either. But whether this is due to embarrassment that two astronauts have been stuck there for months thanks to Boeing, or the crumbling state of the space station, or plain old ennui, we can only guess.

It should be noted that the fading glory of NASA’s space programme is fondly remembered by many of us who were transfixed by the early missions proudly broadcast by the richest country on planet Earth.

What adds to China’s accomplishments is that, as a developing nation also having to take costs into account, it’s taken the baton and is rocketing with it. This seems as good a time as any to revisit what they’ve n=been up against and how far they’ve come.

The first decade and a half of the 21st century was an information vacuum in the UK when it came to China matters. We were aware that the nation brought in from the cold by Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger and Mao Zedong in the 1970s was chuntering along nicely, making the affordable goods that allowed us to live beyond our means. Inflation was at an all time low of near zero and we were busy buying lots of stuff.

I’d managed to write and present a raft of programmes with a wide range of unexplored themes for the BBC. In 2010 I broke through the Great Wall of Silence and made “China, Britain and the Nunzilla Conundrum” for BBC Radio 4, pointing out that China was about to leave its suicide factories making our tat far behind as it propelled itself into a new phase of its modern era. Not only was Chinese industry on course for making high-end tech, but lots of it utilising their vast economies of scale in production. Few believed it.

In discussing the rising superpower, you were constantly faced with the age-old obstacles of invisibility and degrading depictions as untermenschen, and character-assassinating demonisation if they got too uppity. Devoid of a balanced approach to a potential equal, the West took a schizoid view; wanting their cheap goods and massive investment but hating them for our dependence.

Some politicians and commentators coped with the decline by reviving degrading tropes about Chinese that I’d hoped were gone for good. Bubbling away in the background, the whole gamut was run from theft, dirt and cruelty to subhumanity, And yet it was these comic book villains who saved the world from the crippling US Great Financial Crash of 2008.

Attitudes remind me of the 1870s America economic downturn when the Chinese became the scapegoat for America’s ills, leading to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

In 2014, fed up with the constant bleating denigrating China, our global growth engine, I devoted Episode 15 of my Resonance FM radio series to China’s phenomenal abilities.

Up until Britain forced narcotics onto China in the 19th century Opium Wars, China had been the most technically advanced country on the planet. They invented the seed drill 2,000 years before Jethro Tull did in 18th century England. Metal stirrups allowed Ghenghis Kahn to conquer half the Eurasia landmass up to Europe. They had astronomy, and invented the first plastic in lacquer, the compass, paper money and gunpowder.

Here’s your chance to catch up with an early discussion about China’s innovations, recorded at Resonance 104.4 FM in London as part of my pioneering Madam Miaow’s Culture Lounge series.

RADIO MINI-SERIES Part 1 (above): “Chinese are incapable of original thought,” said the London mayor in 2005. Now look what they’ve achieved. Anna Chen presents Part 1 of the Madam Miaow’s Culture Lounge ResonanceFM104.4 radio series, Episode 15: China’s Scientific & Cultural Innovations and the Opium Wars. The 2008 Beijing Olympics debuts China’s technological advances in a stunning opening ceremony and shows the world how far it has come. Live broadcast London, 15 April 2014.

Part 2: China’s Scientific & Cultural Innovations from the seed drill to the metal stirrup and the first plastic.

RADIO MINI-SERIES: Anna Chen asks How did Europe get to dominate the world after China’s spectacular early technological success for nearly two millennia?

Part 5, The Taiping Rebellion

RADIO SERIES – FULL EPISODE: Anna Chen Presents MADAM MIAOW’S CULTURE LOUNGE, Episode 15: China’s Scientific and Cultural Innovations – at ResonanceFM, 15 April 2014. Includes a rare, early discussion on the Opium Wars. Groundbreaking series recorded 2013-2014.

Guests: Elizabeth Lawrence and Paul Anderson with Charles Shaar Murray. Studio photos by Návjot Singh.