Escravatura na China

Tirado da Economist:

Today, China's economy may be booming on the back of manufacturing. But the government wants future growth to come more from high technology and knowledge-based industries. So, between 1996 and 2000, the central government invested over 1.5 billion yuan ($180m) in biotechnology, as part of its main programme to kickstart the sector. Between 2000 and 2005, it plans to invest another 5 billion yuan. As a result, reckons the Boston Consulting Group, biotechnology is flowering in 300 publicly funded laboratories and around 50 start-up companies, mainly in and around Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. The science ministry claims that as many as 20,000 researchers work in the life sciences in China.

Similarly, the National Engineering Research Centre for Beijing Biochip Technology is headed by Cheng Jing, an engineer and molecular biologist trained in Britain and America. Dr Cheng is one of China's most entrepreneurial academics, having already spun out some of the centre's technology to Chinese and American start-ups. He now has two diagnostic chips, for infectious disease and tissue transplantation, in trials at Beijing hospitals, and is spearheading a drive to link most of China's biochip expertise under one roof in a Beijing science park next year.