BEIJING, May 24 -- The attendance of China's central leadership at the nation's top science conference yesterday is a sign of its recognition of the achievements of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) as well as the importance the government attaches to a development philosophy based on science and technology.

    Such an honour is well deserved for CAST, which organizes the nation's scientists and technicians in a bid to promote China's national strength.

    The association, with 4 million members, has helped foster the world's largest group of science workers, who serve as the driving force of the country's dynamic social and economic development.

    As a country that has placed increasing emphasis on the development of science and technology, China boasts countless achievements in various fields, with the most obvious being the Shenzhou VI mission, a milestone in China's manned space programme.

    CAST has played a key role in this process.

    Its role, however, is not limited to those fields where it is easy for the public to see the results. It has also actively engaged itself in the elementary but equally significant work of improving the public's scientific literacy, promoting legislation to spread knowledge of science and technology and helping farmers adopt advanced farming technologies to increase production.

    The central theme of the current CAST conference, the seventh in its 48-year history, is to mobilize science workers across China to promote the building of an innovation-oriented nation.

    It is in line with the national development blueprint of developing an innovation-based society by 2020.

    Such a choice clearly indicates what will be required to achieve economic prosperity in the 21st century, when traditional growth models may no longer apply.

    Scientific and technological innovation serves as the primary force driving long-term economic development by maximizing the value of traditional production factors.

    While it requires wisdom to choose such a development pattern, hard work is required to implement it.

    The overall level of the nation's science and technology has yet to be raised. We have the world's largest pool of science workers, but few of our scientific results have been transformed into significant technological breakthroughs.

    More seriously, some science workers have failed to abide by academic ethics and eroded the morale of their fellow researchers.

    More efforts are required in the coming decades to build an innovation-oriented society.

(Source: China Daily)