China faces another embarrassment in its drive to build home-grown technology after one of the country's leading research institutes suspended a senior computer scientist for making false claims.
The prestigious Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing said it had suspended lab scientist Liu Lei after his false claim that a programming language he helped develop was made entirely in China. The school said it would investigate Liu.
The scandal adds to a series of blows to China's ambition to reduce its dependence on imported technology, including software and computer chips.
The prospect of state funding for domestic innovation has led to a number of exaggerated claims, such as software that had "broken the American monopoly" on browsers. It turned out to be based on Google Chrome.
Liu is the lead developer of a computer programming language known as Mulan, which he had claimed was built entirely in China.
That turned out to not be the case. Other software developers investigated Mulan and revealed it was partly based around an existing open-source programming language known as Python, which has more than 8 million users worldwide.
In an open letter dated January 17, Liu apologized for misleading the public. He said his lab wrote the basic code for Mulan, but also used Python to enable the language to run on more sophisticated machines for complex tasks.
His suspension was announced in a statement posted on the institute's website on Sunday.
He could not be reached by phone for further comment.
Researchers who are doing honest work will be collateral damageYang Xingqiang, Shandong University
Mulan was named after a heroine in a Chinese legend, but is known more formally as Module Unit Language.
It was pitched as a programming language for beginners and had a significant potential market " more than 10 million students under the age of 14 were learning software coding in China in 2018, according to a China News Service report.
Liu had earlier said it was capable of a wide range of tasks, from building a website and controlling a robotic arm to playing chess.
As recently as January 15, he had said in an interview with state media that the language was used in 700 primary and middle schools across the nation. He said it could be expanded to industrial sectors.
"Mulan was developed entirely by our lab … with core technology truly in the hands of Chinese," Liu was quoted by Science Times as saying.
The institute where he worked before he was suspended is China's top research agency, its work ranges from developing cybersecurity to artificial intelligence.
According to two of his colleagues and information on the institute's website, Liu was a "star scientist" leading the institute's program to promote computer skills and knowledge among younger students. The institute did not respond to the South China Morning Post's queries for comment.
Yang Xingqiang, a professor of computer science at Shandong University, said the scandal damaged the nation's drive for innovation.
"The public will have less trust in the research community, funding for projects may be reduced, and researchers who are doing honest work will be collateral damage," he said on Tuesday.
China has been here before.
In 2003, former Shanghai Jiao Tong University professor Chen Jin claimed to have developed the nation's first computer chip on par with Western products.
The Hanxin project led by Chen received more than 100 million yuan ($14.5 million) in public funds, only for it to be revealed later that it was a chip made by Motorola with the name filed off. The Hanxin case resulted in a collapse in public confidence in home-grown research.
In 2018, China imported $310 billion worth of computer chips, nearly two-thirds of the world's total production.
China's dependence on Western technology also weakened the position of Beijing negotiators in recent trade disputes with the US and left some of China's biggest technology companies, such as Huawei and ZTE, facing sanctions.
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