The vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhu Chen, has spoken out in defense of the way China funds science, saying that foreign critics are not in a position to properly understand the country's policies.

In an interview with The Scientist, Chen said there was a great need for central planning in all areas of scientific research, including the life sciences. He was reacting to a series of critical editorials that appeared in a recent Nature supplement.

The commentaries, printed in both English and Chinese, blasted China's tendency to invest billions in centrally planned prestige science projects, while allowing only much smaller sums for basic science research. One editorial concluded that China's Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) should be dismantled. The authors, both domestic and overseas Chinese scientists, hold key leadership or advisory roles in China's major science agencies.

Chen challenged the scientists' right to speak out against China's policies, as some are no longer Chinese citizens. "Is it right to comment on China if you are a US citizen? I feel that as Chinese, we should be the critics. We must be more cautious," he said.

Chen questioned whether the overseas scientists fully understood the evolution of policies steering China's large-scale science initiatives. Such projects are aimed at leapfrogging China into higher echelons of economic and social development, he said, adding that protecting initiatives such as finding cures for infectious disease is a matter of national security. "These things can't be left up to the scientists' proposals," Chen said.

One of the most vocal critics of the Chinese science ministry is Bai Lu, a US-based National Institutes of Health section chief, as well as an official adviser to the Chinese authorities. "Our editorial was provocative," he told The Scientist, "but they [ministry leaders] are so furious they have now organized a concerted effort to try and downgrade or clearly eliminate our influence."

Bai noted that scientists in China had reported that the commentaries had been blocked on the Internet. Chen said, however, that the editorials were blocked not because of their content, but because of a graphic in the Nature publication that upset China. "Nature made a mistake, there was something missing from its map of China and that was the island of Taiwan," he said.

While overseas scientists like Bai may have been unsuccessful at influencing the ministry's management style or peer review system, the country's National Natural Science Foundation (NSFC) has taken heed.

NSFC has recently embraced Bai's efforts to have dozens of American Chinese scientists review key funding proposals, a process that reduces the conflict of interest that Chinese scientists say was once rife in the nation's grant review process.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences, which funds mostly intramural research in its own labs, has also stepped up recruitment of overseas Chinese into peer-review panels.

Politics aside, the argument for better funding for more basic science is a valid one says Du Shengming, director for Life Science, NSFC. The foundation acts as a conduit for merit-based grants to researchers pursuing their own interests. In 2004, it had a $451-million budget, a 27% increase on the previous year's allotment.

"NSFC funds one-third of the basic science research at China's universities," Du said. "I hope NSFC [will fund] half of the all the university research in the future."

But even Du Shengming argued that without most funding and its top-down management style, China's Proteomics and the Structural Genomics projects wouldn't even get off the ground. "Scientists in China still need guidance, but would benefit from more freedom," he told The Scientist.

Correction (posted May 2): When originally posted, this story attributed several statements in the last three paragraphs to Zhu Zuoyan instead of to Du Shengming. The Scientist regrets the error.