CHINA'S RECENT SPATE of successes - its entry into the World Trade Organisation, qualifying for the 2002 World Cup and winning the bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games - have made headlines around the world.
But few know it is also out to win a huge prize in the world of science.
If Beijing wins this one, remote valleys in the hills of Pingtang and Puding counties in the poor southwestern province of Guizhou could become the home of the biggest scientific instrument ever to be assembled on Earth.
A consortium of 24 technological institutions from 11 countries will decide by 2005 how and where to build a system of radio telescopes which will be 100 times more powerful than the current best.
The future facility will be able to detect faint emissions of hydrogen in celestial objects including the first generation of stars formed immediately after the Big Bang. It will also be used to scan for signals from extraterrestrial intelligence.
China is sharing information with Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, Holland, India, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United States over the workings of the ambitious scheme, which carries a price tag of about HK$80 billion.