Chinese scientists claim EU snub over jobs on nuclear fusion project
In new case of perceived bias, experts say country is not fairly represented on nuclear project in France despite paying its share
While Beijing has criticised Nasa's "discriminatory" decision to bar Chinese researchers from a conference, the country's scientists are fuming over another perceived slight they feel could be far more consequential.
Many Chinese scientists are frustrated over what they see as the country's disproportionately low participation in what has been hailed as one of the world's most important scientific projects: the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).
Only 4 per cent of the scientists and other staff are Chinese, although the country has pledged 9 per cent of the funding.
"The discrimination against Chinese [at ITER] is an open secret," said Liu Huajun , a nuclear fusion scientist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP).
The experimental nuclear fusion reactor in Cadarache, France, could potentially deliver clean, safe and inexhaustible nuclear energy one day. Dubbed by some as an "artificial sun", the reactor would mimic the energy-generating process of a star, fusing small atoms into larger ones and harnessing the energy released.
In 2006, China joined six other parties - India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, the European Union and the United States - in a co-operative bid to develop the groundbreaking technology.