Needham’s Grand Question has led to a comparative study of the macro structure of science development in different civilizations. This talk puts forward the concept of the ‘science regime’ (知识政体) to describe the macro structure of science development. The science regime concept frames the dominant relationship between scientific knowledge and other types of knowledge such as religious and metaphysical knowledge in a society. Chao Gu identifies three variables that determine the different types of knowledge, namely the subject of knowledge production, the source of knowledge authority, and the driving power of knowledge production, and show how science regimes in different civilizations can be divided into four ideal types: persuasive, integrative, dependent, and experimental. A society’s power structure is a key factor in the formation and evolution of its science regime, especially the relationship between political and ideological power. Both ancient Chinese and Islamic civilizations belonged to an ‘integrated’ science regime, which could not be spontaneously transformed into an ‘experimental’ science regime without a change in power structure, which is why, it can be argued, there was no scientific revolution. Western civilization evolved from the Greek ‘persuasive’ science regime via the medieval ‘dependent’ science regime to the modern ‘experimental’ science regime, so here, it can be said that the essence of a scientific revolution is the change in the science regime. Chao Gu will also conduct an in-depth analysis of high-temperature superconductivity research following China’s Reform and Opening-up as a case study to elucidate the relationship between science and politics in contemporary China.

Chao Gu is an Assistant Professor at the Research Center for Chinese Politics, School of Government, Peking University. He is now working as a visiting scholar at the Oxford Department of International Development (ODID). His previous and ongoing research mainly focuses on the relationship between science & technology and politics, including a political response to Needham’s puzzle, the political value of Large Language Models (LLMs), and the co-production of normal science by scientists and the state in contemporary China. These studies have been published in academic journals such as Social Studies of Science and Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. He has just published a monograph: Science and Power: the Evolution of Science Regime (The Commercial Press, 2025). (《科学与权力：知识政体的演化》，商务印书馆，2025). Recently, he has been working on the concept construction of sovereign AI, as well as the simulation of the Thucydides Trap via LLMsChina.