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This paper presents the motives that pushed the Chinese leaders to build the Great Firewall and the political functions attached to it. The paper argues that the immaterial wall is a way to preserve an authoritarian regime with little legitimacy because mainly based on fast economic growth. From this perspective, the purpose of the Great Firewall is not to ban access to Internet but to prevent certain western ideas to spread, so perceived as threatening the regime's stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is one among many other countries that have recognised the necessity in aligning national scientific progress with that of global development. As China is striding along the path of scientific development with determination and initial success, a key concern confronted by international scientific community is how China will transform existing global scientific atlas. Based on a project carried out in six Chinese cities, this paper mainly employs Ulrich Beck's cosmopolitan theory in examining China's life sciences 'development in the last decade to investigate how Chinese stakeholders have developed a (cosmopolitan) sensibility to rival ways of scientific reasoning, and in what way Chinese stakeholders have contributed to the cosmopolitanization of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]