From Binoculars to Cinetheodolite: The Development of Applied Optics and the Optical Industry in China

The emergence of the applied optics and the optical industry in China primarily started during the Second World War and the Cold War periods, while the applied optics and the optical industry in China mainly developed through three ways: setting up plants, sending students to study overseas, and engaging in mission-oriented disciplinary development. In the Anti-Japanese War (1937-1945), Gong Zutong and his colleagues, who had studied at the Technical University of Berlin, started to learn German optical technology. In 1939, the first batch of 6*30 Type Zhongzheng (Chiang Kai-shek) Binoculars were manufactured at the No. 22 Arsenal (Kunming) on a trial basis. The optical glass and accessories used by the binoculars were imported from Europe. From 1950s, industrial demand largely dominated the objectives and missions of China's sciences and industrial technologies. The mission-oriented disciplinary development model – the state's needs led the establishment and expansion of underlying disciplines – had direct impacts on the development of applied optics in China. Among others, an symbolic achievement was China's first large optical equipment developed by Wang Daheng and his colleagues in 1965 – a large cinetheodolite for observing satellite trajectories, fostering both a number of specialized research and development institutions on applied optics and the optics and instrument disciplines of some universities, and directly formulating one of the major features of the optics-related disciplines in China in the following decades, i.e., preferring development for practical purposes to fundamental researches.