Physics Accomplishments and Future Prospects of the BES Experiments at the BEPC Collider

Abstract

The cornerstone of the Chinese experimental particle physics program consists of a series of experiments performed in the tau-charm energy region. China began building e+e- colliders at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Beijing more than three decades ago. Beijing Electron Spectrometer, BES, is the common root name for the particle physics detectors operated at these machines. The development of the BES program is summarized and highlights of the physics results across several topical areas are presented.