The above leader in The Economist of 12 June reveals some game-changing realities, including -
(a) From 2022, China had surpassed both America and the European Union (EU) in the number of high-impact peer-reviewed scientific papers, according to data from Clarivate, a science analytics company, topping citations in Material Science, Chemistry, Engineering, Computer Science, Environment and ecology, Agricultural science, Physics and Mathematics.
(b) The US and EU still retain top slots in Moleculr Biology, Space Science, Neuroscience, Clinical medicine, and Immunology. However, the areas where America and Europe still hold the lead are unlikely to be safe for long. For example, China is growing impressively in Biological and health sciences.
(c) China now contributes to around 40% of the world’s research papers on AI, compared with around 10% for America and 15% for the EU and Britain combined. In areas like computer vision and robotics, China has a significant lead in research publications.
(d) There are now six Chinese universities or institutions in the world top ten, and seven according to the Nature Index. Tsinghua is considered the number one science and technology university in the world.
(e) China excels in Applied Research, for example, in perovskite solar panels, producing more patents than any other country, helped by its unparalled industrial base.
(f) China's scientific advance is demonstrated by its Chang’e-6 robotic spacecraft which promises to become the first mission to bring back samples from the hard-to-reach far side of the Moon.
(g) When it comes to basic, curiosity-driven research (rather than applied), China is still playing catch-up—the country publishes far fewer papers than America in the two most prestigious science journals, Nature and Science. America still spends around 50% more on basic research.
(h) However, China is spearheading applied research and experimental development in quantum technologies, AI, semiconductors, neuroscience, genetics and biotechnology, regenerative medicine, and exploration of “frontier areas” like deep space, deep oceans and Earth’s poles.
(i) China's universities paid staff bonuses—estimated at an average of $44,000 each, and up to a whopping $165,000—if they published in high-impact international journals. Between 2000 and 2019, more than 6m Chinese students left the country to study abroad. Since the late 2000s, more scientists have been returning to the country than leaving, partly attracted by state-of-the-art equipped labs in China and partly pushed by increasing suspicion and discrimination in Western countries. China now employs more researchers than both America and the entire EU.
The Economist piece tallies with recent findings of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) that China is the leading in 37 of the 44 critical technologies, often producing more than five times as much high-impact research as its closest competitor the United States. Click here Among the categories of critical technologies, China dominates in all the subsectors in Artificial Materials and Manufacturing; Energy and Environment; and Sensing, Timing and Navigation with a substantial lead in all other categories.
These observations are supported by China's immense scientific manpower pool, according to George Town University's CSET (Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Click here By 2025 Chinese universities will be producing more than 77,000 STEM PhDs per year compared to approximately 40,000 in the United States. Excluding international students, Chinese STEM PhD graduates would outnumber their U.S. counterparts more than three-to-one.
