China To Overtake US In Science In Two Years 362
An anonymous reader writes "China is set to overtake America in scientific output as soon as 2013 — far earlier than expected. Chinese research spending has grown by 20% per year since 1999, now reaching over $100bn, and as many as 1.5 million science and engineering students graduated from Chinese universities in 2006. 'I think this is positive, of great benefit, though some might see it as a threat and it does serve as a wake-up call for us not to become complacent,' said Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith. However, the report points out that a growing volume of research publications does not necessarily mean an increase in quality."
Re:Definition of a grad student... (Score:0, Informative)
Ramen is a Japanese thing.
Re:What, people measure scientific output? (Score:4, Informative)
It's measured in the ability to RTFM, which Chinese scientists seems to excel at:
"The figures are based on the papers published in recognised international journals listed by the Scopus service of the publishers Elsevier."
Re:this is the thing that bothers me (Score:3, Informative)
they are already a large military power
Their power is but a shadow of the United States and an even smaller portion of the entire world.
have repeatedly demonstrated their desire to conquer the world.
Oh yeah? Back this one up with a well written, fact-based post and you'll get a +5 informative. But I seriously doubt you can do it.
Re:this is the thing that bothers me (Score:2, Informative)
Re:this is the thing that bothers me (Score:5, Informative)
Oh yeah? Back this one up with a well written, fact-based post and you'll get a +5 informative. But I seriously doubt you can do it.
Well, on one hand the state forces foreign companies to make 49%/51% joint Chinese-owned company ventures in order to have access to the Chinese market. Once foreign firms get access and have spent a considerable amount of resources getting started in China, the state forces them to manufacture a certain percent of their product in China, NOT by themselves, but it should be subcontracted out to a Chinese company (e.g., Honda China can't make, design, and manufacture all their own stuff, they have to transfer technology to some Chinese company so that the Chinese company can make it... if you don't follow their rules, the state can simply legislate your technology away, or worse [telegraph.co.uk]). Once you've transferred sufficient technology to the Chinese company, you start wondering why no more orders for your products are coming in, and then you realize that it's because the very Chinese company you've partnered with is now making the product 100% in China without your help and "entirely of their own innovation."
http://ampontan.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/letter-bombs-11-coming-up-on-the-rail/ [wordpress.com]
So there's our economic domination. And that's just one example of it. There's lots more, and it's in the news very frequently.
Then we have border disputes. China claims or has, in the past 10 years, claimed territory of: Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan (the entire country at missile-point, no less), Russia, India, Bhutan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei, Tajikstan, and any other country that has the misfortune to be touching them that isn't on their payroll. The People's Liberation Army annually ventures into Bhutan dozens of times [google.com]. The government not only holds onto old conflicts [wikipedia.org] which they have dubious claim, but starts new conflicts [bbc.co.uk] semi-frequently [telegraph.co.uk]. We've also seen that when the CPC is pissed about a border, the Chinese media is used to intentionally and flagrantly lie about the facts [japanprobe.com] in order to stir up nationalism. They have also shown that they will put the government's hand in everything, ranging from travel agents [japanprobe.com] to school exchange trips [japanprobe.com] to locking up [yomiuri.co.jp] the offending country's nationals for "espionage" (punishable by death) to economic embargoes [google.com] meant to force countries to bend backwards and obey. Of course, the CPC will deny any involvement in any of these actions.
The People's Liberation Army continues to modernize and deploy more force aimed directly at Taiwan [defensenews.com]. The PLA "defense" budget continues to grow [bbc.co.uk] in the double digit percents every year, and it's almost exclusively aimed at Taiwan and the US [defense.gov] -- it's still less than 20% of the US def
Re:Technology != Science (Score:5, Informative)
Just to take one example, the fluid flow equations for dealing with turbulence within the combustion chamber and nozzle of the F-1 engines on the Saturn V weren't known sufficiently well to predict their behaviour. At the time, a lot of people thought that constructing such large rocket engines was insanity, and that the Saturn V should use large clusters of smaller engines like the Russian N1 did, as smaller engines were far more stable.
The problem of stabilising flow in a large combustion chamber was solved experimentally, by testing engine configurations and deliberately introducing instability in them until there was enough data to solve the problem theoretically.
The end result of all of that was that the Saturn V had a relatively simple five-engined first stage and was very reliable. In contrast, the N1 had huge numbers of engines arranged in rings, which were a nightmare to deliver fuel to, and several flights were lost in incidents of uneven fuel flow.
Re:Or US tax code encourages foreign R&D (Score:4, Informative)