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China United States Technology

China Leads US in Global Competition for Key Emerging Technology, Study Says (reuters.com) 37

China has a "stunning lead" in 37 out of 44 critical and emerging technologies as Western democracies lose a global competition for research output, a security think tank said on Thursday after tracking defence, space, energy and biotechnology. From a report: The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) said its study showed that, in some fields, all of the world's top 10 research institutions are based in China. The study, funded by the United States State Department, found the United States was often second-ranked, although it led global research in high-performance computing, quantum computing, small satellites and vaccines. "Western democracies are losing the global technological competition, including the race for scientific and research breakthroughs," the report said, urging greater research investment by governments.

China had established a "stunning lead in high-impact research" under government programs. The report called for democratic nations to collaborate more often to create secure supply chains and "rapidly pursue a strategic critical technology step-up." ASPI tracked the most-cited scientific papers, which it said are the most likely to result in patents. China's surprise breakthrough in hypersonic missiles in 2021 would have been identified earlier if China's strong research had been detected, it said. "Over the past five years, China generated 48.49% of the world's high-impact research papers into advanced aircraft engines, including hypersonics, and it hosts seven of the world's top 10 research institutions," it said.

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China Leads US in Global Competition for Key Emerging Technology, Study Says

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  • The one Republican who vaccinated has to seek out the one Democrat who supports nuclear power. Together, they can start us on the road back.

    • 70 year old technology is the pathway to the Future!!!!

      Nuclear Energy requires a lot of long term management and regulations. Because Nuclear Energy is Safe only when all the safety is taken seriously, and has a full support infrastructure to manage and catalog every aspect from start to finish.

      We change focus of Power all the time, In the US, we swap from Democrat control to Republican control and back and forth over and over. and each side seems this think, when they win, that somehow that power is goin

      • 70 year old technology is the pathway to the Future!!!!

        Which is my whole point. Nuclear is 70-year-old tech that is known good for reliable clean energy generation if managed properly. Vaccination is 200-year-old tech based on a principle (variolation) that has been around for thousands of years. If we can't see beyond our political shibboleths to apply these known technologies to present-day problems, we don't have any business mucking around with AI or spacecraft or anything else new.

        When you unite behind the science, you don't get to cherry-pick which scient

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Renewable tech is the way forward. Nuclear has very limited options for export. Many countries don't have any infrastructure for it, some aren't allowed to have it due to proliferation, a lot can't afford it...

      Renewables can be exported pretty much everywhere, and create long term export opportunities.

  • by cirby ( 2599 ) on Thursday March 02, 2023 @09:15AM (#63335281)

    That's a terrible metric.

    An hour or so reading Retraction Watch will tell you that "number of citations" isn't always that important, and in some cases, just means a bunch of third-rate people citing each other.

    The important part is "how much of their research turns up in real-world output?"

    • You are right, its a terrible metric, but ts not easy to generate a better metric. This is a problem for science funding as well.
      • by larryjoe ( 135075 ) on Thursday March 02, 2023 @12:43PM (#63336077)

        You are right, its a terrible metric, but ts not easy to generate a better metric. This is a problem for science funding as well.

        It's possible and really not that hard. The best way is to look at the top conferences in each area and where the accepted papers are coming from. In my field, there are quite a few Chinese authors, but most of the Chinese authors are at non-Chinese universities. H-index is a quick and dirty, fuzzy approximation. Looking at h-index by country [scimagojr.com] (admittedly, there are many ways to calculate this), China does well but is not a clear leader. Raw citation counts are almost always a misleading way of looking at paper quality, as the citation counts don't consider the quality of the citing papers.

        Of course, papers are just a means to technology transfer into real products. So, the real metric should be based on those real products. With this viewpoint, China does better. Insight into military products is limited, but looking at commercial products, there are many Chinese innovations. However, it would be difficult to say that most worldwide innovations are Chinese.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Huawei hold all the key 5G patents, and are already well into 6G.

      CATL make the best automotive batteries in the world, and their lead seems to be increasing.

      There are other examples, the point is that we really need to stop casting doubt on all this and start competing.

      • Huawei hold all the key 5G patents, and are already well into 6G.

        I've heard this idea repeated often. However, almost all google searches say this is not true. For example, this USPTO report [uspto.gov] shows that the top seven companies own 70% of worldwide 5G patents. Other reports [comsoc.org] that specifically focus on standards essential patents (SEP) report essentially the same numbers. In these reports, Huawei indeed owns the most SEP patents, but their lead over the others is minimal. Moreover, the USPTO report points out that countries tend to favor their own companies. When looki

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          That's because 5G includes the older standards too. It's built on top of them.

          There is a reason why Huawei was 2 years earlier than everyone else to market with 5G gear, and everyone installed their stuff until they were forced to rip it out. The local guys just didn't have 5G products to sell at first.

        • > I've heard this idea repeated often. However, almost all google searches say this is not true.

          I wonder about "key" patents and early patents in relation to "the total number of 5G-related patent applications".

          "While Huawei filed the most 5G-related patent families, Qualcomm filed the most in triadic patent families (i.e., those filed in the United States, the European Union, and Japan)."

          But whatever these numbers, I'd appreciate fairer international competition and less military posturing.

      • Congratulations for posting the first comment that is on topic. You can easily tell the extent of cognitive dissonance and mental pain caused by an article by the number of comments that studiously avoid the actual subject.

        Reuters reports that "The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) said its study showed that, in some fields, all of the world's top 10 research institutions are based in China".

        Ouch! But the Chinese never invent anything - any technology they have was stolen from the West. Although

    • by HiPCO ( 10151083 )
      You are correct. It is common practice to cite related or peripherally related articles from high-impact journals because "they must be good." Another point: Being involved in academia and research, I have known folks on editorial boards of high-impact journals (Nature, Science, JACS, etc.). Many pander to friends or associates (to include many "collaborators" in China), receiving incentives for accepting submitted manuscripts. General research practices in China are also replete with intellectual theft a
  • "funded by the United States State Department"

  • They don't. This conclusion only says something about the people who conducted it.

  • Maybe copy China (Score:4, Interesting)

    by oumuamua ( 6173784 ) on Thursday March 02, 2023 @10:53AM (#63335555)
    China has a culture of education where people aspire to 'get educated' while the West has a culture of celebrity and money where people aspire to get 'rich and famous' by any means.

    Chinese parents place great emphasis on obtaining a quality education from a top university. They regard education as a top priority and view academic achievement as one of the hallmarks of Chinese civilization.A degree from a quality university is a great source of pride and is held in high regard in Chinese culture. Chinese parents are willing to invest a great deal of money and energy in their children’s education from an early age. In Chinese culture, success is not the result of intelligence, but the result of diligence, self-discipline, and self-regulation over the long haul.The expectations of Chinese parents are deeply rooted in Chinese cultural traditions...

    https://homestay.cambridgenetw... [cambridgenetwork.com]
    High school is serious business; an absolutely grueling preparation for college entrance exams, check out Sheldon (Big Bang Theory was hugely popular in China) at the bottom there wishing good luck to the test takers: http://www.thatsmags.com/china... [thatsmags.com]

    • by dranga ( 520457 )
      I think I have to agree there.. it seems like our culture just doesn't support being a smart engineer. Smart in grade school/high school? Constantly bullied and under social pressure to not be different and fit in. Trying to go to a good college? Prepare for some financial rape. Good paying jobs once you're done so you can pay back all that debt and actually affort a lifestyle that keeps you happy? Good luck. On the other hand.. be a jock that gets good at sportsball and there's a chance you'll be se
    • China has a culture of education where people aspire to 'get educated' while the West has a culture of celebrity and money where people aspire to get 'rich and famous' by any means.

      And by 'the west' you mean America, the United States thereof. It isn't quite the same all around the 'Western' world.

    • In Chinese culture, success is not the result of intelligence, but the result of diligence, self-discipline, and self-regulation over the long haul.

      This is misunderstanding intelligence. It's not something we're born with. Yes, some people are born with different pre-dispositions & sometimes even advantages, e.g. greater working memory capacity, but it's what we do with it that counts. General Intelligence (GI) is typically mostly the result of diligence, self-discipline, and self-regulation over the long haul, that are part & parcel of learning a range of domain specific knowledge, skills, & attitudes. Much of the hard work that goes into

  • Maybe if higher level education and the workforce stopped focusing on pronouns, making everybody feel welcome, sharing salaries, diversity training, and letting students & employees advance their personal political agendas, we would have a fighting chance against China.

    This is America's troubling trend away from a meritocracy.

  • by Berkyjay ( 1225604 ) on Thursday March 02, 2023 @12:36PM (#63336049)

    One good turn deserves another.

  • Could this "stunning lead" be like the much older missile gap> [wikipedia.org] that the Soviet Union once allegedly had? Or the even older "Bomber gap" ?
  • But the US is far ahead of China in the most important metric: the creation of new pronouns.

  • China leads, because we moved most of the manufacturing there. Manufacturing is a base of country success but somehow our nation forgot what made us superpower. Nation was fooled by politicians and Wall street that we will be great "post industrial" power. Yeah, we will be postindustrial, but not great and no power. Now to mask its failure our leaders focus us on how many bathrooms we need for all colors of sexual deviation, how many minorities must be hired by percentage, how many "underrepresented" must

    • "the race to be the most developed"
      Not yours, apparently.

    • Absolutely correct.

      We shot ourselves inthe foot in several ways:
      1. Valueing diversity over qualifications.
      2. Outsourcing our production
      3. Allowing too many into the universities thus lowering the standards. Our elite students simply learn too little.

  • Paper mills crank that shit, cite that shit, that shit "legit: don't quit'cha day job cause this be fobbed atcha, don't catchya some illegitimate academic cheatin that aint beatin no one better believe that son less you aint get none, of that credit that advancement to humanities enhancement, that was the plan but we can't stand on the metric that's so eclectic it lets in the false and the fake and don't discriminate between what's real and what aint.
  • Doesn't even rate a mention. That's embarrassing for the EU. But I guess they lead the world in regulating said technologies ...

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