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China has a "stunning lead" over the US:
The Biden administration might be limiting China's ability to manufacture advanced chips, but according to an independent think tank, the Asian nation is still ahead of the US when it comes to research in 37 out of 44 crucial and emerging technologies, including AI, defense, and key quantum tech areas.
Insider reports that the Canberra-based Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) believes China has a "stunning lead" over the US when it comes to high-impact research across the majority of critical and emerging technology domains.
[...] The think tank notes that for some of these technologies, the ten leading research institutions are based in China and are collectively generating nine times more high-impact research papers than the second-ranked country, which is usually the US. What could be especially worrying for America is that two areas where China really excels are Defense and space-related technologies. ASPI writes that China's advancements in nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles took the US by surprise in 2021.
How is China so far ahead? Some of it is down to imported talent. The report notes that one-fifth of its high-impact papers are being authored by researchers with postgraduate training in a Five-Eyes country (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States). However, most of China's progress comes from deliberate design and long-term policy planning by President Xi Jinping and his predecessors.
The near-term effects of China's lead could see it gaining a stranglehold on the global supply of certain critical technologies, while the long-term impact could result in the authoritarian state gaining more global influence and power.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Sunday March 05, @07:59AM (5 children)
Not much detail in TFA, but it seems believable.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05, @05:44PM (2 children)
Not really.
On the ground in US universities, it's a shitshow. Chinese occupancy of student roles, researcher roles and now admin roles. It's importation of Chinese culture into science with all the associated authoritarian values and corruption. One insidious thing to note is the revisionism of articles that cite mainly/only other Chinese authors regardless of if the idea was invented earlier elsewhere. It's hard not to see this as deliberate boosting (corruption) of peer citation as a metric - or it could simply be laziness. Either way, the drive that motivates the doing of science - interest in truth, solving problems - is not being cultivated. If on the other hand, you enjoy authority - and many do it seems - this is good news.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday March 06, @05:29PM (1 child)
In my field almost all of the Western-funded academics that I can think of are Westerners. I have a view of probably about 100 different university groups, but pertaining to one particular field. Not so many oriental students as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 07, @12:10AM
What field? What part of the country?
(Score: 3, Informative) by richtopia on Sunday March 05, @06:08PM
You have to follow the links: the summary is from Techspot which covered a Business Insider article which cite's the original ASPI report: https://www.aspi.org.au/report/critical-technology-tracker [aspi.org.au]
I'm reading the report now, but it is an easy read and covers ramifications much better than the summary articles. The Techspot article does include the most valuable image from the article front-and-center: a list of all technologies with the dominant country and potential risk of monopolization.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday March 05, @09:16PM
Not much detail in TFA
Or in other words, nothing to see here. Like the coffee cup my daughter gave me says, "nice story, now show me the data."
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience