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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: 4, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Sunday March 05, @07:01PM (5 children)
China has roughly the same number of 2 year/4year degree college graduates per year as the USA. If you exclude people on temporary student visas, they have three times as many PhDs per year.
With numbers like that it's inevitable we'll fall behind. The math is not hard. Any fudge factor you throw at it is eventually overwhelmed by sheer volume.
China also has strict testing requirements for entering university, something declining in the US. It seems unlikely that will improve the quality of our graduates, but the result of that experiment remains to be seen.
We live in interesting times.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 05, @07:35PM (1 child)
Disagree. That's like saying 1000 years of Dark Ages will lead to a Renaissance. The only thing that will help the Chinese is if American/Western anti-authoritarianism creeps into their decrepit system and changes it from within. And I guaronteeee that won't be appreciated.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday March 09, @08:23PM
I respectfully disagree, and I think I see your blind spot. It's easy to assume that China is ruled by the all-controlling authoritarian command economy that Communism is purported to be, and at the macro level this is the case. It's not that way down in the rank and file. My experience is they are extremely driven and ruthlessly capitalist. Competition is the rule with few exceptions. That drive is part of why corruption and cheating are such problems.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06, @02:02AM
The math is not hard because you can just keep counting out RMB until you're given a passing grade.
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Wednesday March 08, @08:37PM (1 child)
I asked a Chinese co-worker yesterday about whether it is expensive to go to university in China, and he replied "No, not if you get into one of the good ones".
It seems that a higher entrance score means that you not only get to go to a better uni, but you also get to do it at a cheaper cost.
Interesting.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday March 09, @08:00PM
I'm not an expert on this topic, but my understanding is similar. People that do well in testing go to fantastic schools for a pittance and people that don't make that bar get predated (more or less) by for profit schools.
The testing isn't just for undergrads either. They use standardized testing for graduate school. When I took chemistry on https://next.xuetangx.com/ [xuetangx.com] about a third of my classmates already knew the material and were really there working on English language proficiency for their grad school entrance tests.