I think a lot of people are in denial, or just can't accept that China is already the world's leading nation for science and technology. I can't blame them for their ignorance. Most English-language media studiously avoid mentioning it. Time and time again, I see topics like AI, space & robotics covered, with only developments in Western countries talked of, as if China doesn't exist. Despite the fact that it's now the leader in so many fields.
The problem with complacency and ignorance is that it gives you a really distorted map of reality. You can't understand how the 21st century is developing without factoring in China, and ignoring China means you're being delusional.
China leads research in 90% of crucial technologies — a dramatic shift this century
ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker: 2025 updates and 10 new technologies
New research shows China leads research in 90% of crucial technologies & ignoring this means we're living in a delusional bubble, where we still think the West is the Sci-Tech leader.
byu/lughnasadh inFuturology
32 Comments
They have alot of engineers which helps. But time will tell.
While I agree that complacency is dangerous, most of China’s *achievements* were developed through espionage and not research. They’re not researching things from the ground up, rather they’re stealing information that they don’t understand and trying to apply it to things that they do understand. It’s pretty sloppy.
Western countries are run by a small group of psychopathic billionaires who believe that scientific advances like curing diseases aren’t profitable enough. Instead research is intentionally focused on trying to find a once daily pill/injection that creates a life long customer.
I wouldn’t be surprised, but at the same time I am delusional enough to not take every news about China at face value. It is complicated to assess where they stand. In the past there was a lot of confusion about the sheer volume of their scientific output, but I think there was a wave of junk science included.
However, I am willing to accept them taking the lead in science either now or in the near future. Mainly because a growing number of people in the current science and tech leading country, the US, seem to be not so sure anymore about the question if science is actually real.
China is a dying country. Literally. Those under age 50 will soon be outnumbered by those over age 50.
China doesn’t/can’t innovate at all. They are forced to steal other countries IP just to keep up.
The CCP won’t exist in 10 years or so.
I don’t think people are in denial, it just isn’t much of a story. They finally get their day in the spotlight? The US has a quarter of the population, but a much bigger footprint for the last ~75 years; that’s why it was a story to begin with
Why is it always “We” think? If you have half of a brain and have ever understood and was aware of the world you’d know this. I have long loved my country but understanding that we are at behind in many ways.
You know what will help this? More cuts to education and putting the 10 commandments on walls in schools. That’ll give the edge back to the good ole USA! /S
I’m already attempting to learn Mandarin; what else are we lay people expected to do, understand the current fifteen year plan and “face culture” so that we don’t deliberately have misunderstanding of each other?
….. Great more cultural and emotional unpaid labour
I was checking out Huawei latest smartphone last night and my god.. it’s nesting Samsung for sure. Has TOF biometrics like Apple. And the Chinese space program is really getting good.
I have no hate, both of those are good progress.. even if some is probably stolen. Most progress is derivative anyway whatever.
They also control the vast majority of the inputs needed for manufacturing and their manufacturing capacity dwarfs the west.
The US has already lost to China, they just don’t realize it yet.
If you go to pretty much any tier one university in the US their science faculty has representation from various internationals. Often those international professors are ranked some of the best in their fields. This has classically been because US universities were well funded and those top tier researchers were able to practice their science without any real concern about the government bringing the hammer down on them.
…that’s not the case anymore and it won’t be the case going forward.
Part of the reason we see the “west” unravelling right now is because of these types of things. You have a certain population that would rather be mediocre and lie to themselves about it than work alongside people that aren’t the same as themselves.
I’m just going to say it.. China is getting ahead because they have a nationalistic authoritarian that places the good of the country ahead of the people. It is very difficult for the United States to compete with that. Not impossible. But difficult.
Nationalism can be important for countries because it creates a cohesive Us vs Them mentality and prevents internal division like here in the US. There are huge similarities between China and society within the Hunger Games series. Those in the main cities live lavish. Those in the outer parts live destined to be poor. Huge state control and intervention. Freedoms fairly limited. Instead of the selected few kids killing each other, you have those select few in fierce competition within education and for career.
I think the first thing the West needs to do is *look at China like the adversary it is*.
Edit: And here comes the Chinese bots.. go from 4 upvotes to 1 and likely lower here soon 🤣
How is this tracked? Is it just based on papers published or actual breakthroughs? Cause the last time I read something like it was just based on a bunch of junk papers going through and then just saying “there it is, they are leading!”
One only has to look at China’s art and architecture to see the clear signs of the degree of their advancement. Those are just the easy ‘first glance’ ‘first impressions’ of a society. Look a little deeper: at their cities, their infrastructure projects, their education system …etc and you will see a society fully invested in themselves.
Unfortunately, Americans chose to lull themselves to sleep believing we were the obvious pinnacle. We came to see social investment as “theft” and education “indoctrination”. We made a bed and passed out on the couch.
There was a brief moment following the passing of the 3 major investment bills during Biden’s term where it looked like we had a reasonable chance to pull out of our tailspin and maintain our competitiveness, but that was violently shutdown this year.
Even if we wake up tomorrow and pick up the pieces… we are 10 years behind in preparation, 20 in infrastructure and probably 30 in momentum.
It is a fair bet that China is tops for the foreseeable future.
Maybe our taxes should be spent on education, healthcare, and infrastructure instead of being spent on proxy wars and wars that we end up losing anyways.
I’m doing a more advanced thesis right now and a lot of the older people I’m citing ended up in Australia or china
I was trying to get out of this piece of shit country for awhile
The US is where tech companies rake in billions while delivering horrible results. Very little innovation here is made to benefit our society. It is purely made to benefit the wallets of the people that are already rich.
It’s time to change that.
China is and always has been playing the long game. By contrast, the US is hyper focussed on short term profits and ROI
By all metrics, China is the economic and industrial engine of the 21st century. Around 50% of AI researchers are Chinese or have Chinese ancestry, they control rare earth mining and refining globally, dominate battery production, ditto wind/solar… Currently Building 30 nuclear reactors, ECT…ect….
We walked on the moon. Communism failed. God bless America!
I work in scientific devices. To say that our customers who rely on government funding(NIH, NSF, etc.) are having a tough time is an understatement. I hate to make it political, but the funding issues were not happening a year ago. Connect the dots.
I have some (scientific fields) friends that were poached for countries in the EU, so I don’t doubt that top talent goes to China too.
Have you seen the state of the US educational system? It’s being assaulted on both sides by zealots: obviously the right (as usual, so not much to say in this case), but these days, also the left, who will stop at nothing to make sure college admissions ends up being a lottery in order to get the demographics they’re looking for (resulting in students who are total shit, dragging the quality of classes down).
The result? We’re done, unless China drops the ball (they have their own issues), but who wants their fate to depend on their adversary failing?
The west hasn’t been the sci/tech leader for several years now. Look at our crumbling heavy manufacturing industries – automotive, defense contractors, ship building etc. Everything is at a near standstill when compared to China. Worse yet is our true tech industry. Intel is well behind what Taiwan and South Korea and manufacture. Drones? Robotics? About the only thing we may have a slight lead on is AI but that lead is eroding quickly.
I keep seeing DJI dropping new commercially available drones every couple of months. While they all look cool and what not the underlying implication is that in a global conflict, they will be nationalized and turned into a weapons manufacturer for China. Their ability to iterate quickly is unheard of in most large lumbering old tech companies of the west. B
All the flagship AI models are still in the US. China has nothing akin to SpaceX or NASA. Robotics I can see maybe, so that’s 2/3 still firmly in the wests corner.
This is the US math team which won the math Olympiad recently:
https://imgur.com/a/rZeOHn8
Deep down we all know it.
Yes. Though it should be noted that quality if nowhere near the same. Per 1000 publications in China, about 5 are retracted due to errors or fraud. That number for most countries in the Western World is below 1. They operate over 5 times the retraction rate of Western institutions.
They are not alone with this, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia are all notorious for their publication mills. One of the reasons is that a huge number of research institutions have been founded relatively recently, and quality is far from uniform. The other is that the publication pressure Western scientists experience pales in comparison to what their colleagues in these countries face. Many of them effectively run on a quota.
That’s not how good science happens.
China is playing the long game. They’re waiting for the west to implode and the US empire to die out (it will happen, as all big empires eventually come to an end). America right now, I believe, has started to realise this (wanting to pull out of Nato and go a America first path), and unfortunately it’s too late.
After that, China, even if you like it or not, will dominate science and military power. To say otherwise, you’re delusional.
I’m also no fan boy of China, but that’s just the reality.
Let’s not sugarcoat the truth that their closed political society will always hold them back compared to Europe and the pre 2000 US. Often, even tech people fail to understand that five year plans underfund side projects-but almost all great breakthroughs happen due to side projects that are the rising tide that lifts all boats.
Can the US squander it’s lead and collapse it’s future? Of course. In fact, done and done as both appear to be upcoming live outcomes. That still leaves Europe and Asian tigers. Yes, Europe is far weaker in terms of fragmented tech and lacking in some aspects, but they and Taiwan/Japan/SK will likely outscience China as long as their political/education/ip systems remain unusually bad.
🤣 the only thing China is ahead on is propaganda and made up research.
Most of their tech is a house of cards and fake news
America is reaping the rewards of a half century of financialization and the complete disregard for science and manufacturing. The only thing that matters anymore is shareholder supremacy.
A very good example of how poor our priorities are would be looking at Molten Salt Reactors for generating safe nuclear energy. This technology was first researched at Oak Ridge National Labs in Tennessee in the mid 1960’s. Because of the advanced state of our oligarchy opposing new energy infrastructure development this discovery was shelved for over a half century. In that time China devoted 10 years to studying these reactors and have now developed the first functional nuclear reactors that produce nearly zero harmful waste.
I can say with confidence that America has many specialists in fields that could be improving life for everyone but the only people with the capital and power to use it are deeply delusional and nakedly self absorbed. I work in scientific glass which is another industry that America led for a very long time and is required for the production of a huge number of high tech chips and research but is also considered a dying field simply because wealthy Americans do not value manufacturing in any way.
For all the fear mongering that is drummed up about China most Americans forget that they have a country thats organized around creating and maintaining a productive society. In America we willingly choose to let guys with MBA’s run our country into the dirt and call it freedom.