The Chinese position in natural sciences is significant for global research

The Rise of China to the Leading Nation for Share in Natural-Science Journals and Why China is Leading in the World in Artificial Intelligence

This surge has been enough to propel China past the United States to become the leading nation for Share in natural-science journals. It represents a watershed moment, as we discuss in a feature article. The underlying data, and examples of the ground-breaking research emanating from China, also demonstrate how the nation is now broadening and deepening its scientific capacity in areas — such as environmental science, life sciences and humanities — that it still had major ground to make up a decade ago.

Its adjusted Share in 2015, which takes account of variations in the article volume, was 8,431, which was almost a third of the United States score. It has risen between 8% and 21% in the last three years, enough to make it the top spot.

China’s current lead in some scientific publishing indicators is not guaranteed to continue, however. In February 2020, the Chinese Ministry of Education announced reforms in its researcher-evaluation system that could alter the publishing landscape. According to the new guidelines, researchers would no longer be evaluated for hiring and promotion decisions on the sheer number of papers they had contributed to. Instead, they would be judged on a limited selection of “representative” articles, preferably including papers published in journals with international influence. Only a third of the papers must be published in Chinese journals. Coates says such policy changes could diminish the incentives for publishing large numbers of papers, potentially slowing the stream of publications from the country.

Chinese research remains under-valued, says Coates. In Western universities, “there are plenty of people who have had passing or superficial engagements with higher education in China, or Asia more generally, and have yet to grasp the transformations in play”.

The country’s long-term vision was described in the 14th Five-year plan, which emphasizes technological innovation and recent successes in lunar exploration. Network communications, modern energy systems, pharmaceuticals, and artificial intelligence are some of the areas that it calls for a national laboratory to focus on.

China is already one of the world’s leading research nations in AI. Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2023 found that China accounted for nearly 40% of all publications in AI in 2021, far exceeding the United Kingdom and Europe (15%) and the United States (10%). The papers from China were 29% of the total in 2021, putting it ahead of the United Kingdom and Europe. China ranked second to the United States in a 2022 assessment of AI and robotics articles in the Nature Index, but its annual Share rose more than 1,100% between 2015 and 2021, significantly outpacing the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany.

There’s still a long way to go. Water availability in Beijing is ten times lower than in 1949, and air pollution spikes were reported in several northern Chinese cities in March, highlighting the country’s continued investment in E&E research.

Its efforts are paying off. Since China declared a ‘war on pollution’ in 2014, air quality in cities has steadily improved, thanks to restrictions on industrial emissions and other strategies. Upgrades to coal-fired power plants — retrofitting smokestacks with filters, for example — have had the biggest effect, according to atmospheric scientist Qiang Zhang, from Tsinghua University in Beijing. A 2019 study by Zhang and his colleagues analysed the main drivers of a recent decline in fine particulate matter in China, and is among the top-cited papers with Chinese authors in the Nature Index for that year (Q. Zhang et al. I Proc. A journal of the Natl Acad. Sci. USA 116, 24463–24469; 2019).

In a 2022 paper2, Shu and his co-authors questioned the real-world implications of the publishing reforms. They note that Chinese researchers had been bristling about the pressure and high expectations of the previous evaluation system, but the authors remain sceptical that the new guidelines will truly change the way in which hiring and promotion decisions are made at institutions.

Anna Lisa Ahlers says that there are several factors behind this, including political signals in China that have made it less likely to go abroad.

A Chinese student at an American college may consider going elsewhere for their education because of bad relations with the United States, according to Xiaofeng Wan, associate dean of admission at the college. Chinese families worry about putting all of their eggs into a single basket, which is the United States, he says. “Everything is signalling to them that things can change fast, in a very negative direction for Chinese students.”

By 2022, under the Belt and Road Initiative, China had established formal scientific partnerships with 84 countries, funded 1,118 collaborative projects and established 53 joint laboratories in areas such as new energy and health. Comparing the periods 2006–10 and 2011–15, co-authored papers between China and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, as well as China and the European Union, grew by only 1.2 times. By contrast, co-authored papers between China and the Middle East had the highest growth ratio (3.9), followed by China and Africa (2.9), China and Latin America (2.0) and China and Belt and Road countries (1.6).

Two years into her PhD in Sociology and Social policy, Tian says she made the right decision. Hong Kong is a good choice for her. I have been able to improve my research abilities.

Yifu Wang, a conservation social scientist from Zhengzhou, China, received her undergraduate degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK. She is currently pursuing a postdoc at Hong Kong University. The swine flu changed everything, but Wang had hoped to get another post in Australia, Europe or the United States. She said that she wouldn’t be able to return home easily due to travel restrictions in mainland China. Although restrictions are finally easing, says Wang, “my long-term career plan has changed to staying in Hong Kong”.

Despite the lack of Chinese government data, there are signs that more Chinese students are choosing to enrol in schools nearer to home, says Ye Liu, who studies international development at King’s College London. The flu is partially to blame, but other factors include a rise in anti-Chinese sentiment, as well as tension between China and the West.

There may be repercussions by US universities. For every 1,000 PhDs that have been denied by the US government, US institutions will lose nearly US$1 billion in tuition fees, and an estimated $210 billion in patents over the next decade, according to a 2021 analysis from the US National Foundation for American Policy. An analysis by the IIE shows that Chinese students contribute an estimated $15.9 billion to the US economy every year.

Zweig says Macau has the same open culture and close proximity to home as Hong Kong. Macau’s universities are not ranked as highly as Hong Kong’s; the University of Macau, for example, is ranked 117th among Chinese institutions in the Nature Index. The gaokao is a standardized exam for mainland Chinese university admission, which is why studying in Macau does come with the benefit. “That exam is becoming increasingly difficult,” says Meng Ioeng, who studies Chinese politics at the University of Macau. More mainland students are coming to Macau in the past few years because of that.