Bengaluru: China now produces the largest number of patents. Its Chang’e 6 lunar robotic spacecraft has hoisted the Chinese flag on difficult terrain of the Moon and its research and development (R&D) has grown 16-fold since 2000. The Western media is catching all that.
But this is the result of years of sustained investments in homegrown research and academia.
At present, the country is fast shedding its tag of an imitator and producing some of the best research in chemistry, physics, and material sciences. Their contribution to prestigious journals of the world too has risen.
And its batteries and state-of-the-art electric vehicles (EVs) are flooding global markets.
So what has China done in the last few years, and where does it stand on the global stage? ThePrint answers some burning questions.
What did China do in terms of science & research last year?
In early January this year, academics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering released their annual, high-profile list of the top ten scientific advances of 2023. The standouts were operations in space: the first crewed mission to the Chinese space station (Tiangong), and the Martian orbiter and rover (Tianwen-1 mission’s Zhurong rover).
Astrophysics advancements included finding nanohertz gravitational waves. The country is also utilising emission-free energy, and is working on building a solar power station in space to convert sunlight from orbit into electricity on Earth.
Energy advances also focused on the meltdown-safe Shidaowan high-temperature gas-cooled (HTGR) nuclear plant that began operating in December 2023. China also completed operation of its experimental nuclear fusion reactor, Huanliu-3, and has begun building the world’s biggest particle collider, the Circular Electron Positron Collider, for 2027.
In November, China surpassed the US in terms of the most cited and influential academic papers published, while in 2017, it surpassed the US in terms of the number of papers published.
Additionally, China has also been making advances in the health sector with surgical advances like rapid adoption of xenotransplantation of pig cornea’s to treat organ shortage.
What is the government policy on publishing?
The Chinese government policy has been modified in recent years to reevaluate academic contribution metrics, and policy focus has shifted towards impact and “representative work” as opposed to volume of papers published. Today, academics often also choose to publish in domestic journals that have begun to publish in China, following the open access model.
In 2021, scientists from the country published 2.03 million scientific papers.
It has also surpassed the US in the share of work being done in chemistry, at par with work on Earth and environmental sciences, and physical sciences.
What have been China’s largest science projects?
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory in southern China is an underground laboratory that studies basic particle physics far away from the influence of the sun and space. Similarly, the Jinping Underground Laboratory is a dark matter laboratory. It recently underwent renovations and has become the world’s largest and deepest laboratory, located at a depth of 2,400 metres below sea level.
The 500-metre Aperture Spherical telescope or FAST is the world’s largest radio telescope and searches for ancient hydrogen in the early universe.
EarthLab is a large-scale numerical simulation facility for Earth systems. It studies billions of parameters to simulate Earth’s environment, climate, atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, lithosphere, and how they all interact with each other.
The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (Lhaaso) is located at the summit of a 4,400-metre high mountain and is the largest cosmic ray detector in the world. The observatory observed the brightest cosmic light and tracked down high energy sources previously unknown to astronomers.
Tiangong space station is China’s own space station that is currently in orbit, and has already started seeing the first crewed missions. China also became the first country to land on the far side of the moon with its Chang’e missions, and has also performed lunar sample return missions.
China’s 1984 particle collider made news when it became the first instrument in the world to detect a ‘tetraquark’, an exotic subatomic form of matter. The country has its own neutrino observatories, fusion reactor prototype, and more such big science projects, catching up with Western nations, which have historically played host to large-scale particle physics projects.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences, the government academy, is the world’s largest research organisation today.
What is China’s research budget for science and technology?
In 2023, the government spent 328 billion yuan or US $48 billion, which was a two percent increase from 2022. This was about 6.5 percent of China’s R&D expenditure.
The government stated that its goal is to bring this number up to eight percent. In 2024 so far, the country has increased the budget by 10 percent, to US $52 billion or 371 billion yuan.
The previous years saw a consistent increase in budget. In 2021, the budget had been USD 26.4 billion, which was an increase of 24 percent from 2020.
By contrast, the US budget this year for federal research is $202 billion, of which $92.8 billion is for research in the Department of Defence.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
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