Sobering opinion piece from Asia Times: "Worse than a crime, a blunder." [View all]

https://asiatimes.com/2025/04/trump-trade-war-its-worse-than-a-crime-its-a-blunder/#

"....America is facing a China that planted its tree at the best time – 30 years ago – with the panicked realization that the best it can do is plant its tree today. China’s universities now produce ~1.7 million engineers per year, an eightfold increase since the turn of the century and approximately 6.7 times the ~250,000 engineers graduating from American universities.

All of China’s achievements are downstream of education. What did people think would happen when Chinese universities increased student enrollment tenfold? Adult education programs quadrupled China’s literacy rate under Mao, setting up the nation’s workforce for Deng’s market reforms. It’s human capital all the way down.
.....
China has pulled ahead of the US in science and technology – probably by a significant margin. This is already difficult for many Americans to accept, but the data is clear. Among the top 20 global research universities ranked by Nature, 14 are Chinese and four are American.


Graphic: Asia

[Graphic chart with rankings at link]
According to a recent report published by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), out of ten major research fields, China leads in seven (chemistry, agriculture, environment and ecology, electrical engineering and computer science, engineering and materials science and earth science). The US leads in three (clinical and life sciences, physics and arts and humanities).

According to the report, China is now producing more top 1% papers with fewer total papers published than the US in fields such as chemistry, agriculture, environment and ecology, and electrical engineering. China’s Ministry of Science and Technology has spent the past decade tweaking incentives like phasing out government payments for publications to improve efficiency. "....(more)