Equation
Lieutenant General
3 Charts Show That China's Scientific Dominance Over The US Is A Done Deal
Researchers prepare medicine at a laboratory in Nanjing University in China. The clinical trials business has gone global as drugmakers seek cheaper venues for studies.
Anyone who watched the moon landing or uses the internet can attest to the strong tradition of scientific innovation in the United States. But China is now poised to blow past the U.S. to become dominant in science and engineering, as it has already done in global trade.
A team of researchers from the University of Michigan and Peking University in Beijing published a study highlighting China's growing scientific dominance in a recent issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Specifically, they focused on China's potential to knock the U.S. out of its spot as the world's undisputed leader in the science, tech, engineering, and math fields — collectively called STEM.
The researchers write: "Two recent reports by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine have raised concerns that the United States may soon lose its scientific leadership role and suffer negative economic consequences."
These three charts make their case.
China is churning out a staggering number of science graduates.
While China and the U.S. currently award science and engineering degrees to an equivalent proportion of their populations, China has sharply increased the number of graduates in these fields — and the U.S. does not seem poised to catch up anytime soon.
Chinese students also receive more American doctoral degrees in science and engineering than any other foreign students. Between 1987 and 2010, there was a threefold increase in the number of Chinese students in these programs (from 15,000 to 43,000).
