China's Rising Leadership in Global Science

TL;DR

This paper analyzes China's growing influence in global science, showing rapid leadership gains in international collaborations but slower progress in per-collaborator leadership, highlighting ongoing developmental constraints.

Contribution

It develops a novel framework and machine-learning model to measure and compare the hierarchical scientific leadership of countries over time.

Findings

China's scientific leadership has significantly increased since 1990.

China and the US are projected to have equal team leaders around 2027-2028.

China's parity with the US in per-collaborator leadership is not expected until after 2087.

Abstract

Major shifts in the global system of science and technology are destabilizing the global status order and demonstrating the capacity for emerging countries like China and India to exert greater influence. In order to measure changes in the global scientific system, we develop a framework to assess the hierarchical position of countries in the international scientific collaboration network. Using a machine-learning model to identify the leaders of 5,966,623 scientific teams that collaborated across international borders, we show that Chinese scientists substantially narrowed their leadership deficit with scientists from the US, UK, and EU between 1990 and 2023 in absolute terms. Consequently, China and the US are on track to reach an equal number of team leaders engaged in bilateral collaborations between 2027 and 2028. Nevertheless, Chinese progress has been considerably slower in per-collaborator terms: after adjusting for the number of non-leaders from each country, our models do not predict parity between the US and China until after 2087. These dynamics extend to 11 critical technology areas central to ongoing diplomacy between the two nations, such AI, Semiconductors, and Advanced Communications, and to China's scientific leadership with respect to the European Union and the United Kingdom. Thus, while China's elite scientists are achieving leadership in the international scientific community, China's scientific enterprise continues to face developmental constraints. We conclude by reviewing several steps that Chinese science is taking to overcome these constraints, by increasing its engagement in scientific training and research in signatory nations to the Belt and Road Initiative.