China Will Soon Trump U.S. in Science & Technology

“It’s like being 40 years old and playing basketball against a competitor who’s only 12 years old – but is already at your height. You are a little better right now and have more experience, but you’re not going to squeeze much more performance out. The future clearly doesn’t look good for the United States.”

Nils Newman, Director of New Business Development for Search Technology, Inc

A new study of worldwide technological competitiveness suggests China will soon rival the United States as the principal driver of the world’s economy – a position the U.S. has enjoyed since the end of World War II. No, the study wasn’t funded by Hu Jintao. The Georgia Tech study was funded by the independent US government agency, National Science Foundation. Looks like the US will soon have to face a reality check about who’s leading the world. The expected development would be the first time in nearly a century that the two nations have competed for leadership as equals.

The study’s indicators predict that China will soon pass the United States in the critical ability to develop basic science and technology, turn those developments into products and services – and then market them to the world. China is often seen as just a low-cost producer of manufactured goods, but the new “High Tech Indicators” study done by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology clearly shows that the Asian powerhouse has much bigger aspirations. China is becoming a leader in research and development, and now leads the world in publications on nanotechnology, though U.S. papers still receive more citations.

“For the first time in nearly a century, we see leadership in basic research and the economic ability to pursue the benefits of that research – to create and market products based on research – in more than one place on the planet,” said Nils Newman, co-author of the Georgia Tech National Science Foundation-supported study. “Since World War II, the United States has been the main driver of the global economy. Now we have a situation in which technology products are going to be appearing in the marketplace that were not developed or commercialized here. We won’t have had any involvement with them and may not even know they are coming.”

China’s emphasis on training scientists and engineers – who conduct the research needed to maintain technological competitiveness – suggests it will continue to grow its ability to innovate. In the United States, the training of scientists and engineers has lagged, and post-9/11 immigration barriers have kept out international scholars who could help fill the gap.

“For scientists and engineers, China now has less than half as many as we do, but they have a lot of growing room,” noted Newman. “It would be difficult for the United States to get much better in this area, and it would be very easy for us to get worse. It would be very easy for the Chinese to get better because they have more room to maneuver.”

Georgia Tech has been gathering the high tech indicators since the mid-1980s, when the concern was which country would be the “next Japan” as a competitive producer and exporter of technology products. The current “HTI-2007” information was gathered for use in the NSF’s biennial report, “Science and Engineering Indicators,” the most recent of which was released January 15.

Georgia Tech’s “High Tech Indicators” study ranks 33 nations relative to one another on “technological standing,” an output factor that indicates each nation’s recent success in exporting high technology products. Four major input factors help build future technological standing: national orientation toward technological competitiveness, socioeconomic infrastructure, technological infrastructure and productive capacity. Each of the indicators is based on a combination of statistical data and expert opinions.

“China has really changed the world economic landscape in technology,” said Alan Porter, another study co-author and co-director of the Georgia Tech Technology Policy and Assessment Center, which conducted the research. “When you take China’s low-cost manufacturing and focus on technology, then combine them with the increasing emphasis on research and development, the result ultimately won’t leave much room for other countries.”

The United States and Japan have both fallen in relative technological standing – though not absolute measures – because of the dramatic rise of China and other nations such as the “Asian Tigers:” South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. Japan has faltered a bit over time, and if the increasingly-integrated European Union were considered one entity instead of 27 separate countries, it would surpass the United States.

“We are seeing consistent gains for China across all the criteria we measure,” Newman said. “As a percentage mover relative to everyone else, we have not seen a stumble for China. The gains have been dramatic, and there is no real sense that any kind of leveling off is occurring.”

Most industrialized countries reach a kind of equilibrium in the study, moving up slightly in one data set, or down slightly in another. But the study shows no interruptions in China’s advance.

Recent statistics for the value of technology products exported – a key component of technological standing – put China behind the United States by the amount of “a rounding error:” about $100 million. If that trend continues, Newman noted, China will shortly pass the United States in that measure of technological leadership.

Posted by Rebecca Sato.

*This post was adapted from a Georgia tech news release.

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Source:

http://www.gatech.edu/news-room/release.php?id=1682

Comments

[China Sourcing]

Is it any wonder why the Chinese are beating us at everything? While we graduate about 300,000 new lawyers each year, they graduate 300,000+ engineers and scientists.

[Tori]

Are you KIDDING? 9/11 barriers to foreign scientists have NOTHING to do with the shortage of AMERICAN scientists! Where do you think so many Chinese scientists are getting their PhDs? In fact, there are far more Chinese students entering graduate programs in science than American students here in our own country! A significant number of them return home after graduation so accepting more students to scientific graduate programs clearly isn't the answer here! Many programs seem to PREFER foreign students (all other qualifications being equal) for reasons I won't go into here. Most students I attended college with who majored in science (biology, chemistry, physics, etc.) either teach science in public schools(to pay off massive student loan debt)or have abandonned the field entirely due to the lack of opportunities. The simple fact of the matter is that in order to earn a decent wage as a scientist, having a graduate degree (at least a MS, if not a PhD) is critical. If American graduate programs fill their classes with foreign students who may leave after graduating, and continue to reject American applicants, who will almost certainly stay here, then this country will fall behind other nations whose students are being trained on US tax dollars. Even those few lucky Americans who DO manage to earn a PhD can be searching for work a year or more before finding anything because companies are can hire foreign nationals easily (who again, may return home with what they gained here). I know of at least one lab where a Polish technician replaced a better qualified American. The rules that should be protecting our superiority in science and technology simply aren't there. Stiffling domestic innovation, chokes national economies at their roots. We need to start protecting our own scientists so that they can continue to keep this nation at the head of the pack. If nothing changes, we can expect a massive brain drain in the next decade as brilliant, experienced (foreign) researchers flee to countries capable of offering what they cannot find here (academic freedom, funding, lavish workplaces, generous benefits, medical care, excellent public education, and safe communities in which to raise their families). Here are the targets: 1) Graduate Admissions, 2) Temporarily Importing Foreign Labor, and 3) Research Funding. CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN!!!

[Heather]

Read this: http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/previous_issues/articles/2008_01_04/caredit_a0800002

[TJ]

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/071204_america.htm

[Stargazer]

I don't question for a moment that China is a rapidly emerging economic powerhouse and that clearly implies that scientific and engineering talent capabilities will be pulled along. However, China faces enormous internal political and economic challenges -- including more than half of their people living at third world levels, gigantic and potentially catastrophic environmental problems, and the volatile balance between the demand for increasing democratization by the populace and the Communist Party's reluctance to yield any meaningful political power. Before America wraps itself up in a sheet and heads for the grave yard handing over the world to China, China will have to successfully navigate those challenges. Personally I don't think that they will be able to do it while maintaining the explosive economic growth that has fueled their rise in power.

Another issue to consider is that China plainly not transparent on many isssues relating to their scientific and engineering capabilities. Perhaps figures can't lie, but liars can definitely figure. What kind of engineers and scientists is China producing? I don't just mean from their top institutions but from their main stream institutions. How good is their Education system at what would parallel our public and private universities? How effectively are they using the talent they are producing? Remember that the former Soviet Union always bragged that it was producing huge numbers of scientists and engineers but many of them were not of the same caliber of those found in the West and they were not used effectively by their society. Even now, nearly 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, how many scientists and engineers in Russia and other former Soviet Republics are barely able to make a living?

It is critically important that we don't get caught up in this new variant of the "yellow peril" when evaluating China's potential. They aren't ten feet tall, they can't leap tall buildings at a single bound, and they are subject to the same economic and political rises and falls that have shaped us and have effected every other emerging power.

[Al Fin]

Every time a "scientist" performs a straight line extrapolation -- isolated from reality though it may be -- the media always bites. Here is a clue: a person (or a country) cannot climb a rope unless it is attached at a higher point.

China has been climbing a rope attached to the US, Europe, and Russia. That's as far as she goes.

[Alkhemist]

Is this so terrible? Maybe we should stop trying to be so competitive and work together? I think the need to always be first is why the world is in such a mess in the first place.