• Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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    2 months ago

    I disagree with the concept that you can accurately measure who is leading the way in science overall based on specific individual technologies that you may be the industry leader in at the moment.

    Engineering superiority is not scientific superiority. Your ball bearings example is not suggestive of scientific superiority. China isn’t making massive technological strides in ball bearing studies which are furthering science as a whole.

    Frankly, I disagree with the idea that it is possible to, as The Register puts it, beat the world at science because science is a global endeavor and the scientific method requires it to be in order to make sure things are verifiable.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yes I mostly agree with that, but it’s also proprietary technologies, and those technologies are based on local scientists working on them.
      I admit I didn’t read the whole report, but as I understand it, the report doesn’t claim China is leading in for instance “advanced aircraft engines” but it claims China is investing 5 times more than USA in research on it.

      I mention this as an example in a previous post, that it doesn’t mean they are leading the field now, because for instance USA has worked on that for 80 years already, and China is probably still catching up.
      But unless we up our own game, China will surpass the west.

      I have read other reports stating that China spend about twice the percentage of GDP on research compared to USA, and most western countries spend less than USA. I’ve been arguing for more education and research for my own country every chance I get for more than a decade now, but everybody is too busy making money, and that’s going so well they think we don’t need it. (Denmark)

      Maybe the report is alarmist, maybe I am alarmist, but I’m not sure I want China to take the role USA has had since WW2. Xi and China are becoming hostile and arrogant in international politics, if this is the way of China going forward, it does not bode well IMO.