beijingwalker
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China has numerous scientific and engineering achievements in recent year,space science,military breakthrough,medical accomplishments,supercomputers,clean energy...China sent men to the space and the bottom of the sea,polar explorationt China is also on the front row..
China 'to overtake US on science' in two years
David Shukman Science and environment correspondent, BBC News
China is on course to overtake the US in scientific output possibly as soon as 2013 - far earlier than expected.
That is the conclusion of a major new study by the Royal Society, the UK's national science academy.
The country that invented the compass, gunpowder, paper and printing is set for a globally important comeback.
An analysis of published research - one of the key measures of scientific effort - reveals an "especially striking" rise by Chinese science.
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There are many millions of graduates but they are mandated to publish so the numbers are high
Dr Cong Cao Nottingham University
The study, Knowledge, Networks and Nations, charts the challenge to the traditional dominance of the United States, Europe and Japan.
The figures are based on the papers published in recognised international journals listed by the Scopus service of the publishers Elsevier.
In 1996, the first year of the analysis, the US published 292,513 papers - more than 10 times China's 25,474.
By 2008, the US total had increased very slightly to 316,317 while China's had surged more than seven-fold to 184,080.
Previous estimates for the rate of expansion of Chinese science had suggested that China might overtake the US sometime after 2020.
But this study shows that China, after displacing the UK as the world's second leading producer of research, could go on to overtake America in as little as two years' time.
"Projections vary, but a simple linear interpretation of Elsevier's publishing data suggests that this could take place as early as 2013," it says.
Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, chair of the report, said he was "not surprised" by this increase because of China's massive boost to investment in R&D.
Chinese spending has grown by 20% per year since 1999, now reaching over $100bn, and as many as 1.5 million science and engineering students graduated from Chinese universities in 2006.
"I think this is positive, of great benefit, though some might see it as a threat and it does serve as a wake-up call for us not to become complacent."
The report stresses that American research output will not decline in absolute terms and raises the possibility of countries like Japan and France rising to meet the Chinese challenge.
"But the potential for China to match American output in terms of sheer numbers in the near to medium term is clear."
China emerging as innovation leader
China is aggressively pursuing innovation and R&D patent protections as the more developed regions of the world slash development and research budgets in the current global recession.
According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) U.S. applications for patents protecting new inventions were flat in 2008 and 2009 while in China patent applications jumped 18.2 percent in 2008 and another 8.5 percent in 2009. A copy of the report is available here.
"China is moving up the value chain and rapidly increasing exports based on domestic innovation, so inevitably it is filing an ever-growing number of patent applications," the WIPO chief told a news conference as it released its latest findings.
Filings for patents dropped 7.9 percent in Europe and 10.8 percent in Japan last year, with filings from Germany, Britain and France also lower according to the WIPO.
Meanwhile, Chinese filings for trademark protection jumped 20.8 percent last year, as similar applications fell 11.7 in the United States, 7.7 percent in Germany and 7.2 percent in Japan.
"The post-crisis innovation landscape will invariably look different from that of a decade ago," WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry said in an introduction to the World Intellectual Property Indicators report.
Elsewhere in the developing world, intellectual property protection efforts are also on the upswing. Beyond China, other emerging nations with double-digit growth in patent filings include Belize, Peru, Romania and Turkey in 2008.
WIPO Chief Economist Carsten Fink said China's ample cash reserves allowed it to continue financing innovation in a time when loans and venture capital were difficult to come by.
There is a tremendous pool of finance for domestic investment in R&D and industrial design the report notes, adding noting that "the post-crisis innovation landscape will invariably look different from that of a decade ago" he noted.
China patent filings could overtake US, Japan in 2011
China is projected to lead in patent activity by 2011, according to a detailed intellectual property (IP) analysis published by the IP Solutions business of Thomson Reuters. China's patents focus has continued to be digital computing, a trend started in the 1990s/2000s outsourcing boom to China, but increasingly these are Chinese companies, not multinational parent companies, filing, says Thomson Reuters.
The study, "Patented in China II: The Present and Future State of Innovation in China," tracks global patent activity as a barometer for innovation across dozens of metrics to provide a view into Chinas innovation economy.
