China’s sustained investment in science, engineering and technology is pulling it ahead globally, while the United States cuts research funding and hollow-outs its scientific workforce.

In the science and tech race, China is steadily advancing while America is retreating. That’s the conclusion of multiple Western studies. US President Donald Trump’s own policies have greatly contributed to this trajectory.

Several salient features in this race for supremacy have been identified: China’s highly focused state support of science and tech, America’s federal defunding of them, and a nation of engineers and science graduates versus a nation of lawyers.

“China is an engineering state … facing off against the United States’ lawyerly society, blocking everything it can, good and bad,” wrote Dan Wang in _Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future_.

The US may have a qualitative advantage in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), but China is well ahead quantitatively. In 2016, China already had 4.7 million STEM graduates, compared with 2.6 million in India and 568,000 in the US. In 2022, China graduated over 50,000 PhDs in STEM, while the US had 34,000.

China’s industrial policy has been consistent, long-standing and expanding. It is able to support and scale up a winning........

© Pearls and Irritations