The number and quality of Chinese scientific papers have reached the world’s top level. To be truly world number one in science and technology, it will be the key to whether it can continue to rank first and continuously create internationally recognized achievements. — “Nikkei Shimbun”
As the economy and technology continue to advance, China is feeling more and more good about itself. (AP picture)
According to the data of the British research company Clarivate, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology analyzes the performance of major national scientific papers according to the average from 2018 to 2020, and China ranks first in the world in three representative indicators.
The total number of published scientific papers in China exceeded 407,000, more than 100,000 more than the 293,000 in the United States. According to the Nikkei, the more times a research paper is cited, the more it is rated as high quality.
Among them, the “top papers” cited by researchers ranked in the top 1%. For the first time, China surpassed the United States, with 4,744 papers in China and 4,330 papers in the United States. The UK is third. At the same time, China, which was cited in the top 10% of “followed papers”, was also crowned the champion. China won a scientific competition that won the triple crown.
Japan has long been optimistic about China. At the 45th anniversary of the Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations in 2018, Minister of the Ministry of Culture, Arimarang, pointed out in his speech: “The number of scientific papers in China is now second only to the United States and second in the world. Japan’s status is declining. Japan jumped to the second place in 1998 and has now been surpassed by China.” However, at that time, Western experts generally believed that this was China’s “human sea tactic.” But the highest-end papers are not yet in China’s turn. The so-called public knowledge in the country, which is the most “bloody-vomiting”, also agrees with this view. The focus of scientific performance is on Japan’s performance in the Nobel Prize in Natural Sciences.
After Hideki Yukawa won the first Nobel Prize in Physics for Japan in 1949, Japan started to take off in the third Nobel Prize in Natural Sciences (physics, chemistry, medicine), and won 5 more prizes in 50 years, reaching the first prize in 10 years, and then, The performance of Japan’s Nobel Prize has taken off. Since Hideki Shirakawa won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000, Japan has ushered in the “Nobel Prize boom”, setting a record of winning one Nobel Prize for 19 consecutive years.
However, the Japanese masters are much more sober than the Chinese people. In 2016, when Yoshinori Ohsumi won the Nobel Prize in Medicine, he pointed out: “It is very likely that Japan will maintain the Nobel Prize “mass production” for a period of time, but it is unpredictable what will happen after that. In the ranking of the number of scientific papers in China, Japan was second only to the United States in the early 2000s, and fell back to fifth on average from 2011 to 2013. China has risen from sixth to second.”
Incidentally, Japan is in the process of regressing. The Nikkei said: Japan has failed to curb the decline of its international status in terms of the quality and quantity of papers. “From the perspective of all three indicators, the ranking this time is lower than that of the previous year’s survey. The total number of papers ranked 5th, and the number of “top papers” ranked 10th. The ranking dropped one place from the previous year’s survey. Both were ranked by India. Exceed. “Paper of Interest” slipped to 12th, surpassed by Spain and South Korea.
Our focus is not to compare with Japan, but to look further a trend phenomenon. The Japanese historian of science Yuasa Mitsuya counted the scientific achievements from 1501 to 1950. In 1962, he proposed the “Transfer Law of World Science Centers”: when a country’s major scientific achievements, including the number of scientific talents and research results, account for the world’s scientific achievements A quarter or more will become a world science center, and there have been 5 center transfers over the years (Italy 1540-1610, Britain 1660-1730, France 1770-1830, Germany 1840-1920, and the United States 1920-present ).
Take a look at the following figures: by the end of 2020, China’s scientific and technological human resources exceeded 112.34 million, ranking first in the world in terms of scientific and technological human resources. In addition: the 2021 “Statistical Report on the Development of China’s Internet Network” shows: “Currently, the number of global patent applications in the field of 6G communication technology exceeds 38,000, and China’s patent applications account for 35% (more than 13,000), ranking first in the world.” China’s AI also has R&D advantages: “Global AI patent applications are close to 390,000, and China accounts for 75% of the global total, which is 8.2 times that of the second-ranked United States.”
According to the above information, China will be in line with the “World Science Center Transfer Law” around 2020, and will become the world science center after the United States. My question is only one: when will the relevant authorities sort out the digital data and formally educate the students: China is already the world science center, we need to continue to forge ahead!