Riassunto analitico
The technological scene has been dominated, in the most recent years, by the dualism by the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China. Recently, Chinese innovative abilities in fields such as Artificial Intelligence, nanotechnology and semiconductors generated the question if the Asian giant, already acknowledged as the “factory of the world”, had been able to improve its position from a productive country to a true innovator itself.
In order to address the problem, this document examines two university rankings, the Academic Ranking of World’s Universities (ARWU) of ShangaiRanking and the Leiden Ranking of Dutch Leiden University. The analysis highlights a considerable improvement by Chinese universities in engineering and technology fields, related to the production process and to innovation, with a relevant number of universities in the first positions; other subjects show little to no improvement, with ordinary results.
The analysis of the Chinese Research and Development expenditure shows an augmentation of R&D investments, but the results are below other industrialized countries like the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea. The specific analysis of R&D investments on experimental development shows instead China in the second position worldwide.
The evolution of the human capital confirms the attempt to move from a middle-income country to a global power, as primary and secondary. In addition, the practice of dispatch Chinese students to American universities is decreasing probably because of the Covid outbreak, the diplomatic crisis between the two countries and the rise of Chinese universities.
The analysis of patent submissions shows a prominent leadership of Chinese ones, especially in new technologic fields. It may be due to the need to submit for Chinese patents to produce goods in the country and to the increasing relevance of research.
The document concludes that China is likely to overtake the United States in innovation, but in order to become a global power it needs to improve its weaknesses in order to overcome the middle-income trap. A conclusive overview of the US-China trade war is also provided.
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