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[in terms of patent licensing revenue, data provided by the world bank in 2016 showed that the us patent licensing revenue was us$1,222.27 billion that year, while china's was only us$1.161 billion, equivalent to 0.95% of the us.]

recently, the economist published an article titled "china has become a scientific superpower", which has caused heated discussions at home and abroad. the timing of the publication of this article caters to the expectations of many chinese people. the government wants to prove that it has spent money wisely, scientists need to be proven that their work is at an internationally advanced level, and ordinary people are eager to satisfy their sense of honor as a great power. the economist's article provides authoritative support for these needs.

but what i want to say is that this article in the economist is likely to mislead the government's judgment on the current state of national capabilities, leading to a misallocation of scientific and technological resources in the future. it simply applies internationally accepted scientific evaluation indicators to china and draws a wrong conclusion.

the economist calls china a scientific superpower mainly based on two indicators: one is the number of highly cited papers. in 2022, china's number of highly cited papers exceeded the total of the united states and europe; the other is the nature index, which reflects the number of papers in authoritative journals. in 2023, china has topped the nature index. in the leiden university scientific research output ranking, six chinese universities or institutions are among the top ten in the world.

using these two indicators to evaluate china’s scientific community ignores two important differences: one is the way china’s innovation system is constructed; the other is the way china’s scientific system is governed.

the innovation system of developed countries is a natural growth process. first, there is the market economy, industrial technology innovation, and engineering culture. the high development of these parts has created a demand for institutionalized science, and only then did universities and research institutions come into being. this construction method determines that there is a logical consistency between industrial technology innovation and the scientific system to solve problems. many industrial organizations are also the organizers of universities and research institutions.