How worrying is the rapid rise of Chinese science?

IF THERE is one thing the Chinese Communist Party and America’s security hawks agree on, it is that innovation is the secret to geopolitical, economic and military superiority. President Xi Jinping hopes that science and technology will help his country overtake America. Using a mix of export controls and sanctions, politicians in Washington are trying to prevent China from gaining a technological advantage.

America’s strategy is unlikely to work. Chinese science and innovation are making rapid progress. It is also misguided. If America wants to maintain its lead – and to get the most benefit from the research of China’s talented scientists – it would do better to focus less on keeping Chinese science down and more on pushing itself ahead.

For centuries the West sniffed at Chinese technology. Self-regarding Europeans struggled to accept that such a far-flung place could possibly have invented the compass, the crossbow and the blast furnace. In recent decades, as China joined the world economy, its rapid catch-up and abuse of Western intellectual property meant that it was more often an imitator and a thief than an innovator. Meanwhile, its science was disparaged, partly because it encouraged researchers to churn out high volumes of poor-quality scientific papers.