China: a scientific superpower in the making

Phenomenal growth in Chinese R&D investments

Over the past 27 years, investments in research and development (R&D) in China have increased structurally and phenomenally (see Figure 1.1). Whereas in 1996, China was still at the same level as the Netherlands, since 2016, China's total R&D funding is higher than that of the 27 countries of the European Union together. The US is still the largest absolute investor in R&D during this entire period, but China is approaching the level of the US. Over the period 1996-2023, R&D expenditure in China grew the strongest by far: 3,829%, compared with 169% in the US and 116% in the Netherlands.

In the coming period, both the US and China plan to increase their investments in R&D. According to the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, the Chinese state will increase the R&D budget by 7% annually in the coming years (Shead, 2021; Normile, 2021). Both the US and China plan to invest mainly in research that focuses on technology (National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, 2021).

In addition, China shows a substantial structural increase in the total expenditure on R&D as a percentage of the GDP (see figure 1.2). With an increase from less 0.57% of the GDP in 1996 to 2.49% in 2023, China exceeds the Netherlands (2.23% in 2023) and the EU (2.13% in 2023). In addition, the tax benefit for companies to invest in R&D in China (0.07% of GDP in 2017) is lower than in the Netherlands (0.14% of GDP in 2018) and in the US (0.08% of GDP 2018).

At USD 651 in 2023, R&D investment per capita in China is still considerably lower than in the US, the Netherlands and EU countries (see Figure 1.3). Incidentally, China's population is also over four times larger than that of the US and three times larger than that of the EU (and over 80 times larger than that of the Netherlands). Here too, China shows the strongest growth. In 2023, for example, China invested over 56 times more in R&D per capita than in 1996. The other economies (US and EU) are showing solid growth for the same period, but not nearly as strong as China (about four times as much).
 

Limited international research funding

Across all economies, companies are the largest source of R&D funding (Figure 2.1). In China, companies made up 79% of total R&D investment in 2023. This number is for the US 70% and for the Netherlands and EU even slightly below 60%. This is partly due to the difference in economic structure. In China, the importance of the manufacturing industry in the economy (38%) is much greater than in the US (18%) and the Netherlands (17%), where the service sector, which is less R&D-intensive, plays a relatively larger role (see Figure 2.3).

In China, 18% of research funding comes from the government. Only a minor part comes from abroad (0.2%). In the other economies, in addition to companies, other stakeholders such as universities, private and non-private organisations and stakeholders from abroad play an important role. For example, 10% of Dutch R&D funding comes from abroad. It should be noted that in China, the division between public and private is less clear, which makes it less transparent which parties are behind Chinese financial flows. The Chinese state also exerts influence on companies through legislation and by making them partly state-owned (hybrid) (Witt & Redding, 2014; Hoffman & Kania, 2018). According to an independent advisory organisation to the Australian government (FIRB), hybrid ownership of companies (part state ownership) will become the norm in the Chinese market (Grigg,
2019).

Figure 2.2. also shows how R&D funding is divided by type of research. China and the US, for example, place a strong emphasis on experimental research. The Netherlands places relatively more emphasis on applied and fundamental research.
 

Image 1. Number and development of researchers in FTE.

China overtakes US in scientific output

China's development as a new scientific superpower is also reflected in the increase in the number of scientific publications (see figure 3). These are English-language publications included in Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science database. With a sharply rising trend since 2011, China produced the largest number of scientific publications worldwide for the first time in 2019. The other reference countries also show an increase, but a flatter one than China. Up to and including 2018, the US still produced the largest number of scientific publications worldwide. Because the number of publications there grew less strongly between 2011 and 2025 (18%) than in China (493%), China has overtaken the US in this respect as well. In the Netherlands, the number of scientific publications grew by 44%. After 2021, all countries except China saw a slight decline in the annual number of publications. This decline does not appear to be lasting, as from 2024 onwards we see the decline levelling off or an upward trend resuming.

Output growth is above average in all domains

The impressive increase in the number of Chinese publications is visible in every scientific domain (figure 4). The percentage increase is strongest in the Social Sciences, at 1,732%. In all disciplines, China can be seen to pull up the average increase in publications of the reference countries. This effect is greatest in Engineering and smallest in the Health Sciences.
 

Citation impact reaches world average

Figure 5 shows that China has also undergone the strongest development of all reference countries in terms of citation impact score, an indicator of scientific quality and relevance. Singapore went through a similar development. Between 2008 and 2024, the citation impact score of Chinese science grew from 0.76 to 1.07. As a result, China's citation impact score in the period 2021-2024 is slightly above the world average (1). The Netherlands is among the world's top performers, ranking fourth among the reference countries, behind Singapore, the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

Our factsheet on the 'Development of the scientific research profile of the Netherlands' shows that the Netherlands ranks in the top five for citation impact in every domain except Engineering. This does not apply to China, which is in the top five only in Agriculture. However, there are nine (out of 35) disciplines in which China outperforms the Netherlands in terms of citation impact: Basic medical sciences (CHN 5, NLD 7), Computer science (CHN 11, NLD 12), Economics (CHN 1, NLD 8), Educational sciences (CHN 1, NLD 2), Electrical engineering (CHN 10, NLD 12), Instruments and instrumentation (CHN 5, NLD 14), Literary studies (CHN 6, NLD 7), Mechanical engineering (CHN 4, NLD 9) and Statistics (CHN 5, NLD 10). According to the European Commission's report on China, China aims to grow primarily in technology-oriented scientific disciplines such as next-generation information technology, control machinery, and aerospace and aeronautical engineering. Through investments in these areas, the Chinese government seeks to achieve a more dominant position in the technological and scientific domain and to become less dependent on other countries (Alves Dias et al., 2019).

International cooperation in China still underdeveloped

When we look at the development in the number of international co-publications as a percentage of the total number of publications, we see an increase for all reference countries except China (figure 6). In the Netherlands, the share of co-publications rose from 58% in 2011-2014 to 70% in 2021-2024. In China, the share of international co-publications, at 21% in 2021-2024, is the lowest of the reference countries. Since 2014, the share of international publications in China has fallen by 3 percentage points. 

Number of Dutch-Chinese co-publications quadrupled

The figure below shows that the number of Dutch-Chinese co-publications has increased by 400% over the past ten years: from 1,023 in 2010 to 5,322 in 2025. The three domains in which the Netherlands and China collaborated the most in 2025 are: Medical Sciences (1,177 co-publications in 2025), Engineering (1,018 co-publications in 2025), and Physics and Astronomy (912 co-publications in 2025).

In conclusion

The phenomenal growth and the unparalleled manpower in Chinese science results in the largest and strongest growing number of scientific publications worldwide. The Chinese state plans to stimulate this growth in R&D even further. For example, there are plans to increase R&D investments by 7% annually over the next five years. The largest consumer of this increased research budget will be the
technology sector.

Scientific quality is also improving strongly: citation impact has risen to the world average. International collaboration can help in this respect, but China in particular has the lowest share of international co-publications of all reference countries, and this share is declining (21% in 2021-2024). Both Chinese and Dutch scientists can benefit from more collaboration, provided that sufficient attention is paid to research security. The rise of China as a scientific superpower can offer opportunities for scientific collaboration and for solving global challenges. However, scientific collaboration also entails risks. This certainly applies to collaboration with researchers from countries such as China, which score low on the Democracy Index and the Human Freedom Index (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2020; Vasquez & McMahon, 2020).

While decentralisation seems to be taking off in China, some sectors, including science, are still centrally governed with a high dependence on state policy and state control (Benner, 2018, Kirby & Van der Wende, 2019). The sources of funding for Chinese science are less diverse than those in the Netherlands and the other reference countries. Funding from abroad and by private non-profit organisations does not seem to play a significant role. Although companies are the largest financiers of Chinese science, there are indications that the Chinese state also exerts influence through this channel. While the number of state-owned companies is decreasing, the number of hybrid companies (mixture of private and state ownership) is increasing. The dominant presence of the Chinese government within science can lead to undesirable influence and there are indications that members of the Communist Party of China are entering (international) science as researchers to serve the interests of
the party (Joske, 2018).

In the Bericht aan het parlement on knowledge security in higher education and science, the Rathenau Instituut already indicated that international cooperation and international mobility of scientists are of great importance to the Dutch knowledge economy. At the same time, there must be sufficient awareness of the risks involved at all levels: for the individual researcher, for research institutions and for the Netherlands as a whole. In earlier research, the Rathenau Instituut described examples of such risks. These include knowledge that can be used for both civil and military purposes (dual use) or risks in the field of economic interests (intellectual property) and ethics (human rights) (Rathenau Instituut, 2019). In the Message to Parliament, we shared several insights and suggestions for ensuring knowledge security in international cooperation.

The European Commission sets conditions for so-called 'third' countries to participate in the new Horizon Europe research programme. Non-EU and EEA countries must:

• have high qualifications in science, technology and innovation;
• commit to a rule-based, open market economy, including a fair and equitable approach to intellectual property rights and respect for human rights, supported by democratic institutions;
and
• promote active policies to improve the economic and social well-being of citizens.

(EU regulation on Horizon Europe, adopted 28 April 2021: Article 16).