I wonder if the title is intentional. The "great leap forward" was a failed economic and social policy where the communists decided to fast forward development by skipping directly to industrialization. It didn't quite work and tens of millions of people died of famine as a result.
What the article actually says, is that China is investing a lot in basic science. What is true is that while the quality of research per researcher in China is not that high, the sheer investment and focus coupled with quantity has led to a lot of scientific progress.
My father is part of that thousand research program to lure specialists back to China. Having seen how he works in China compared to Australia, what the real advantage China has for researchers is that they give virtual free reign and all the resources needed (read: $$$, labs and all the grad students you want) to conduct research.
For those who've never worked in academia, even though there is more academic freedom outside of China, there are whole loads of red tape (mostly well-intentioned) that slow things down. For example, at Princeton, any social science experiment involving people requires a panel to approve the ethics. A similar experiment in a Chinese university does not have the same requirements. Even if they did on paper, it would not be as rigorous.
The same goes for expenditures. I remember my father complaining years ago about how for an Australian research project, spending research money on a special type of computer required additional approval even though the money for research was already granted. That's not the case in China.
The net effect is that shockingly enough, the Chinese have managed to create almost a startup-like sandbox environment for researchers. In fields, particularly biotech, where there are ethical, and other red-tape considerations, the Chinese have an edge in producing results faster.
Of course, this just means to get one cloned monkey, hundreds of independent teams mostly likely inhumanely murdered many multiples of monkeys to get to this result.
What is important is to realize that for the Chinese, this sort of Stanlinist "only the results matter" approach is perfectly acceptable, if not encouraged. Most people would balk at the ethical and human cost, I know I do, but there is no doubt that it provides an advantage to Chinese scientists over those in the developed world. Multiply in the sheer number of Chinese scientists and you have results. Progress at any cost.
It sounds like the ethical review you’re talking about is IRB approval. It doesn’t just happen at Princeton. In fact, most journals won’t accept work that hasn’t been demonstrated to be conducted ethically.
your father worked for some pretty different projects I guess. I have close friends working in those so called 985 universities and they all had issues when they tried to buy those mentioned special computers when they are needed. there is no special approval procedures for them, they can not buy it without going through the annual purchase procedure managed directly by the department of education. they all gave up and end up renting those required computers from different vendors - apparently it is actually more expensive in long term but much easier in terms of paperwork.
it also worth noticing that Australia is not the best example to use here. e.g. the NBN project would be considered as a typical corruption case under the Chinese laws, in fact one can argue that it is the textbook definition of corruption in Chinese standard. Think about it - there is no ethics showstopper when laying fiber in Sydney/Melbourne, why the majority of residences in those two cities still don't get access to the NBN first promised back in 2007 after billions of AUD of their tax money already spent on NBN? Corruption is just corruption, calling it red tape is not helping. the rules are simple there - if you are not qualified for the job, it is fine, you get replaced/demoted, if you use red tape/endless paper work as excuses to misuse tax money (e.g. NBN), that is corruption and Central Commission for Discipline Inspection looks after you and your mates.
btw, by Chinese standards, the NBN corruption case is enough for many life imprisonment sentences. This week's news on Australian deputy PM living with his mistress (not his partner in his own words) in his friend's apartment rent free is just another good dose of corruption without consequence drama.
> This week's news on Australian deputy PM living with his mistress (not his partner in his own words) in his friend's apartment rent free is just another good dose of corruption without consequence drama.
Sorry; I'm not familiar with this situation. Where's the misuse of public funds?
so it is normal and acceptable for deputy PM to be living in his friend's investment property rent free for 6 months when he had an affair with one of his staff? his mistress became pregnant and was "offloaded" from his office to minimise any political damage.
Two years into launching a professional services business creating English resumes, LinkedIn Profiles and academic essay editing in Shanghai, one of the toughest things to still adjust to is "only the results matter". I have turned away some clients due to their rudeness and outside of project scope demands. Fortunately this happens only 1-2x a year. They come back a few weeks later demanding the same but using fake names and slightly altered documents which I recognize immediately. There really is no "right" or "wrong" in their minds. Only what they want.
> Most people would balk at the ethical and human cost, I know I do, but there is no doubt that it provides an advantage to Chinese scientists over those in the developed world.
Can you list all the ethical and humane ways the "developed world" became "developed", for someone who thinks all you're arguing is China shouldn't be able to advance in the way we did, now we can't get away with it any more (in our own countries, at least; hence why we happily outsource everything from cheap phones to torture to less 'red-tapey' ones)?
I know he is your father, but what your father did was essentially, after having tasted the freedom and democracy in australia, he choose to go back to an authoritarian dictatorship for money and help the government pursue research in bio. Would he be comfortable if that same government decides to use the biological research on its 120,000 Uighurs held in re-education camps?
He is not in bio and he has personal reasons to do what he does, but hey, don't let that stop you and your recently created throwaway account from throwing unfounded and wrong accusations around just like the paid pro china trolls.
As an Indian, I am always pleased to see the advances China is making in all facets of life. It shows that another model of development is possible - and one need not blindly follow the American individualist/"free markets" model. In fact, one of the reason why we see an immediate influx of anti-China comments in any such article is driven by fear (possibly at a subconscious level) that the Chinese model actually works.
Unlike China, India has a very weak nationalism. The "Chinese Dream" is very much the American Dream redux. Countries that have made great progress have always had a strong nationalistic spirit, may it be Britain, Japan or the United States and now China.
Though nationalism is on the rise in India, it is still a very fractured society, with a strong emphasis on autonomy of groups to make their own "rules", treating the state as a weak actor. The quality of education at all levels is shockingly poor (specially in science and technology) and no way ready to produce any kind of revolution.
While India will make painfully slow progress in the physical sense (infrastructure), it is very unlikely to follow the Chinese model. Sadly India will remain fractured (or de-centralized, if you want to put a positive spin).
If you have been to India, you will know the pervasiveness of "status quo". Things are so broken, hard and complex that it does not make sense to even start doing something.
If we are making statements based on history, you are squarely ignoring the progress that happened in Europe in spite of it being very "fragmented". Some argue that it was this competition between various nation states that pushed development faster ahead.
Yes, I'm aware that India is a single country, while Europe wasn't. But with the right amount of autonomy, you end up with the same conditions, and it's not too different in practice.
Unlike the European states, Indian states are do not have a long running political history or national "myth". They have been formed based on linguistic similarity and for ease of administration. And they are not homogeneous either, hence there are multiple movements in place for further fragmentation (most of which are justified).
Also these states (or ancient / medieval kingdoms in them) have rarely been "at war" with each other. Until recently, India was sparsely populated and it was easy the "migrate" to another land to establish your kingdom rather than fight with your brother or cousin.
If you are interested, Francis Fukuyama [1] has a very interesting theory that says that India has been held together by its society and not its state. Multiple waves of invasion have not fundamentally altered the texture of the society, parts of the new culture have been slowly assimilated in it, often forcing the invaders to adapt to their new home.
In fact you didn't really have to look up to China to show that. Reading up the first dozen or so pages of "Bad Samaritans" by Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang would reveal how South Korea is a fairly contemporary counterexample to the (largely mythical) official narrative; also worth taking a look at his paper "Kicking away the ladder: the "real" history of free trade"[0].
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the reason South Korea (like China) progressed so rapidly is because it was a fairly authoritarian state until recently. They benefited from that and US investment, and then liberalized after they were a small powerhouse.
Some argue that China will do the same thing, but it's just as likely the elites continue to hoard most of the benefits of this development and it stays closed off. Trading personal freedoms for economic development is temping and very scary because it's tempting.
Generally speaking, the dichotomy involving "personal freedom" vs. "economic development" does not have to be inevitable if the political consciousness and the relevant constructive action on the part of the people concerned is there. So what ends up happening in China or elsewhere depends on the choices made there, though as outsiders we can speculate.
Ha-joon Chang was not advocating to trade personal freedom for economic development; he was explaining what really transpired, contrary to the official narrative on economic development.
Ok, understood. Disagree that there is an "official narrative" about free trade/economic development (we never got a copy of that at my school), nor that a focus on free trade alone accounts for what's happened there.
To most Chinese people, it's not really viewed as "trading personal freedoms" for "economic development". It's more viewed as "trading personal freedoms" for a "better quality of life".
Most people won't complain about personal freedoms as long as their QOL is improving rapidly.
There is also the Chinese model of finance. The Economist has been predicting a Japanese style financial crash in China due to enormous debt levels since at least the early 90s and it never happened. That's because money is electronically printed by the government and given to banks in exchange for bad loans on a regular basis. There is no debt default crisis. The banks just keep lending and no government debt is created like it would be in America if the government wanted to do the same thing.
That this whole system has worked so well for 30 years completely undermines the entire basis of western macroeconomics and is the equivalent of telling a traditionally trained economist that the earth orbits the sun while they believed the opposite. It just does not compute and they can't even wrap their heads around it. Thus they keep predicting an imminent economic collapse every years even though they've been wrong for more than 25 years.
> The Economist has been predicting a Japanese style financial crash in China due to enormous debt levels since at least the early 90s and it never happened.
Huh? No they haven't. Especially since Japan was still crashing in the early 90s, it was hardly an established precedent by then.
> That's because money is electronically printed by the government and given to banks in exchange for bad loans on a regular basis.
Japan did the same thing, it led to zombie companies and a lost decade.
> There is no debt default crisis. The banks just keep lending and no government debt is created like it would be in America if the government wanted to do the same thing.
You see how this can't work forever, right? Also, if SOE's are publicly owned and their loans are implicitly guaranteed by the government, how is that not considered government debt?
> Thus they keep predicting an imminent economic collapse every years even though they've been wrong for more than 25 years.
It hasn't been 25 years, and whatever, China has crashed a few times since the early 90s. I remember seeing half completed buildings in Tianjin in 1999 just standing out as husks.
I know, I know, you think "its different this time" or "its different for china", but its all BS in the end, because it never is.
It's not because it didn't happen yet that economists (or economic theory) are wrong. Chinese economy is growing so fast that they can essentially bail out banks (silently) whenever they want and have little impact on the budget.
It should be interesting to see how it develops when the economic eventually slows down and China is no longer the cheap manufacturing park of the world.
25y is nothing. Japan went like that for 40y, from the end of WW2 to laye 80s. Until it stopped and never recovered since. Fortunately they stopped at a high income level.
A more interesting history is that of Argentina. It was an export powerhouse that went from being a poor Spanish colony in early 1800s to having a per capita income as high as Germany or France in 1920s. After the crash all went downhill and income levels are back to mid levels.
This model works because China run a huge trade surplus, and its excess production is consumed by other countries. It would be interesting to see if this model can continue when the global trade balances out.
In a way China is subsidizing goods for the most of the world. The outcome is the kind of political problems this is causing in most countries.
Just because the collapse hasn’t happened publicly doesn’t mean it won’t happen or it hasn’t happened. China can’t escape economic gravity, the same way Soviet Union didn’t escape gravity when it collapsed, even though everything was ok state owned.
Checkout Chinese provinces lying about inflating 25-30% of revenue, overstating their constant 7% gdp growth, debt ratio of over 300%, massive capital outflow, their own economists warning of a crash, and many others To see just how bad their crash will be
I think that the SOE have at least built up a lot of infrastructure (power, transportation) that has benefited independent companies. A lot of that would have made it much harder for non-SOE companies to be competitive.
"Due to" is a strong word, but as sct202 mentions it does seem to me like SOEs made it easier for other non-SOE companies to grow. For example, it's easier to build a bunch of cities if you have a bunch of steel manufacturing SOEs pumping out supply at a loss.
At any rate, that's beside my point, which is that (whether or not they're useful) the existence of huge SOEs by definition isn't classical capitalism, no?
After visiting China (and admittedly only knowing US from opinions on the Internet/HN) I'm willing to say the society is much closer to the USA than Central European states.
The chase after the buck, cult of success and celebrities, car-heavy cities. Also cars as status symbols.
The concentration of power in the central government isn't really that visible.
I agree with you second claim. There's recently really a strange deluge of anti-Chinese comments, even here on HN. My guess it stems from ignorance.
Mass internment of political activists or minority populations, horrific treatment of any who disagree with the state, hard to ignore evidence of widespread abuse of organ harvesting, and you are confounded by people having problems with China?
> anti-China comments in any such article is driven by fear (possibly at a subconscious level) that the Chinese model actually works.
Lol sure it works....until you're one of the citizen being tortured by the government. I can't believe how greedy these scientists are. As if Einstein should have worked for the Nazis.
"China 'holding at least 120,000 Uighurs in re-education camps'"
The economic model is somewhat separable from the political model. Development in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan followed broadly similar lines - direct state support for large industrial conglomerates - while being less totalitarian. If that model is actually superior (even for developed economies) then there is going to be a painful transition, and The West will fall behind in the meantime. Change is fear.
And yeah it sucks that China can do terrible things to its citizens, but I still think most of the negative sentiment toward China is economic. The sample size is small but successful empires from history always value their own success over the lives of foreigners. In that sense it doesn't matter if China is 'evil' or not - 'we' are not Chinese - it only matters if they are powerful enough that their self interest can cause significant harm.
I envy China for their willingness to invest lots of effort in moving forward and innovating. I would never live there because I don't feel that throwing away all notions of privacy is worth it. The totalitarian aspect of the Chinese government along with some territorial disputes are the only real sense of negative feelings most people I know have towards China.
China’s historical attempts at strong forms of collectivism universally resulted in poverty, starvation, and an absence of societal progress. Read about the history of Chinese capitalist SEZs and how they propped up and formed the model for the modern Chinese economy.
As an African I do feel excited for what's to come, and do feel our strategic and growing alliance with China is going to be extremely beneficial, who knows some African countries will end up in similar positions countries like South Korea and Israel ended up with USA to China.
But then again even if the above does not happen the mere fact that there Is a stable alternative to western ideology is immensely beneficial to the human race being epsilon greedy and what not.
Genuinely hope you guys find an alternative that works, but authoritarianism is not much of an alternative. There's part of me that worries that China is going to end up exploiting those countries.
It's not even alternative. It's pretty much colonialism 2.0. Just like Euro empires did in 19th century. The only difference is they give more autonomy to local clans. Although sometimes Europeans did give some autonomy too. So maybe not THAT much of a difference..
It's amazing how much progress a society can make when it isn't tearing itself apart through endless political internecine warfare over imaginary grievances. Group cohesion, trust, and commonality of purpose can make up for almost any material disadvantage.
...except the point of this article seems to be that China's current scientific strength is largely a consequence of the state spending more money on science, i.e. material advantage.
I believe he was referencing material capital as opposed to liquid capital (ie money). It would be fair to say the US not too long ago had a big headstart on existing technology/machines.
In any case, I think China's cohesion can easily be seen just by looking at the differences in papers being published in china vs the west.
For instance, you won't find many if any papers in china on the effects of diversity within society and the workplace. Unlike here, they don't seem to be urgently researching in this area.
I have no way to check the relative number of papers about diversity published in China, but they do at least collect statistics. E.g. here is data compiled by the Ministry of Education, which is tabulated for categories such as gender, minority status or age: http://en.moe.gov.cn/Resources/Statistics/edu_stat_2016/2016...
A lack of papers on diversity seems attributable to the Chinese government's effort to control any strain of "minority" dissent. I imagine that, say, Uyghurs or the rural people on the wrong end of the hukou system, might be interested in "diversity", but for obvious reasons the Chinese government is not interested in anything that suggests it treats certain subgroups worse than others.
> For instance, you won't find many if any papers in china on the effects of diversity within society and the workplace. Unlike here, they don't seem to be urgently researching in this area.
Maybe, and just maybe, their research in those areas is not something anybody would be willing to publish.
Government spending is not manna from heaven. It comes from broader society. The US, as a society, has a much greater starting resource base as compared to China. We're just squandering these resources.
> It's amazing how much progress a society can make when it isn't tearing itself apart through endless political warfare
Also works on the flip side. WW2 and the work stemming form it saw massive technology advancement sin a small period.
Obviously I'd prefer the former. It also feel disingenuous not to recognise the latter. Essentially either comes down to giving scientists goals and opportunity.
Either a society is pushed to do so by an imminent danger (a war or a brink thereof), or by an authoritarian pressure (USSR, China), or starts to slow down (e.g. Russia and, to a smaller degree, USA). "Normal.people" deeply discount long-term goals in favor of immediate consumption.
I'd imagine one reason for this is that in the US, there is really no good career path any more for smart scientists. Becoming a tenured professor is orders of magnitude harder than it used to be. Tenure track positions at even universities that arent particularly known as leaders in science and research regularly get thousands of applications
If I were a smart Chinese scientist with degrees from top western universities, and I had the option to return to my home country, start a lab, and perhaps be part of a modern day scientific revolution, rather than spend 3 more years in a postdoc position in the us, id do it in a heartbeat
That would be great news if their government was more humane and noble. But hey, at least it sounds less terrifying than: "North Korea's great leap forward in science".
I grew up in Asia (though not China). A key difference in experience for most children who grow up there is that being academically excellent is usually admired, sometimes even revered, by peers. Recognition for academic merits is widespread among teachers, schools, parents, their acquaintances, and basically everyone in society.
The above atmosphere is especially intense in China where the seriousness of Gaokao (高考) derives from the long history of imperial examinations (科舉) since over a thousand years ago. Just as in the old days, academic merits can greatly impact one's socioeconomic position for life. [1]
The system originates from Confucianism, which is an ideology with deep influences across East Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) and Singapore:
"Another new idea, that of meritocracy, led to the introduction of the imperial examination system in China. This system allowed anyone who passed an examination to become a government officer, a position which would bring wealth and honour to the whole family." [2]
From what I gather, this is not the case for American society. It is even embedded in language with pejorative terms like 'nerd', 'geek', and 'dork'. Yes, there are honor rolls but it doesn't seem like the kids honored are granted much social status by peers (Correct me if I'm wrong. I did not grow up in the US.). The top social groups belong to athletes, cheerleaders, and cool kids who devote their time to non-academic activites.
It is not surprising to see that these social factors, which have great influence on tweens and teens, may lead to weaker academic results for most students who do not have a chance to study and socialize in schools with more academic environment.
(It appears to me that Europe is somewhere inbetween the US and East Asia regarding this matter. If anyone from the US or Europe could comment, that would be quite informative.)
As a concrete effect, average American math level in high school is about 2-3 years behind their peers in developed Asia and also behind most of Europe. [3] This inevitably results in fewer students qualified to take 'hard' STEM majors in college and grad school. The US has been leading the world in science largely by the works of a minority of outstanding locals and a substantial immigration of global talent.
As China develops further and becomes able to train more students at home to their fullest potentials, as well as attracting back Chinese scientists who work abroad, it is not surprising their academic advantage may turn into a practical edge in scientific and technological development.
It completely depends on the location. I'll believe that overall, China's education produces better students than the USA, and that overall, the attitude towards academic excellence is more positive.
However, there's definitely pockets in the US from which a large part of the US academic elite come from for which it's not true that academic excellence isn't revered. A couple examples off the top of my head: The Palo Alto high school triangle, TJHSST, Exeter, the NY magnet school system, etc. A startling percentage of the US's top CS/math/physics talent comes from these schools.
In my personal opinion, top students at these schools will perform better than top students in China. Although the high level of academic rigor in high schools in China raises the average ability, it also dampens the amount of time that the top students have for extracurricular activities.
Most schools in China are absolutely horrible compared to the average US school. China compares its best schools (Shanghai) to America's average schools to look good in comparison, but they aren't digging through third tier+ cities for that. Couple that with education only being compulsory to the 9th grade in China, you are only in high school there if you want to be and can pay the price.
Top students from China vs. top students from American would be an interesting study. Comparing top students to average students never really makes sense.
Err, more accurately what I mean is comparing the students of equivalent wealth in the US and China. eg: the cities in China compared to most of the urban/city in the US.
Of course, there's still the several hundred million of impoverished in China that have much worse education.
"There are more people with genius IQ in China than people in the US".
It doesn't help that high level math teaching is restricted to pockets of excellence.
We just had a Fields medallist in Brazil. Yet we're in the bottom of the barrel when it comes to math teaching. We also share this disregard for 'nerds' as a society like the US
Thought about this a lot in high school, I believe this attitude has basically made large portions of American society mentally handicapped. Peer pressure to pretend to not know an answer to dumb as question to not look uncool etc.
My perception before and after reading this article is that the Chinese scientific establishment's strength has been making advances that rely on resource investment (e.g. China's dominance of various "biggest supercomputer"-type records), but that the restrictive political climate hinders their ability to attract good scientists.
I don't think it's the political climate. China isn't a particularly immigrant-friendly country, so the scientists they're going to attract are mostly going to be Chinese expats in the West... most of which aren't nearly as troubled by the CCP as typical Westerners are. In my experience, the bigger issues keeping Chinese expats away are QoL issues--air pollution, standard of living, etc.
As an American expat living in China and currently applying to grad schools for neuroscience research, I'll give my own personal anecdote.
I considered applying to grad schools here, especially since some Chinese schools are quite highly ranked. Whenever I walk past Starbacks (not a typo) on my way to work, I'm reminded that there's very little respect for IP outside of China. I worry that if I ever came across promising research, someone else would take credit for it and I would be left with nothing.
I'm friends with an American here who started a pretty successful restaurant selling Mexican food. He says that if a wealthy, prominent Chinese person liked his business, that person could start the exact same business across the street and then sue my friend for copying the business, and the Chinese person would win the lawsuit because my friend is a foreigner.
In regards to the other things you said, air pollution is a thing but it wouldn't stop me from pursuing my career goals, and I expect it to get better. I think the standard of living here is pretty good (though that's mostly because most companies will pay foreigners a lot more than they'll pay locals, so your buying power is pretty high).
Local employees will make as much as foreigners for the same job (unless we are talking about teaching English), it is just foreigners in China (barring English teachers) are generally highly skilled, so will make more on average. It isn't like we are making more money for doing the same work...if that was the case, why would they even hire us? Chinese companies are not stupid.
Maybe so, but they'll be able to look back and feel pride in how, for one brief shining moment, their ancestors got someone fired for something he said on Twitter.
The current climate matters. It doesn't exist as a separate sphere distinct from technological innovation. It saps energy, destroys trust, and squanders human capital. And for what?
I don't think it's possible to enforce a strict ideological orthodoxy in one area while leaving the mind free to be creative in others. If people regularly get burned following their ideas, they'll learn a generalized intellectual timidity.
China doesn't have this particular social climate. It has many others, yes, including various human rights issues, but its problems don't seem as inimical to technical creativity as ours do.
I thought that it's much easier to get in serious trouble for speaking politically unacceptable things in China? I suppose everybody just knows it and stays shut, while in the US the notion of free speech periodically leads people to an unpleasant discovery that going against the grain of the established narrative is very much unwelcome.
You are right about China. Limits on free speech are codified in their laws[1], and are designed to protect and maintain their government. The US is changing in a completely different way, forming a kind of McCarthyism[2] where those with bad opinions are forced out of jobs and communities. While expression is technically not illegal, Americans can have their careers destroyed for holding unfavorable opinions on contentious political issues. Given that healthcare, housing, and food depend on your career in the US, the repercussions of going against the grain can be nearly as bad as in China.
Tangential to the point you’re making, but in hindsight McCarthy was proven right about Communist infiltrators in the US by the Verona papers [1] which were declassified in 1995. If anything, he underestimated the number of conspirators.
Not sure that's a title I would use... Hopefully this great leap forward doesn't kill 30-50 million people through misguided policies like the last one.
I was also shocked at this usage. Why employ such charged language in this way? It’s like if there was a holocaust on poverty or something announced by Germany. This is utterly bizarre.
Because it was only chinese that died and we westerners don't empathize with chinese as much?
I know that's a bit offensive, but as you said you would see a headline about the holocaust on poverty, or the genocide of african rape or the shoa of fake shekels?
But what about the holodomor on corruption? Does that sound like it could get past a non-ukrainian editor?
I wouldn't describe it as such by a long shot, they constantly attacked Corbyn, praise MbS etc. It's your typical neoliberal piece, moving further to the right with each passing election cycle.
The guardian to the right? I mean, can they even admit that current immigration policies in the UK are problematic? Last time I tried reading a piece they couldn't seem to get over that hurdle, and that's turning out to be a pretty centrist view point in europe currently.
That's what neoliberal basically means. Liberal on social policies, (i.e. they don't want to seem as bigoted towards any group of people), however on the economic & foreign policy front, they're quite to the right by liberal standards, (i.e. pro interventionist policy).
Again I see immigration as mostly economic and foreign policy so being left on that isn't a good start. Throw in the wage gap (an econ issue they are far left on) or their pro-eu stance (very left econ wise).
Are you saying they are neoliberal because they are out and out socialists or something? What kind of right wing economic policies do they support aside from free trade which is not really strictly right/left anymore.
What the article actually says, is that China is investing a lot in basic science. What is true is that while the quality of research per researcher in China is not that high, the sheer investment and focus coupled with quantity has led to a lot of scientific progress.
My father is part of that thousand research program to lure specialists back to China. Having seen how he works in China compared to Australia, what the real advantage China has for researchers is that they give virtual free reign and all the resources needed (read: $$$, labs and all the grad students you want) to conduct research.
For those who've never worked in academia, even though there is more academic freedom outside of China, there are whole loads of red tape (mostly well-intentioned) that slow things down. For example, at Princeton, any social science experiment involving people requires a panel to approve the ethics. A similar experiment in a Chinese university does not have the same requirements. Even if they did on paper, it would not be as rigorous.
The same goes for expenditures. I remember my father complaining years ago about how for an Australian research project, spending research money on a special type of computer required additional approval even though the money for research was already granted. That's not the case in China.
The net effect is that shockingly enough, the Chinese have managed to create almost a startup-like sandbox environment for researchers. In fields, particularly biotech, where there are ethical, and other red-tape considerations, the Chinese have an edge in producing results faster.
Of course, this just means to get one cloned monkey, hundreds of independent teams mostly likely inhumanely murdered many multiples of monkeys to get to this result.
What is important is to realize that for the Chinese, this sort of Stanlinist "only the results matter" approach is perfectly acceptable, if not encouraged. Most people would balk at the ethical and human cost, I know I do, but there is no doubt that it provides an advantage to Chinese scientists over those in the developed world. Multiply in the sheer number of Chinese scientists and you have results. Progress at any cost.