Asia’s Invention Boom

China is poised to join the US as a leading global force for innovation, with other Asian countries following closely behind. As Asian innovation comes into its own, the US and other developed countries must find ways to participate – or risk missing the opportunity of the century in a vain bid to recapture bygone supremacy.

BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON – For more than a century, the United States has been the dominant global force for innovation. But China and other Asian countries are now testing that dominance, and the West should welcome the challenge.

China’s move from imitation to innovation has been a matter of national policy in recent years. In 2011, for example, the government established a set of ambitious targets for the production of patents. Almost immediately, China became the world’s top patent filer.

China soon surpassed the US in other important measures. Each year, Chinese universities award more PhD’s in science and engineering than US institutions do – and more than twice as many undergraduate degrees in these fields.

https://prosyn.org/2OC52Ho