For 80 years, the U.S. operated the most productive scientific and technological enterprise in human history. Breakthroughs and advances that came from American labs included the internet; the mRNA vaccine; the transistor and its children, semiconductors and microprocessors; the Global Positioning System; and many more.

U.S. scientific and technological leadership was nurtured by sustained public investment in research universities and federal laboratories, as well as a culture of open inquiry. These investments turned scientific discovery into economic strength – accounting for more than 20% of all U.S. productivity growth since World War II.

In contrast, China had previously spent little to nothing on research and development. Some estimates show that China was among the lowest research spenders worldwide in 1980.

As a policy analyst and public affairs researcher, I study international collaboration in science and technology and its implications for public and foreign policy. I have tracked China’s rise across every major database for more than a decade.

The most recent reports showing that China is now outspending the U.S. on scientific and technological research is a turning point worth understanding clearly because, historically, global leadership in one sector – including technology and warfare – feeds into others. U.S. dominance is in question.

China’s systematic and unrelenting rise

China’s R&D spending milestone caps a series of achievements that have arrived in rapid succession.

In 2019, China surpassed the U.S. in its share of the top 1% most-highly cited papers – what some call the Nobel class of research. By 2022, it had taken first place globally in most-cited papers overall.

In 2024, China overtook the United States in total scientific publications – the first time any nation has displaced American dominance since the U.S. itself surpassed the United Kingdom in 1948. Researchers found that China overtook the United States in scientific output even earlier. That same year, China pulled ahead in the Nature Index, which tracks publications in the world’s most selective scientific journals, posting a 17% advantage over the U.S. in outlets long considered the gold standard of scientific excellence.

In 2024, Chinese entities also filed roughly 1.8 million patent applications, compared to the U.S.’s 603,191 applications.

Given these milestones, it’s possible to argue that China is quickly taking the lead in global science and technology. These are not isolated data points. They mark a structural shift in where the world’s scientific frontier is being built.

More science is good – the problem lies elsewhere

China’s ascent is, in one sense, good news. More knowledge, generated by more researchers across more institutions, expands the global pool of discovery from which everyone can draw. The world benefits when science thrives.

The problem is not that China is investing, but that the U.S. is not.

First, the U.S. is divesting from basic, open science. Federal R&D spending in the U.S. peaked in 2010 at roughly $160 billion and fell by more than 15% over the following five years. Federal investment in research and development has been in a long, slow slide – from a peak of 1.86% of gross domestic product in 1964 to about 0.66% in 2021.

The federal government is no longer the largest spender in R&D: It funded about 40% of basic research in 2022, while the business sector performed roughly 78% of U.S. R&D. While not a problem in itself, industry has simultaneously withdrawn from open scientific publication over the past four decades, shifting from research toward development. The result is a shrinking pool of openly shared scientific knowledge precisely as public investment in it also contracts.

Under the second Trump administration, U.S. government science agencies have been slow-walking proposals for new research. Current budget cuts from the White House threaten to deepen cuts to government spending significantly.

The second is the active restriction of scientific exchange: tightening access to U.S. institutions, scrutinizing international collaborations and raising barriers to foreign-born researchers. These policies, though intended as security measures, work against the openness that has historically made American science productive and attractive to global talent.

I describe this issue as an example of the stockyard paradox, in which securing research assets may weaken the very system these measures aim to protect.

Disinvestment cuts deeper than it appears

The deeper danger for the U.S. economy is that disinvestment and selective engagement in research erodes the capacity to use cutting-edge science regardless of where it is produced.

Absorbing and applying cutting-edge knowledge, whether developed in Boston or Beijing, requires maintaining research institutions and trained workforces, as well as active participation in global networks. This is not a passive process. You cannot free-ride on Chinese science if you have dismantled the institutional and human capital needed to evaluate, translate and apply it.

A nation that hollows out its research base not only falls behind but also progressively loses its ability to benefit from science, including in technologies it is already able to access.

Talent compounds the problem. The U.S. built its scientific dominance partly by being the destination of choice for the world’s most ambitious researchers. The U.S. leads the world in Nobel Prizes, but, notably, 40% of the Nobel Prizes in chemistry, medicine and physics that were awarded to Americans since 2000 were won by immigrants. The flow of foreign talent is not guaranteed. It follows opportunity, funding and openness.

Researchers who might once have come to American universities are finding welcoming alternatives in Europe, China and elsewhere.

A decision point, not a trend line

China’s milestone in research funding arrives at a moment when the U.S. is deciding whether to maintain its scientific leadership.

Scientific infrastructure does not decline gradually and recover on demand. Doctoral scientists represent a decade or more of training; tacit laboratory knowledge lives in working research groups, not in documents. Once talented young researchers leave the pipeline – or international talent redirects to other countries – the capacity is very hard to rebuild. Early warning signs are already visible in the U.S. system: thousands of NIH grants terminated, a collapse in international applications and an exodus of early-career scientists.

What is at stake is not a ranking. It is whether the U.S. maintains the institutional capacity – the universities, the federal laboratories, the graduate pipelines, the culture of open inquiry – that made those returns on scientific investment possible in the first place.

China’s rise did not create this decision point, although it brings it into sharp relief. Does the U.S. still want to lead in science? The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonprofit think tank, estimates that a 20% cut in federal research and development starting in fiscal year 2026 would shrink the U.S. economy by nearly $1 trillion over 10 years and reduce tax revenue by around $250 billion. Others point out that the scientific enterprise has contributed at least half of U.S. economic growth.

That is a lot to lose.

Caroline Wagner, Professor of Public Affairs, The Ohio State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.