Chinese scientists ‘most influential in the world’, analysis suggests

China has overtaken America and Germany to have the most influential scientists in the world reckoned by the number and reach of published scientific studies, a Japanese analysis has suggested.

The report by Tokyo’s science and technology ministry said Chinese research papers accounted for more than a quarter (27.2%) of the top 1% most cited papers between 2018 and 2020.

US scientific papers accounted for 24.9%. Nikkei, the Tokyo-based financial newspaper, reported that China accounted for 26.6% of the top 10% most cited papers, while the US made up 21.1%.

The results have been regarded as an indication of China’s growing capabilities in science and technology. Experts warned, however, that simply using citations as a measure of influence could be flawed.

China was already publishing more scientific papers than any other country in 2019, with more than 407,000, compared with

America’s 293,000 that year.

The quantity and quality of Chinese papers has risen over the past two decades. China ranked 13th in 1998-2000 in terms of citations worldwide and was a distant second behind the US in the 2008-10 period.

The quantity and quality of a country’s scientific papers are now seen as a gauge of its research capabilities and a key indicator of its economic potential. It also has a direct impact on the country’s military power.

President Xi Jinping has made it a strategic priority to develop

China’s science and technology, arguing that it is crucial in driving economic growth and boosting defence.

He told leading academics last year: ‘‘We must strive to realise high-quality independence and power in science and technology. You must strengthen originality, lead scientific and technological research, and resolutely win the battle for key core technologies.’’

The report was published on the day President Joe Biden signed the Chips and Science Act to authorise US$200 billion (NZ$311b) in research funding over 10 years to boost US scientific research.

Last year China’s space agency landed a rover on Mars, launched a module to build a space station, returned lunar samples and detected more than 1500 astronomical bursts.

Nikkei reported that the paper by the Japanese ministry was based on data from Clarivate, an analytics company based in London.

The figures represent activity in 2019, based on the annual average between 2018 and 2020 to account for fluctuations in publication numbers. Separate figures from China’s Institute of Scientific and Technical Information claimed its scientists published 463,800 journal articles in 2020, up by nearly a fifth from the previous year.

The papers were mostly in clinical medicine, chemistry, electronics, communication and automation and biology. The institute said most cited were papers in materials science, chemistry, computer science and engineering technology.

While the Chinese institute acknowledged the achievements, it admitted that the country was still behind the US in terms of quality. It added that the US led in the number of most cited papers in the first nine months of last year.

‘‘China is one of the top countries in the world in terms of both the quantity and quality of scientific papers,’’ Shinichi Kuroki, of the Asia and Pacific Research Centre at the Japan Science and Technology Agency, told Nikkei.

‘‘To become the true global leader, it will need to continue producing internationally recognised research.’’