The latest Nature Index rankings reveal an astonishing trend: nine of the world’s top 10 research institutions are now Chinese
To fully appreciate China’s meteoric rise, one must look back at the academic landscape a decade ago. When the Nature Index Global rankings were first released in 2014, only eight Chinese universities made it into the top 100. Today, that number has more than quintupled, with 42 Chinese institutions now ranking among the world’s best
One of the most notable policy shifts has been the move away from publication-based evaluation metrics. Previously, Chinese academics were incentivized to publish as many papers as possible, often at the expense of quality. However, recent reforms have introduced a more rigorous peer-review system that prioritizes impactful and innovative research over sheer volume. This shift has resulted in a significant improvement in the credibility and global influence of Chinese scientific output.
I’m gonna be real here, just Realpolitik-wise from the perspective of “the West” sans the USA - China is currently proving that they are simply more reliable in geopolitics and even economically, and that is just damn important, even in an adversarial relationship. It isn’t even because they are a de-facto dictatorship, Russia is one too, and Russia is a mad dog. They just managed to keep their shit mostly together so far, still riding out their massive growth spurt. Even human rights abuses outside of Realpolitik don’t seem as the argument they were: internationally, the US has always had a more greyish record anyhow. But now, considering the US is quickly doing its best to catch up in domestic tyranny, that argument seems to be going fast, too.
Sadly, I don’t have huge hopes for China to be a proper “better” hegemon globally, if that should be what ultimately happens - they are facing crises of their own, and have been dabbling in their own brands of economic imperialism, and at least the way their military is gearing up contains a lot of stuff usually used for military imperialism as well.
The US has been a brutal empire to anyone outside the supplicant, mostly white European, nations of the West.
The kicker is the US has no one to blame for it’s decline but itself. It has descended into a techno-military industrial oligarchy addicted to Eurodollar deficit spending and cheap credit. It burned up the global order it created in pointless wars in the Middle East and supporting it’s genocidal settler colony in Palestine.
Once countries transition away from using the dollar it is really fucked.