It is excellent and remarkable how fast they are improving. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Western scientists (mostly American and French scientists) were brought in quite a bit to help modernize the system, and it has helped substantially. The institutional resources and raw brain power available have meant rapid progress, especially once the Chinese grad students and faculty got up to date on the bleeding edge of research.
However, as with economic development, there are some substantial structural changes that need to happen in the transition from 'catch-up' growth to leadership. The biggest is a mind-set thing: There is far more respect for authority and confirmation bias in Chinese research than Western (especially American) research. In so many papers, the researchers go out and get great data and do a bang-up job of analyzing it, and then conclude by saying the results support the old hypotheses of the senior faculty who lead the research institute or some old Western luminary, regardless of the outcome of the analyses. I'm not going to say here that science advances funeral by funeral, but I definitely think that undergrad/grad students who grow up scientifically hearing about the cutting edge theories are more capable than older scientists of integrating the new theory them into their view of the world and their mental database of observations. This is required to further refine, develop or reject the theories and advance the state of knowledge. When junior scientists are not encouraged to rock the boat, then science advances much more slowly. Hopefully as national and institutional self-confidence increases, then revisionism (i.e. telling your boss that he's wrong, or that Dr. Famous American is full of shit) will get stronger.
The second is that, at least in my field, it is becoming very hard for Westerners to collaborate with Chinese scientists, and particularly to do fieldwork in China. (Note that I am a geoscientist and have mostly worked in Xizang province in Tibet, which has its own sensitivity issues). But I think that the government is deciding that the Chinese are caught up and then disallowing access to limit international competition. I can definitely see how they could feel exploited in a 'scientific imperialism' sort of way, and this is not at all restricted to China. But while this may lead to a more satisfying distribution of scientific fame for the Chinese, it also limits the rate at which the science advances. And Tibet is one of the richest areas in the world for studying tectonics and earthquakes, because it is vast, very active, and has essentially no vegetation so the quality and quantity of data is very high. Limiting access definitely means slowing down the rate at which we learn to understand earthquakes and earthquake hazards, and while there is a global downside (much of this knowledge applies to earthquakes everywhere), the downside is the highest for the Chinese citizens living near the faults that are not receiving as much study due to fewer researchers.
As research in the west becomes more politicised and regulated (the biosciences especially), having serious Chinese investments in science, with aspirations to become world leaders, is precisely what we need to promote competition and drive progress.
Another example is the use of CRISPR gene editing in human embryos. While we are dragging our feet ruminating over the ethical implications (largely ignoring the prospect of curing countless diseases), the Chinese have used the opportunity to get a head start.
As China continues to progress, it won't be long until we have another "Sputnik moment". If we won't fund and regulate science rationally, hopefully fear and national pride will motivate us instead.
Imagine if China and India could each double the amount of research done by the US.
Promoting and enabling people to have healthier progeny is in no way comparable to forcibly removing people from the gene pool through sterilisation or murder.
People are going to have children regardless. If there's an option to reduce suffering, I think we have an imperative to follow it.
P.S. Fantastic book BTW, quite different from general SF fare.
I don't believe I can put it better than the article above,
"These days, China is lavishing money on Mr. Science. But without the checks and balances provided by Mr. Democracy, the corruption plaguing the rest of the system is infecting the reputation of Chinese science. "
And other advancements were... not as impressive as elsewhere. See e.g. nuclear science.
But the upside of science under a dictatorship is that you will publish lots of papers claiming successes, for personal health reasons, so you've got that going for you.
[1] http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199005173222006
They conducted many unethical experiments to obtain results. If China is researching unethically (by plagiarism, etc), then their work is worthless.
Science has historically based on a system of open debate. From Galileo onward, the ability of a scientist to engage in experiments which put commonly believed ideas into question has been one of the foundations of scientific progress. Both the NAZIs and the regime of Joseph Stalin had a history of supporting well-connected frauds to the detriment of science.
This doesn't mean that an authoritarian regime make science impossible but a regime where one's connections largely determine one's success, which stifles public debate and where winning become more important than telling the truth is going to have a hard time cultivating the honest, open debate that science needs to arrive at truer theories.
China is well known for scientific fraud already. The current leader is attempting to "root out corruption" and the party may try to root out bad science too but given that the anti-corruption efforts have gone against the leader's enemies, it seems likely that bad scientists with good connections can rest easy.
