I see no evidence that China has organized around long-term discovery or technical brilliance. They have many scientists, and relative advantages in certain fie

I see no evidence that China has organized around long-term discovery or technical brilliance. They have many scientists, and relative advantages in certain fields, but their system of science still has major structure issues. For example, one aspect of Chinese science policy is paying scientists based on the impact factor of their published papers. This, however, has lead to a much larger issue of "salami-slicing"/"least-publishable unit" publications aimed at passing the minimum bar of a "good enough" journal rather than contributing to science. Another issue—these payouts are only given to certain authors of the paper, which can lead to issues and controversies over authorship position. These are issues in the U.S. and Europe, but less severe, and not incentivized with cash payments. China does not have some secret sauce that makes them better at discovery or technical brilliance. If anything their policies are organized towards maximizing prestige. Whether large-scale competence follows prestige, we will have to wait to see.